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was rather pointless, so here they are.
One caveat I forgot last time, the interiors do look very clean. Adding gore or deterioration can quickly be overdone, so we feel our first task is to create the interiors and ensure we are happy with the gameplay and quality of the basic texture work - then we will go through to add elements more authentic to the situation. Overall, we believe the experience should have a style more akin to “The Road” rather than gore for gore’s sake. When you find gore in DayZ, it will mean something and have impact. In fact, it will be most likely due to tragedy or betrayal involving a human player. This way, we believe what happens in the world matters, instead of simply adding some crashed buses and blood everywhere.
In these screenshots the greater range of buildings that now have interiors is displayed, from the large office buildings, to the hospitals, metalwork factories, through to small cottages. Certainly, we think there will be some compelling events occurring the stairwells of the Hospital’s and office buildings!
The first shot is a sneak peak at an entirely new area created on the map by Ivan and Martin, the two developers at Bohemia who are currently being held in Greece. They conducted a revamping of the map to add some new areas, tidy up bugs, and rebalance the placement of ponds, fountains, and such. Ivan was a big fan of DayZ, and the key architect behind the original Chernarus map - so we’re excited to get the map back out into everyone’s use. The usable area of the map is actually extended by their work.
Next week we start the final phase of our data migration, which will then result in some new screenshots demonstrating some Take on Helicopter vehicles ported over, giving DayZ access to many types of vehicles from military helicopters, to fire engines, police cars, and all the military and civilian vehicles you are used too from ArmA2.
Over the coming weeks, we expect this tumblr to get even more busy.Luka Mezgec (Argos-Shimano) got the victory he has been chasing all season on the last day of the Tour of Beijing, beating Nacer Bouhanni (FDJ.fr) and Moreno Hofland (Belkin) in a high-speed sprint in the shadows of the Bird's nest Olympic stadium in Beijing. Related Articles Hushovd takes opening stage of Tour of Beijing
Bouhanni wins second successive stage at Tour of Beijing
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Martin satisfied with second at the Tour of Beijing
Intxausti set to end the season with Beijing victory
Movistar claim WorldTour team title
Spain's Benat Intxausti (Movistar) finished safely in the peloton and so won the overall classification after setting up victory by taking the stage four mountain finish on Monday. Ireland's Daniel Martin (Garmin-Sharp) finished 10 seconds behind, with David Lopez (Team Sky) third at 13. New world champion Rui Costa (Movistar) was fourth overall at 18 seconds.
Intxausti impressed with a stage victory and a day in the pink jersey at the Giro d'Italia this season but had a disappointing Vuelta a Espana, finishing 87th. His win helped Movistar secure the number one spot in the UCI WorldTour rankings ahead of Team Sky.
"I'm really happy to end the season with a win. It's a good win for me and for the team. I have to thank my teammates for all the hard work they did to help me win," Intxausti said, looking forward to a well-deserved end of season holiday.
"We're going to celebrate tonight and then we've got the long voyage home. After that it's time to rest up and enjoy a long holiday."
First win of the season for Mezgec
Mezgec is probably wishing it was the start of the season rather than the end. His sprint victory was his first in the WorldTour and also his first of the season after a long series of placings in sprints.
He and his Argos-Shimano team produced a perfect leadout at the end of the short stage. Earlier they had helped chased down the break of the day.
Retirees Marco Pinotti (BMC) and Juan Antonio Flecha (Vacansoleil-DCM) were both in the move and were jointly awarded the most aggressive rider prize. Also in the move were Olivier Kaisen (Lotto-Belisol), Christian Meier (Orica-GreenEdge) and Manuele Boaro (Saxo-Tinkoff).
Pinotti became virtual race leader at one point but the peloton kept the break under control and the break faded as the final 7.8km finishing circuit began.
World time trial champion Tony Martin (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) briefly upset the plans of the sprinters and perhaps scared Intxausti with a solo attack. He got a gap and was only 24 seconds behind in the general classification. However the Belkin team dug deep to bring him back and set up the sprint finish.
Argos-Shimano and FDJ.fr dueled in the final corners to control the sprint in the final three kilometres. Omega Pharma-Quick Step and Belkin hit the front late on but Bouhanni was perfectly placed and hit out early. However it was a little too early and Mezgec was on his wheel. The two went clear in the final 100 metres and Mezgec managed to find the extra power and speed to beat the Frenchman and take his first WorldTour win. He caressed his jersey and kissed his hand in celebration before hugging and thanking his teammates for their support.
"I've been waiting a long time for this and it's finally happened," he said.
"The first stage was really close and so knew I could win. It's happened on the last day of season and in the WorldTour. All the guys worked hard and we've got nice results as a team with Marcel Kittel and John Degenkolb too. It's nice to finish the season in a good way. I was dreaming about my holidays for the whole race, so I'm looking forward to enjoying them."
Results
# Rider Name (Country) Team Result 1 Luka Mezgec (Slo) Team Argos-Shimano 2:23:56 2 Nacer Bouhanni (Fra) FDJ.fr 3 Moreno Hofland (Ned) Belkin Pro Cycling Team 4 Matti Breschel (Den) Team Saxo-Tinkoff 5 Roberto Ferrari (Ita) Lampre-Merida 6 Alexey Tsatevich (Rus) Katusha 7 Alessandro Petacchi (Ita) Omega Pharma-Quick Step 8 Rudiger Selig (Ger) Katusha 9 Yauheni Hutarovich (Blr) AG2R La Mondiale 10 Bernhard Eisel (Aut) Sky Procycling 11 Kenny Robert van Hummel (Ned) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team 12 Elia Viviani (Ita) Cannondale Pro Cycling 13 Jonas Van Genechten (Bel) Lotto Belisol 14 Wesley Sulzberger (Aus) Orica-GreenEdge 15 Barry Markus (Ned) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team 16 Borut Bozic (Slo) Astana Pro Team 17 Vladimir Gusev (Rus) Katusha 18 Jens Mouris (Ned) Orica-GreenEdge 19 Jan Polanc (Slo) Lampre-Merida 20 Steele Von Hoff (Aus) Garmin-Sharp 21 Zdenek Stybar (Cze) Omega Pharma-Quick Step 22 Jan Bakelants (Bel) RadioShack Leopard 23 Garikoitz Bravo Oiarbide (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 24 Rui Alberto Faria Da Costa (Por) Movistar Team 25 Robert Gesink (Ned) Belkin Pro Cycling Team 26 Romain Bardet (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale 27 Wilco Kelderman (Ned) Belkin Pro Cycling Team 28 Benat Intxausti Elorriaga (Spa) Movistar Team 29 Jang Chan Jae (Kor) Champion System Pro Cycling Team 30 Carlos Alberto Betancur Gomez (Col) AG2R La Mondiale 31 Pim Ligthart (Ned) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team 32 Fabian Wegmann (Ger) Garmin-Sharp 33 Daniel Martin (Irl) Garmin-Sharp 34 Nelson Filipe Santos Simoes Oliveira (Por) RadioShack Leopard 35 Jack Bauer (NZl) Garmin-Sharp 36 Martin Kohler (Swi) BMC Racing Team 37 David Lopez Garcia (Spa) Sky Procycling 38 Tosh Van Der Sande (Bel) Lotto Belisol 39 Tony Martin (Ger) Omega Pharma-Quick Step 40 Nikolas Maes (Bel) Omega Pharma-Quick Step 41 Maarten Neyens (Bel) Lotto Belisol 42 Marcus Burghardt (Ger) BMC Racing Team 43 Juan Antonio Flecha Giannoni (Spa) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team 44 Tiziano Dall'Antonia (Ita) Cannondale Pro Cycling 45 Janez Brajkovic (Slo) Astana Pro Team 46 Mathias Frank (Swi) BMC Racing Team 47 Maxime Bouet (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale 48 Mikel Landa Meana (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 49 Michel Koch (Ger) Cannondale Pro Cycling 50 Evan Huffman (USA) Astana Pro Team 51 Dominik Nerz (Ger) BMC Racing Team 52 Ivan Basso (Ita) Cannondale Pro Cycling 53 Julien Vermote (Bel) Omega Pharma-Quick Step 54 Lawrence Warbasse (USA) BMC Racing Team 55 Cédric Pineau (Fra) FDJ.fr 56 Michael Rogers (Aus) Team Saxo-Tinkoff 57 Takashi Miyazawa (Jpn) Team Saxo-Tinkoff 58 Marco Pinotti (Ita) BMC Racing Team 0:00:07 59 José Ivan Gutierrez Palacios (Spa) Movistar Team 0:00:09 60 Tom Veelers (Ned) Team Argos-Shimano 61 Mathew Hayman (Aus) Sky Procycling 0:00:12 62 Luke Durbridge (Aus) Orica-GreenEdge 63 George Bennett (NZl) RadioShack Leopard 64 Jos Van Emden (Ned) Belkin Pro Cycling Team 65 Chris Butler (USA) Champion System Pro Cycling Team 66 Enrique Sanz (Spa) Movistar Team 67 Adam Hansen (Aus) Lotto Belisol 68 Marco Haller (Aut) Katusha 69 Wouter Mol (Ned) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team 0:00:18 70 Cameron Wurf (Aus) Cannondale Pro Cycling 71 Jesus Herrada Lopez (Spa) Movistar Team 72 Joshua Edmondson (GBr) Sky Procycling 73 Michal Golas (Pol) Omega Pharma-Quick Step 74 Carlos Verona Quintanilla (Spa) Omega Pharma-Quick Step 75 Cameron Meyer (Aus) Orica-GreenEdge 76 Joseph Lloyd Dombrowski (USA) Sky Procycling 77 Dmitry Kozontchuk (Rus) Katusha 78 Maurits Lammertink (Ned) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team 79 Matthias Krizek (Aut) Cannondale Pro Cycling 80 Nick Nuyens (Bel) Garmin-Sharp 81 Mikhail Ignatyev (Rus) Katusha 82 Stijn Vandenbergh (Bel) Omega Pharma-Quick Step 83 Matteo Bono (Ita) Lampre-Merida 84 Daniele Ratto (Ita) Cannondale Pro Cycling 85 Matthew Busche (USA) RadioShack Leopard 86 Thomas Peterson (USA) Team Argos-Shimano 87 Ji Cheng (Chn) Team Argos-Shimano 88 Bob Jungels (Lux) RadioShack Leopard 89 Evgeny Petrov (Rus) Team Saxo-Tinkoff 90 Petr Ignatenko (Rus) Katusha 91 Danilo Hondo (Ger) RadioShack Leopard 92 Hayden Roulston (NZl) RadioShack Leopard 93 Matt Brammeier (Irl) Champion System Pro Cycling Team 94 Christophe Riblon (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale 95 Dominique Rollin (Can) FDJ.fr 96 Simone Ponzi (Ita) Astana Pro Team 97 Stephen Cummings (GBr) BMC Racing Team 98 Arman Kamyshev (Kaz) Astana Pro Team 99 Chad Beyer (USA) Champion System Pro Cycling Team 100 Jonas Ahlstrand (Swe) Team Argos-Shimano 0:00:25 101 Ruslan Tleubayev (Kaz) Astana Pro Team 0:00:40 102 Albert Timmer (Ned) Team Argos-Shimano 103 Jacob Rathe (USA) Garmin-Sharp 104 Anthony Roux (Fra) FDJ.fr 0:00:44 105 Ricardo Garcia Ambroa (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 106 Mikel Astarloza Chaurreau (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 107 Juan Jose Oroz Ugalde (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 108 Valerio Agnoli (Ita) Astana Pro Team 109 Francesco Gavazzi (Ita) Astana Pro Team 110 Andrey Amador Bakkazakova (CRc) Movistar Team 111 Nathan Haas (Aus) Garmin-Sharp 112 Jiao Pengda (Chn) Champion System Pro Cycling Team 113 Xu Gang (Chn) Champion System Pro Cycling Team 114 Marc Goos (Ned) Belkin Pro Cycling Team 115 Damiano Caruso (Ita) Cannondale Pro Cycling 116 Jean-Christophe Peraud (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale 117 Giovanni Visconti (Ita) Movistar Team 118 Jay McCarthy (Aus) Team Saxo-Tinkoff 119 Massimo Graziato (Ita) Lampre-Merida 0:00:48 120 Johan Le Bon (Fra) FDJ.fr 121 Thomas Leezer (Ned) Belkin Pro Cycling Team 0:01:13 122 Rory Sutherland (Aus) Team Saxo-Tinkoff 0:01:20 123 Alex Dowsett (GBr) Movistar Team 124 Andrea Palini (Ita) Lampre-Merida 125 Tobias Ludvigsson (Swe) Team Argos-Shimano 126 Luca Wackermann (Ita) Lampre-Merida 127 Sander Cordeel (Bel) Lotto Belisol 128 Jérémy Roy (Fra) FDJ.fr 0:01:31 129 Jussi Veikkanen (Fin) FDJ.fr 130 Willem Wauters (Bel) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team 131 Olivier Kaisen (Bel) Lotto Belisol 132 Xing Yan Dong (Chn) Team Argos-Shimano 133 Dennis Van Winden (Ned) Belkin Pro Cycling Team 134 Paul Martens (Ger) Belkin Pro Cycling Team 135 Manuele Boaro (Ita) Team Saxo-Tinkoff 136 Rinaldo Nocentini (Ita) AG2R La Mondiale 137 Christian Meier (Can) Orica-GreenEdge 138 Mitchell Docker (Aus) Orica-GreenEdge 0:01:39
Sprint 1 # Rider Name (Country) Team Result 1 Marco Pinotti (Ita) BMC Racing Team 5 pts 2 Juan Antonio Flecha Giannoni (Spa) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team 3 3 Christian Meier (Can) Orica-GreenEdge 2 4 Olivier Kaisen (Bel) Lotto Belisol 1
Sprint 2 # Rider Name (Country) Team Result 1 Olivier Kaisen (Bel) Lotto Belisol 5 pts 2 Manuele Boaro (Ita) Team Saxo-Tinkoff 3 3 Marco Pinotti (Ita) BMC Racing Team 2 4 Juan Antonio Flecha Giannoni (Spa) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team 1
Sprint 3 # Rider Name (Country) Team Result 1 Juan Antonio Flecha Giannoni (Spa) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team 5 pts 2 Christian Meier (Can) Orica-GreenEdge 3 3 Olivier Kaisen (Bel) Lotto Belisol 2 4 Manuele Boaro (Ita) Team Saxo-Tinkoff 1
Points - Finish # Rider Name (Country) Team Result 1 Luka Mezgec (Slo) Team Argos-Shimano 15 pts 2 Nacer Bouhanni (Fra) FDJ.fr 14 3 Moreno Hofland (Ned) Belkin Pro Cycling Team 13 4 Matti Breschel (Den) Team Saxo-Tinkoff 12 5 Roberto Ferrari (Ita) Lampre-Merida 11 6 Alexey Tsatevich (Rus) Katusha 10 7 Alessandro Petacchi (Ita) Omega Pharma-Quick Step 9 8 Rudiger Selig (Ger) Katusha 8 9 Yauheni Hutarovich (Blr) AG2R La Mondiale 7 10 Bernhard Eisel (Aut) Sky Procycling 6 11 Kenny Robert van Hummel (Ned) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team 5 12 Elia Viviani (Ita) Cannondale Pro Cycling 4 13 Jonas Van Genechten (Bel) Lotto Belisol 3 14 Wesley Sulzberger (Aus) Orica-GreenEdge 2 15 Barry Markus (Ned) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team 1
Young rider # Rider Name (Country) Team Result 1 Luka Mezgec (Slo) Team Argos-Shimano 2:23:56 2 Nacer Bouhanni (Fra) FDJ.fr 3 Moreno Hofland (Ned) Belkin Pro Cycling Team 4 Alexey Tsatevich (Rus) Katusha 5 Rudiger Selig (Ger) Katusha 6 Elia Viviani (Ita) Cannondale Pro Cycling 7 Barry Markus (Ned) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team 8 Jan Polanc (Slo) Lampre-Merida 9 Garikoitz Bravo Oiarbide (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 10 Romain Bardet (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale 11 Wilco Kelderman (Ned) Belkin Pro Cycling Team 12 Jang Chan Jae (Kor) Champion System Pro Cycling Team 13 Carlos Alberto Betancur Gomez (Col) AG2R La Mondiale 14 Pim Ligthart (Ned) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team 15 Nelson Filipe Santos Simoes Oliveira (Por) RadioShack Leopard 16 Tosh Van Der Sande (Bel) Lotto Belisol 17 Mikel Landa Meana (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 18 Michel Koch (Ger) Cannondale Pro Cycling 19 Evan Huffman (USA) Astana Pro Team 20 Dominik Nerz (Ger) BMC Racing Team 21 Julien Vermote (Bel) Omega Pharma-Quick Step 22 Lawrence Warbasse (USA) BMC Racing Team 23 Luke Durbridge (Aus) Orica-GreenEdge 0:00:12 24 George Bennett (NZl) RadioShack Leopard 25 Chris Butler (USA) Champion System Pro Cycling Team 26 Enrique Sanz (Spa) Movistar Team 27 Marco Haller (Aut) Katusha 28 Jesus Herrada Lopez (Spa) Movistar Team 0:00:18 29 Joshua Edmondson (GBr) Sky Procycling 30 Carlos Verona Quintanilla (Spa) Omega Pharma-Quick Step 31 Cameron Meyer (Aus) Orica-GreenEdge 32 Joseph Lloyd Dombrowski (USA) Sky Procycling 33 Maurits Lammertink (Ned) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team 34 Matthias Krizek (Aut) Cannondale Pro Cycling 35 Daniele Ratto (Ita) Cannondale Pro Cycling 36 Bob Jungels (Lux) RadioShack Leopard 37 Arman Kamyshev (Kaz) Astana Pro Team 38 Jonas Ahlstrand (Swe) Team Argos-Shimano 0:00:25 39 Jacob Rathe (USA) Garmin-Sharp 0:00:40 40 Ricardo Garcia Ambroa (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 0:00:44 41 Nathan Haas (Aus) Garmin-Sharp 42 Marc Goos (Ned) Belkin Pro Cycling Team 43 Jay McCarthy (Aus) Team Saxo-Tinkoff 44 Massimo Graziato (Ita) Lampre-Merida 0:00:48 45 Johan Le Bon (Fra) FDJ.fr 46 Alex Dowsett (GBr) Movistar Team 0:01:20 47 Andrea Palini (Ita) Lampre-Merida 48 Tobias Ludvigsson (Swe) Team Argos-Shimano 49 Luca Wackermann (Ita) Lampre-Merida 50 Willem Wauters (Bel) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team 0:01:31
Teams # Rider Name (Country) Team Result 1 Katusha Team 7:11:48 2 Belkin Pro Cycling Team 3 Vacansoleil - DCM Procycling Team 4 AG2R La Mondiale 5 Omega Pharma-QuickStep 6 Garmin-Sharp 7 Lotto-Belisol Team 8 Cannondale 9 Astana Pro Team 10 Team Saxo -Tinkoff 11 BMC Racing Team 12 Movistar Team 0:00:09 13 Orica GreenEDGE 0:00:12 14 Sky Procycling 15 Radioshack Leopard 16 Lampre-Merida 0:00:18 17 FDJ.FR 18 Team Argos-Shimano 0:00:27 19 Champion System Pro Cycling Team 0:00:30 20 Euskaltel - Euskadi 0:00:44
General classification # Rider Name (Country) Team Result 1 Benat Intxausti Elorriaga (Spa) Movistar Team 19:35:46 2 Daniel Martin (Irl) Garmin-Sharp 0:00:10 3 David Lopez Garcia (Spa) Sky Procycling 0:00:13 4 Rui Alberto Faria Da Costa (Por) Movistar Team 0:00:18 5 Romain Bardet (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale 0:00:24 6 Tony Martin (Ger) Omega Pharma-Quick Step 7 Jan Bakelants (Bel) RadioShack Leopard 0:00:26 8 Robert Gesink (Ned) Belkin Pro Cycling Team 9 Ivan Basso (Ita) Cannondale Pro Cycling 10 Garikoitz Bravo Oiarbide (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 0:00:31 11 Michael Rogers (Aus) Team Saxo-Tinkoff 12 Carlos Alberto Betancur Gomez (Col) AG2R La Mondiale 13 Mathias Frank (Swi) BMC Racing Team 14 Janez Brajkovic (Slo) Astana Pro Team 0:00:38 15 Jan Polanc (Slo) Lampre-Merida 0:00:41 16 Dominik Nerz (Ger) BMC Racing Team 17 Marco Pinotti (Ita) BMC Racing Team 0:00:44 18 Wilco Kelderman (Ned) Belkin Pro Cycling Team 0:00:49 19 Joseph Lloyd Dombrowski (USA) Sky Procycling 0:00:59 20 George Bennett (NZl) RadioShack Leopard 0:01:04 21 Maxime Bouet (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale 0:01:07 22 Bob Jungels (Lux) RadioShack Leopard 0:01:10 23 Juan Antonio Flecha Giannoni (Spa) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team 0:01:11 24 Cédric Pineau (Fra) FDJ.fr 0:01:16 25 Jesus Herrada Lopez (Spa) Movistar Team 0:01:34 26 Matthew Busche (USA) RadioShack Leopard 27 Carlos Verona Quintanilla (Spa) Omega Pharma-Quick Step 28 Chris Butler (USA) Champion System Pro Cycling Team 0:01:47 29 Lawrence Warbasse (USA) BMC Racing Team 0:01:59 30 Giovanni Visconti (Ita) Movistar Team 0:02:07 31 Nelson Filipe Santos Simoes Oliveira (Por) RadioShack Leopard 0:02:08 32 Evan Huffman (USA) Astana Pro Team 33 Daniele Ratto (Ita) Cannondale Pro Cycling 0:02:26 34 Cameron Meyer (Aus) Orica-GreenEdge 35 Joshua Edmondson (GBr) Sky Procycling 0:02:38 36 Juan Jose Oroz Ugalde (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 0:02:43 37 Vladimir Gusev (Rus) Katusha 0:02:48 38 Adam Hansen (Aus) Lotto Belisol 0:03:00 39 Tobias Ludvigsson (Swe) Team Argos-Shimano 0:03:28 40 Petr Ignatenko (Rus) Katusha 0:03:49 41 Alexey Tsatevich (Rus) Katusha 0:03:54 42 Marcus Burghardt (Ger) BMC Racing Team 0:03:58 43 Mikel Landa Meana (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 44 Thomas Peterson (USA) Team Argos-Shimano 0:04:16 45 Pim Ligthart (Ned) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team 0:04:41 46 Christophe Riblon (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale 0:04:43 47 Tosh Van Der Sande (Bel) Lotto Belisol 0:04:47 48 Cameron Wurf (Aus) Cannondale Pro Cycling 0:04:59 49 Marc Goos (Ned) Belkin Pro Cycling Team 0:05:24 50 Andrey Amador Bakkazakova (CRc) Movistar Team 0:05:25 51 Ricardo Garcia Ambroa (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 0:06:20 52 Paul Martens (Ger) Belkin Pro Cycling Team 0:07:07 53 Nick Nuyens (Bel) Garmin-Sharp 0:07:08 54 Martin Kohler (Swi) BMC Racing Team 0:09:11 55 Jack Bauer (NZl) Garmin-Sharp 56 Simone Ponzi (Ita) Astana Pro Team 0:09:29 57 Fabian Wegmann (Ger) Garmin-Sharp 0:09:54 58 Francesco Gavazzi (Ita) Astana Pro Team 0:09:55 59 Johan Le Bon (Fra) FDJ.fr 0:09:59 60 Dmitry Kozontchuk (Rus) Katusha 0:10:06 61 Michal Golas (Pol) Omega Pharma-Quick Step 62 Hayden Roulston (NZl) RadioShack Leopard 0:10:12 63 Matti Breschel (Den) Team Saxo-Tinkoff 0:10:39 64 Alessandro Petacchi (Ita) Omega Pharma-Quick Step 0:10:41 65 Zdenek Stybar (Cze) Omega Pharma-Quick Step 0:10:49 66 Mathew Hayman (Aus) Sky Procycling 0:10:53 67 Wesley Sulzberger (Aus) Orica-GreenEdge 0:11:21 68 Jussi Veikkanen (Fin) FDJ.fr 0:11:25 69 Ji Cheng (Chn) Team Argos-Shimano 0:11:42 70 Matteo Bono (Ita) Lampre-Merida 71 Stephen Cummings (GBr) BMC Racing Team 72 Albert Timmer (Ned) Team Argos-Shimano 0:12:04 73 Jean-Christophe Peraud (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale 0:12:08 74 Valerio Agnoli (Ita) Astana Pro Team 75 Ruslan Tleubayev (Kaz) Astana Pro Team 0:12:15 76 Rory Sutherland (Aus) Team Saxo-Tinkoff 0:12:42 77 Luke Durbridge (Aus) Orica-GreenEdge 0:13:28 78 Christian Meier (Can) Orica-GreenEdge 0:13:38 79 Steele Von Hoff (Aus) Garmin-Sharp 0:13:59 80 Jang Chan Jae (Kor) Champion System Pro Cycling Team 0:15:06 81 Matt Brammeier (Irl) Champion System Pro Cycling Team 0:15:35 82 Nacer Bouhanni (Fra) FDJ.fr 0:16:28 83 Moreno Hofland (Ned) Belkin Pro Cycling Team 0:16:47 84 Nikolas Maes (Bel) Omega Pharma-Quick Step 0:16:50 85 Elia Viviani (Ita) Cannondale Pro Cycling 0:16:54 86 Maurits Lammertink (Ned) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team 0:17:09 87 Luka Mezgec (Slo) Team Argos-Shimano 0:17:21 88 Roberto Ferrari (Ita) Lampre-Merida 0:17:31 89 Yauheni Hutarovich (Blr) AG2R La Mondiale 0:17:37 90 Tiziano Dall'Antonia (Ita) Cannondale Pro Cycling 91 Michel Koch (Ger) Cannondale Pro Cycling 92 Jos Van Emden (Ned) Belkin Pro Cycling Team 0:17:49 93 Wouter Mol (Ned) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team 0:17:55 94 Stijn Vandenbergh (Bel) Omega Pharma-Quick Step 95 Damiano Caruso (Ita) Cannondale Pro Cycling 0:18:20 96 Thomas Leezer (Ned) Belkin Pro Cycling Team 0:18:50 97 Mitchell Docker (Aus) Orica-GreenEdge 0:19:12 98 Manuele Boaro (Ita) Team Saxo-Tinkoff 0:19:47 99 José Ivan Gutierrez Palacios (Spa) Movistar Team 0:19:59 100 Enrique Sanz (Spa) Movistar Team 0:20:05 101 Borut Bozic (Slo) Astana Pro Team 0:20:16 102 Evgeny Petrov (Rus) Team Saxo-Tinkoff 0:20:45 103 Willem Wauters (Bel) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team 0:21:17 104 Rinaldo Nocentini (Ita) AG2R La Mondiale 0:21:24 105 Dominique Rollin (Can) FDJ.fr 0:22:32 106 Mikhail Ignatyev (Rus) Katusha 107 Nathan Haas (Aus) Garmin-Sharp 0:22:58 108 Jiao Pengda (Chn) Champion System Pro Cycling Team 0:23:24 109 Jens Mouris (Ned) Orica-GreenEdge 0:25:16 110 Dennis Van Winden (Ned) Belkin Pro Cycling Team 0:26:04 111 Sander Cordeel (Bel) Lotto Belisol 0:26:16 112 Olivier Kaisen (Bel) Lotto Belisol 0:27:39 113 Julien Vermote (Bel) Omega Pharma-Quick Step 0:27:45 114 Xu Gang (Chn) Champion System Pro Cycling Team 0:28:29 115 Anthony Roux (Fra) FDJ.fr 0:29:44 116 Maarten Neyens (Bel) Lotto Belisol 0:30:20 117 Jérémy Roy (Fra) FDJ.fr 0:30:31 118 Danilo Hondo (Ger) RadioShack Leopard 0:30:38 119 Arman Kamyshev (Kaz) Astana Pro Team 120 Jay McCarthy (Aus) Team Saxo-Tinkoff 0:31:25 121 Kenny Robert van Hummel (Ned) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team 0:31:27 122 Chad Beyer (USA) Champion System Pro Cycling Team 0:31:40 123 Rudiger Selig (Ger) Katusha 0:33:58 124 Jonas Van Genechten (Bel) Lotto Belisol 125 Barry Markus (Ned) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team 126 Bernhard Eisel (Aut) Sky Procycling 127 Tom Veelers (Ned) Team Argos-Shimano 0:34:07 128 Marco Haller (Aut) Katusha 0:34:10 129 Matthias Krizek (Aut) Cannondale Pro Cycling 0:34:16 130 Jonas Ahlstrand (Swe) Team Argos-Shimano 0:34:23 131 Mikel Astarloza Chaurreau (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 0:34:42 132 Takashi Miyazawa (Jpn) Team Saxo-Tinkoff 0:34:50 133 Alex Dowsett (GBr) Movistar Team 0:35:18 134 Jacob Rathe (USA) Garmin-Sharp 0:35:30 135 Luca Wackermann (Ita) Lampre-Merida 0:36:04 136 Xing Yan Dong (Chn) Team Argos-Shimano 0:36:46 137 Massimo Graziato (Ita) Lampre-Merida 0:36:49 138 Andrea Palini (Ita) Lampre-Merida 0:39:24
Points classification # Rider Name (Country) Team Result 1 Nacer Bouhanni (Fra) FDJ.fr 52 pts 2 Luka Mezgec (Slo) Team Argos-Shimano 36 3 Matti Breschel (Den) Team Saxo-Tinkoff 33 4 Alessandro Petacchi (Ita) Omega Pharma-Quick Step 33 5 Roberto Ferrari (Ita) Lampre-Merida 31 6 Alexey Tsatevich (Rus) Katusha 28 7 Elia Viviani (Ita) Cannondale Pro Cycling 22 8 Rudiger Selig (Ger) Katusha 22 9 Moreno Hofland (Ned) Belkin Pro Cycling Team 21 10 Benat Intxausti Elorriaga (Spa) Movistar Team 20 11 Jonas Van Genechten (Bel) Lotto Belisol 19 12 Romain Bardet (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale 18 13 Maxime Bouet (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale 15 14 Tony Martin (Ger) Omega Pharma-Quick Step 15 15 Olivier Kaisen (Bel) Lotto Belisol 14 16 Daniel Martin (Irl) Garmin-Sharp 14 17 Rui Alberto Faria Da Costa (Por) Movistar Team 14 18 Borut Bozic (Slo) Astana Pro Team 14 19 Willem Wauters (Bel) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team 13 20 David Lopez Garcia (Spa) Sky Procycling 13 21 Nikolas Maes (Bel) Omega Pharma-Quick Step 13 22 Mitchell Docker (Aus) Orica-GreenEdge 13 23 Steele Von Hoff (Aus) Garmin-Sharp 12 24 Yauheni Hutarovich (Blr) AG2R La Mondiale 12 25 Martin Kohler (Swi) BMC Racing Team 11 26 Barry Markus (Ned) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team 11 27 Zdenek Stybar (Cze) Omega Pharma-Quick Step 10 28 Enrique Sanz (Spa) Movistar Team 10 29 Juan Antonio Flecha Giannoni (Spa) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team 9 30 Jan Bakelants (Bel) RadioShack Leopard 9 31 Tosh Van Der Sande (Bel) Lotto Belisol 9 32 Sander Cordeel (Bel) Lotto Belisol 9 33 Robert Gesink (Ned) Belkin Pro Cycling Team 8 34 Garikoitz Bravo Oiarbide (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 8 35 Jesus Herrada Lopez (Spa) Movistar Team 8 36 Chad Beyer (USA) Champion System Pro Cycling Team 8 37 Marco Pinotti (Ita) BMC Racing Team 7 38 Wesley Sulzberger (Aus) Orica-GreenEdge 7 39 José Ivan Gutierrez Palacios (Spa |
. If a member is taking users’ data down off the site and posting it on the internet, we can’t have that.
“Part of the issue here is that there’s very clear rules that we have to, as a community, support and enable. It’s ironic because people that have large profiles and have lots of references are some of the people that are held to a standard around their behavior that is critical. For the community to hold itself together, we can’t have that become an abuse.”
Is there any chance the terminated members could have their profiles reinstated? “No, because the whole point of reinforcing safety and privacy in the community has to come first. We have to be able to uphold those boundaries for the community’s sake. I think it’s critical. There’s nothing vague about those rules.”
Members say they have other reasons to believe CS management is attempting to censor them beyond just the profile deletions. Users report that some individual posts they have made on the site have been removed without explanation. They also point to what seemed like a confrontational post made by a CS staffer in the ambassadors forum last week that included a laundry list of things CS ambassadors could not do or say without risking the loss of their ambassador status.
After several members predictably responded to the directive unfavorably, Couchsurfing management switched the ambassadors forum from public to private, meaning that rank and file CSers could no longer view any of the discussions there. That forum remains private as of this writing.
While the majority of CS’s six million worldwide members are either unaware or unconcerned about the censorship allegations, the backlash includes many of the site’s most experienced and dedicated members, who claim the site is losing its original grass roots spirit.
Nearly 500 surfers have joined a Facebook event called “Censorship on Couchsurfing” in protest of what they see as management’s attempt to squelch dissent. Holt blogged about his interactions with CS staff, and another member published a blog post titled “Couchsurfing: A Sad End to a Great Idea” (broken link removed.)
Other users have taken to Twitter and Reddit to make their voices heard, writing, “It is sad to see the Couchsurfing community is dying,” and, “Does anyone else find it interesting that the 3 of the 4 moderators of the ambassadors group have been couchsurfers less than a year and seem to have no experience Couchsurfing? Nothing but corporate desk jockeys running this site for their investors with no idea how the community actually works.”
Communication issues
Frustration has built up among members who say that when they reach out to CS headquarters with questions or concerns, they almost always receive generic replies that sound more like PR spin than an attempt to have a real dialogue.
One active CS member who wishes to remain anonymous calls the current staff “tone deaf,” pointing to a blog post (broken link removed) from CS’s Head of Safety regarding the profile deletion issues, followed by a similar post (broken link removed) from Espinoza on the same topic. “They were both full of corporate speak with no attempt to really speak to members or connect with us,” the user says. “That’s how all their communication is.”
The communication concerns, as well as lingering resentment in some circles over CS’s switch from a non-profit to a profit-making entity in 2011 and the fact that many members of the new management team had no experience with Couchsurfing prior to taking over the site, seem to have created an environment where a lot of users do not trust the current CS staff.
Asked what he can do to repair what some see as a damaged relationship between the two groups, Espinoza says, “The core of it is that people use Couchsurfing because it works and it connects them with people all over the world. I think our biggest responsibility is making sure that service continuously gets better and better, and as we grow, the highest quality people are connecting with the highest quality folks, that the experiences generated through Couchsurfing continue to thrive.
“Looking at what’s happening on the service, we have doubled in the last year and the service is growing great. And it’s not that the company is driving marketing or running advertising or getting traffic from Google or Facebook – we don’t. The traffic’s all coming directly to Couchsurfing.com. It’s organic, it’s word of mouth, it’s members begetting more members. I think that by delivering on the promise of Couchsurfing, by enabling the community to have the best experiences that they can, that’s what we have to do.”
Safety concerns
Some members question how strongly CS prioritizes member safety. New users can create an account without any sort of identity verification or even a valid email address, and they can instantly begin messaging and interacting with other members.
Shine says, “I highlighted safety issues that I felt needed to be addressed and my post was removed. I kept raising issues that were important to the community, but these issues didn’t fit well with the business model they are trying to create. It is far easier to delete a few profiles than it is to change your business model.”
Espinoza points out that nothing has changed in terms of creating an account, that users in the past could always join the service without providing an email address. But one thing that has changed, Shine says, is that Couchsurfing posts are being indexed by Google, which means that users who have publicly posted their contact info on the site could find that information accessible by non-members.
“I think there is a lot of potential for the system to be abused by people with ill intent,” Shine adds. “Now it is possible to get a user’s personal information (email, phone number, home address, etc) by just typing a few words into a search engine and never even logging in to the site or creating an account.”
Espinoza says CS intends to remind users to be careful about posting their personal details. “This week we’re going to be rolling out some new filters to reaffirm for people that they’re sharing information in a public domain. Even if you do register and create a new account, you’re still sharing it with millions of people you don’t know – it’s a community of strangers. We promote openness and trust, but we do that by providing people with tools.”
He says that when it comes to safety, “The decisions and the approach and the responsibility really does reside with the member.”
Future of CS community
It remains to be seen what the future holds for members of the Couchsurfing community who are disgruntled about recent events. There’s no clear CS alternative, though some folks have begun embracing BeWelcome.org, a non-profit open source hospitality platform that is newer and has far fewer members than CS.
Regarding the possibility of CSers joining rival sites, Espinoza says, “There’s not a competitive attitude about it. We need to build the best Couchsurfing we possibly can, that works for as high quality a group of members as possible. It’s very much about building the best service that’s the most simple and successful, that really works for people. If people find other services that work better for them, I understand that.”
Some will never be convinced that management had legitimate reasons to remove Shine and Holt from the site. Holt says CS headquarters were just fed up with having to deal with user complaints over the past three months since the site redesign.
“They were tired of us, and Don and I were the most vocal. That’s what it comes down to.”
What do you think of the current state of Couchsurfing? Leave a comment below with your thoughts.
Like Quirky Travel Guy on Facebook!Reining In Warrantless Wiretapping of Americans
JENNIFER GRANICK
The Century Foundation
The United States is collecting vast amounts of data about regular people around the world for foreign intelligence purposes. Government agency computers are vacuuming up sensitive, detailed, and intimate personal information, tracking web browsing, copying address books, and scanning emails of hundreds of millions of people. When done overseas, and conducted in the name of foreign intelligence gathering, the collection can be massive, opportunistic, and targeted without any factual basis. While international human rights law recognizes the political and privacy rights of all human beings, under U.S. law, foreigners in other countries do not enjoy free expression or privacy rights, so there are few rules and little oversight for how our government uses foreigners’ information. And while foreign governments are certainly legitimate targets for intelligence gathering, reported spying on international social welfare organizations like UNICEF and Doctors Without Borders raises the specter of political abuse without a clear, corresponding national security benefit.
In my book, American Spies: Modern Surveillance, Why You Should Care, and What To Do About It, I explain the dangers that massive collection of information about Americans poses to our democracy. Soon, there will be an opportunity to rein in some of this surveillance. In December 2017, one of the laws enabling the National Security Agency (NSA) to warrantlessly wiretap Americans’ international communications and to gather foreigners’ private messages from top Internet companies will expire. The expiration forces Congress to decide whether to renew the law, reform it, or kill it. Because the surveillance law allows spying so far afield of national security interest, critics argue that it should be markedly curtailed, or allowed to end.
This report first reviews the most problematic aspects of this surveillance law. It then takes a deeper dive into the birth, justification, use—and abuse—of this law, and underscores key issues areas that call out the most for its reform.
The Notorious Section 702
The law in question—section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Amendments Act—is notorious as the legal basis for two of the U.S. government’s most controversial surveillance programs operating inside the United States. In June of 2013, former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden helped reveal to the world these two NSA programs—called PRISM and Upstream—that take place under section 702.
Section 702, passed in 2008 as part of the FISA Amendments Act, authorized intelligence agencies to warrantlessly spy on foreigners located overseas. In the process of doing this through PRISM and Upstream, however, the NSA cannot help but collect large volumes of Americans’ communications as well. Some of this collection takes place when Americans at home are talking with NSA targets abroad. But Americans’ communications are also collected when they are talking with friends abroad about targets, or when the NSA’s machines inadvertently suck in Internet transactions that contain messages irrelevant to the target. The U.S. government calls this collection “incidental,” but it includes vast amounts of Americans’ conversations, email exchanges, photos, and other sensitive information. Moreover, once this information is collected, Americans’ messages may be kept and searched by multiple government agencies, without a search warrant, without a factual predicate, and for a variety of purposes having nothing to do with foreign intelligence or national security.
The documents describing Upstream surveillance in particular provided new details to longstanding allegations that intelligence agencies as common practice search the stream of messages flowing over the telecommunications backbone for particular selectors, or search terms. Under the Upstream program, the documents show, the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping directly on the Internet backbone inside the United States captures irrelevant messages, Americans’ international messages, and even purely domestic exchanges.
Independent analysis of one large sample of data collected under section702 suggest that non-targeted communicants end up in the section 702 trawl at ten times the rate of those of actual targets. These revelations caused an outcry among Americans, Europeans, and people around the world.
While section 702 is credited with a number of (classified) national security successes, its footprint is far broader than that. Section 702 programs gather vast amounts of information about a broad range of foreigners, including when they talk to Americans and what they say. This collection is not limited to national security interests, but to any matter of foreign intelligence. Foreign intelligence is defined quite broadly; surveillance can take place under 702 merely to gather information in order to better conduct foreign affairs.
Once intelligence agents collect private messages under section 702, domestic law enforcement agencies are authorized to use the sensitive data in a range of worrisome ways. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) may search the information to learn whether Americans are committing run-of-the-mill crimes without any pre-existing suspicion. Normally, conversations people have with their attorneys are treated as privileged information: no one can compel a lawyer to testify against his or her client. However, the NSA does not recognize that privilege. Only when a lawyer is representing a client in an ongoing criminal case are attorney-client communications given special treatment. Otherwise, the NSA treats client consultations on how to avoid or respond to potential criminal exposure, as well as all consultations and representations about civil matters, the same as any other conversation. Encrypted materials may be kept indefinitely. There are even fewer restrictions on what can be done with foreigners’ data. Further, these databases are magnets for insider abuse—there are documented cases of agents using databases of private information to spy on their lovers or spouses, though we do not know how common this is, or how effective the agencies are at ferreting out wrongdoing.
Excessive surveillance can be an impediment, resulting in a confusing information glut that means intelligence officials miss important clues.
The public seems to intuitively believe that surveillance makes us safer. In some cases that is true, but it is not uniformly the case. Not all information is useful in ferreting out dangers. Indeed, excessive surveillance can be an impediment, resulting in a confusing information glut that means intelligence officials miss important clues. For example, classified slides describing one overseas bulk collection program reveal that numerous intelligence analysts have complained about the program and the relatively small intelligence value it provides as compared to the sheer volume of collection. This “analysis paralysis” is a serious problem at the NSA. A number of internal documents entitled “Data Is Not Intelligence,” “The Fallacies Behind the Scenes,” “Cognitive Overflow?” “Summit Fever,” and “In Praise of Not Knowing” discuss the problem of having so much information, you don’t know what to do with it.
Human nature and history show that loosely regulated spying is itself dangerous. After World War II, the U.S. Census Bureau sent block-by-block data on the locations of Japanese Americans to the War Department so that these families could be rounded up and imprisoned in internment camps. For years, the FBI deliberately sought intelligence embarrassing to senators to gain political advantage. Agents concocted false charges and threatened senators with revealing embarrassing information to gain compliance in political battles. The U.S. government spied on, and even threatened, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his allies in an effort to dissuade them from their activism. In 1964, the FBI used information obtained from surveillance to plant false documents to create rifts in the American Communist Party. In the 1980s, the U.S. government listened to service members’ phone calls and read their mail in order to identify and dishonorably discharge homosexuals in the armed services. The New York City Police Department has conducted secret monitoring of American Muslims, scaring people away from practicing their faith and from providing social services or making charitable contributions through their mosques.
This issue, then, is not about privacy versus security. It is about balancing personal and political security with national security.
On December 31, 2017, section 702 will expire, unless Congress reauthorizes it. This “sunset” is a great opportunity to revisit section 702 in light of these problems, and to reform it. If Congress finds that section 702 is worth keeping in some form, then there are three critical issue areas where Congress should consider reforming the law.
First, Congress should consider the scope of collection under section 702. Is the current broad scope of collection the proper use of intelligence resources, given the international uproar over privacy harms, or should Congress reduce the scope of collection so that it focuses on national security? Second, should Congress ensure that the subsequent retention and use of section 702 data does not repurpose information opportunistically collected for legitimate national security purposes for criminal assessments that give the Federal Bureau of Investigation a window into Americans’ private lives and political activities? Third, should Congress shore up the mechanisms for accountability to ensure that the safeguards imposed on government surveillance powers are followed, and to assure everyone—including Americans at home and foreign customers of U.S. businesses—that new technologies are not being abused in disservice to civil liberties?
Why Do We Even Have Section 702?
After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 brought down the World Trade Center towers, President George W. Bush’s administration scrambled to augment the government’s capacity to identify future unknown terrorist threats. In service of this goal, the Bush administration started a series of massive information-gathering projects, collectively known by the top secret cover name STELLARWIND. STELLARWIND involved new, warrantless collection of four kinds of data: telephone content (words spoken), telephone metadata (numbers dialed), Internet content (words in emails and other online messaging), and Internet metadata (non-content information from digital messages and transactions). STELLARWIND was a top secret program, because the various types of collection likely violated either statutory law, the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, or both.
In 2004, the Bush administration ran into trouble with STELLARWIND. Acting Attorney General James Comey refused to sign off on part of the program, forcing the White House to go to the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) for approval. Then in December 2005, thanks to a whistleblower from the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review (OIPR), the part of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) responsible for green-lighting American surveillance within the executive branch, the public learned about the warrantless wiretapping aspect of STELLARWIND in a New York Times article. The disclosure of the illegal wiretapping, in combination with the internal disagreements over whether other aspects of STELLARWIND were properly authorized, forced the intelligence community to try to legitimize at least some aspects of the warrantless wiretapping program in the FISC and in Congress. Ultimately, American spies successfully obtained legislative approval for STELLARWIND-style warrantless wiretapping when Congress passed the FISA Amendments Act of 2008.
Section 702 is part of that act. Section 702 allows the government to warrantlessly collect, with the compelled cooperation of electronic service providers, the contents of electronic communications, including telephone calls and emails, where the target is reasonably believed to be a non-U.S. person located outside the United States. Criminal authorities may use these warrantless procedures, so long as the foreign intelligence-gathering goal is a “significant purpose” of the collection.
Under section 702, intelligence agencies obtain broad topical certifications from the FISC to investigate categories of foreign intelligence. Once a certification issues, intelligence officers create lists of targets on which they will collect information related to the certification topic. The targets must be non-U.S. persons believed to be located abroad. “Directives” containing selectors, or search terms, designed to gather information about that target are then sent to service providers such as Google, Yahoo!, Apple, and Microsoft. The directives compel those companies to use the listed selectors to search their available data and identify responsive information, including both metadata and the contents of communications. While the certifications are reviewed and approved by a judge appointed to the FISC, and the targeting procedures are also approved, the targeting decisions, the directives, and the selectors, are exclusively within the Executive Branch’s discretion. In other words, neither Congress nor the intelligence court knows the identities of the targets or the basis for their selection.
To be sure, foreign intelligence collection serves important national security goals. Terrorism, weapons proliferation, network attacks on government infrastructure, and counterintelligence are critical priorities. Today, these are diffuse and complex threats. There are newly powerful political actors on the international stage. Organizations that are not governments and have no physical territory can inflict great harm. And individuals and diffuse coalitions are increasingly able to traffic in military technology, advanced computer malware, and other dangerous, potentially lethal tools. These challenges are real, and overcoming them are legitimate goals of surveillance.
But section 702 goes beyond permitting intelligence-gathering on national security topics. The targets of the surveillance need only be non-U.S. persons, reasonably believed to be located abroad, and connected in some way to one of the broad certification topics approved by the FISC. Intelligence analysts need not have any cause to believe that the target is involved in illegal activity, nor working for a terrorist group or foreign government. Surveillance can occur for any foreign intelligence purpose related to “the conduct of the foreign affairs of the United States.”
Where Section 702 Goes Astray
A recently declassified FISC opinion from November 2015 confirmed what many people already suspected—section 702 actually sweeps up “substantial quantities” of information concerning U.S. persons. In other words, the surveillance program subjects Americans to extensive, warrantless surveillance. This broad collection of communications may be politically palatable when Americans are talking to terrorists—the implication is that this “incidental” collection is minor and necessary for public safety. However, foreign targets are not necessarily terrorism suspects, or wrongdoers of any kind. Section 702 contemplates surveillance targeting bureaucrats, scientists, aid workers—anyone of “foreign intelligence” interest. Because the sanctioned surveillance topics are so broad, a vast number of people, including Americans, routinely have their communications swept up with no national security benefit attached.
The way politicians talk about section 702 masks the true purpose of the statute. When Americans talk to targets, or talk with friends overseas about targets, the government warrantlessly gathers those phone calls, emails, and chats. Before the law was passed, Americans’ international communications were off limits—protected by both FISA and the Electronic Communication Privacy Act (ECPA) from warrantless acquisition. Section 702 changed that, approving warrantless surveillance of Americans talking to some foreigners, even if it wasn’t immediately obvious to non-experts that that was the case.
Government officials have consistently insisted that section 702 does not impact Americans and to date, officials have repeatedly refused to estimate the number of Americans whose conversations have been collected. The public doesn’t know how big of an impact section 702 has on American privacy. However, there are reasons to be very concerned. The Washington Post studied a sample data set of information it obtained from Edward Snowden. The data had been collected under section 702 and reviewed and minimized by NSA analysts. The information included very personal material: “medical records sent from one family member to another, résumés from job hunters, and academic transcripts of schoolchildren. In one photo, a young girl in religious dress beams at a camera outside a mosque.” The data included “scores” of pictures of infants and toddlers in bathtubs, on swings, sprawled on their backs, and being kissed by their mothers. There was also more intimate, risqué content: men showing off their bodies, women wearing lingerie or swimsuits posing suggestively for the camera.
Many of the people in the data trove are Americans. More than half of the surveillance files contained names, email addresses, or other details that the NSA marked as belonging to U.S. citizens or residents.
Insider abuse is another huge problem. A network of rules, regulations, and procedures tries but sometimes fails to stop government employees from using sensitive personal information to spy on their spouses or lovers. This problem is common enough that agencies call it LOVEINT, a parody name modeled on signals intelligence (SIGINT) and human intelligence (HUMINT). Harold Thomas Martin, a former NSA contractor, has been accused of stealing highly sensitive government material related to national defense from the U.S. intelligence community. NSA officials initially denied that Edward Snowden’s position as an NSA contractor would have given him access to private data collected under section 702, but he nevertheless had such access.
Ultimately, the reason people worry about broad surveillance is the danger that private information will be abused for political reasons.
Ultimately, the reason people worry about broad surveillance is the danger that private information will be abused for political reasons. U.S. history is replete with examples of government surveillance being used against disfavored groups based on race, political values, and sexual orientation. Most Americans know that during the J. Edgar Hoover era, peaceful people like Dr. Martin Luther King and Muhammad Ali were under surveillance for First Amendment–protected activities, or for no clear reason at all. A common narrative is that J. Edgar Hoover was a particularly power-hungry man, implying that with a different person in office, these surveillance abuses would not have happened. But the political spying wasn’t a problem unique to Hoover. Presidents throughout the ages knew about FBI spying and took advantage of it. Theodore Roosevelt started the FBI to spy on anarchists. Franklin Delano Roosevelt reinvigorated domestic political spying in the lead up to World War II. And Lyndon Baines Johnson commanded the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to create a domestic surveillance operation, code named Chaos, in which the CIA and NSA eavesdropped on major peace groups. Meanwhile, agencies other than the FBI were spying on Americans, too. Abusive surveillance did not die with Hoover and President Nixon.
The Snowden documents revealed that the NSA has developed plans to discredit people who hold politically radical beliefs. The NSA delves into its vast databases of Internet content and transactional data for information it can use to discredit those whom the agency believes are radicalizing others through speeches promoting disfavored—but not necessarily violent—political views. One report details vulnerabilities among its targets, such as viewing pornography, using donations for personal expenses, charging exorbitant speaking fees, or contradicting themselves in public. The document identifies six people and their areas of weakness, gleaned from surveillance. These targets were not necessarily criminals, violent, or even foreigners. In the document one of the six examples of people ripe for discrediting was an American.
Some may say that the days of political spying are behind us. That is not the case. There are many documented examples of groups singled out for their religion or because of political beliefs. For domestic groups, rules often say that one may not be investigated “solely on the basis of activities protected by the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States.” Yet, it is not difficult to come up with another reason. The Civil Rights Movement was purported to have been directed by Soviet communists. Black Lives Matter is surveilled because law enforcement argues there may be violence at rallies organized by the group. The Trump administration justifies targeting Muslims on the grounds that citizens of certain countries can pose a higher national security risk.
If such abusive surveillance has been less prevalent in recent decades, it is thanks to the legal rules adopted in 1978, after congressional investigations of surveillance scandals of the 1960s and 1970s. But, since the attacks of September 11, those rules have been steadily neutered. At the same time, surveillance tools and capabilities have gotten far more powerful.
Americans must continue to be vigilant to ensure that our laws are impervious as possible to political abuses, because this is still a danger today. In December of 2015, for example, the statute that the intelligence community had been misinterpreting to justify bulk collection of domestic telephone call records was set to expire. The five-year expiration date had been built into the statute precisely because it was controversial, and legislators wanted to ensure that they would have to reconsider that grant of surveillance authority. The rare opportunity of expiration forced Congress to do something, and in a last minute showdown, it reformed the law to make clear that bulk collection of documents, tangible things, and metadata under that authority was not allowed. However, the reform legislation, the USA Freedom Act, did not alter the intelligence agencies’ collection of the content Americans’ international communications with targeted foreigners under section 702.
Problem Areas for Section 702
With the FISA Amendments Act, of which section 702 is a part, scheduled to expire, or sunset, on December 31, 2017, Americans and their elected representatives in Congress once again get a rare opportunity to define permissible surveillance. When Congress revisits section 702, it can make reforms in light of what we’ve learned from Snowden and the subsequent investigations. With that in mind, there are several key issues areas that call out the most for attention.
Protecting Online Communication and Storage of Personal Data and Effects
An overarching problem with foreign intelligence surveillance is the question of what data is considered “private” in the first place. Under U.S. law, there is no overarching right of privacy. Rather, statutes protect certain categories of data from collection or use. Under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the government must get a foreign intelligence warrant or comply with the more minimal protections of section 702 when it conducts “electronic surveillance” for foreign intelligence purposes. But other information-gathering practices that do not amount to “electronic surveillance” are not governed by FISA and don’t receive FISA’s protections.
Under FISA, there are four government activities that constitute “electronic surveillance.” The definition of these categories is complicated, and depends, among other things, on the means of transmitting the communication, the location of government collection, and whether an American is known to be a party to the conversation. Importantly, the rules governing electronic surveillance generally only come into play when the government is invading a “reasonable expectation of privacy.”
“Reasonable expectation of privacy” is a constitutional term. The Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. While the phrase does not appear in the Fourth Amendment, case law has defined “search” as a government activity that invades a person’s “reasonable expectation of privacy” in a place or in particular information. If the Fourth Amendment applies, then ordinarily the government activity requires a judicially issued warrant based on probable cause.
The “reasonable expectation of privacy” requirement is far narrower than one might think. In 1979, in Smith v. Maryland, the Supreme Court held that people have no “reasonable expectation of privacy” in the phone numbers we dial. To arrive at that conclusion, the Supreme Court harkened back to the days when callers would talk to a live operator and place calls by asking to be connected to a particular number, meaning information was knowingly and voluntarily disclosed to the phone company. A few years earlier, in United States v. Miller, the Supreme Court had reasoned that a customer has no expectation of privacy in her bank records, because those are created by and managed by the financial institution.
In the years since, the Department of Justice has relied on Smith and Miller to argue that—beyond phone numbers and bank records—if your information is exposed to any third party, then you do not have an expectation of privacy in it, and thus the government can get it without a warrant. In other words, if it isn’t secret, then it isn’t private. This notion has come to be known as the “third party doctrine.”
Thanks to the third party doctrine, the Department of Justice does not believe that people have a reasonable expectation of privacy in phone calling records, Internet transactions, financial records, hard drive backups, or other sensitive data stored with “cloud” Internet services. If they are right, searches of personal data stored online is not protected by the Fourth Amendment. Further, FISA may not even apply, because the government activity does not fit the definitions of “electronic surveillance.”
The expiration of the FISA Amendments Act is an opportunity to ensure that online information Internet users expect will remain private receives legal protection. Stored documents, location information, photographs, email, and online chats should receive privacy protection. Expanding the definition of electronic surveillance to ensure that collecting these kinds of data is covered by the statute would be a huge step toward protecting people from cavalier, opportunistic, and unnecessary government spying. The definitions of electronic surveillance activities should not depend on the Department of Justice’s interpretation of this constitutional phrase “reasonable expectation of privacy.” If the data is sensitive, if an American is a party to the conversation, or if the collection activity takes place inside the United States, FISA’s privacy protections should apply. Congress could remove the “reasonable expectation of privacy” language from the statutory definition, and make clear that communications, personal documents, and metadata are protected by FISA.
The Broad Scope of Warrantless Wiretapping and Content Surveillance
Much of the policy debate over section 702 is centered on the provision’s alleged national security or counterterrorism successes. This is surprising, because section 702 explicitly is not a counterterrorism statute, and is in fact much broader. Under section 702, surveillance can occur for any “foreign intelligence” purpose, including the collection of information about a foreign power or territory that is related to “the conduct of the foreign affairs of the United States.” That includes eavesdropping on the heads of state, gathering information relevant to predicting the price of oil, and gaining leverage in negotiating trade disputes.
Intelligence officials reply that, while the statute allows surveillance for such broad purposes, the actual topics for which the community uses section 702 are more narrow. That is because in order to conduct surveillance under section 702, the government first must obtain a “certification” from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). The FISC is comprised of federal judges who make classified decisions on surveillance applications. One of these judges must approve a certification as a precursor to section 702 collection. Certifications identify categories of foreign intelligence information regarding which the U.S. Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence authorize acquisition through the targeting of non-U.S. persons reasonably believed to be located abroad. Experts believe that these certifications are for gathering foreign intelligence information about foreign governments, counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and counterproliferation. There may also be a cybersecurity certification. Thus, the officials imply, section 702 surveillance only takes place for these important purposes. Therefore, section 702 does not have the broad impact on everyday foreigners that critics say.
It would be a mistake to put too much weight on the certifications as limiting section 702. Intelligence officials have not confirmed the subject matter of the certifications, and have never represented that these are or will remain the only certification topics. Nothing in the statute limits acceptable certifications to these national-security related topics. Any foreign intelligence topic will do. Nor does the FISC review any of the targeting decisions made under these certifications. Those decisions are within the discretion of the intelligence community.
As a result, average foreigners have legitimate concerns about being spied on even though they are neither terrorists nor agents of foreign powers. The statute allows these people to be targeted for being of foreign intelligence interest, even if they are not working for a foreign government, not engaged in terrorism, and not posing a threat to U.S. interests.
U.S. officials say that Americans should not be concerned with section 702 surveillance because it explicitly targets foreigners overseas, prohibits targeting U.S. persons, and also forbids “reverse targeting,” a practice in which foreign targets are chosen with the ulterior motive of wiretapping Americans. However, Americans should not be reassured. Even when section 702 collection is about “foreign” intelligence, it does not only impact foreigners.
A recently declassified FISC opinion from November 2015 confirmed that section 702 actually sweeps up “substantial quantities” of information concerning U.S. persons. Obviously, when an individual is a surveillance target, investigators will inevitably pick up conversations that person has with innocent third parties. Those third parties could include Americans. This makes sense. If you are talking to terrorists, agents will listen in. This collection is called “incidental” because it is incident to the permissible surveillance.
The difference is in the way the government treats these innocent conversations depending on whether it is a criminal investigation or an intelligence effort. In the criminal wiretap context, the agents have to minimize this eavesdropping by only listening to conversations about the criminal activity under investigation. For example, if investigating organized crime, the agents have to hang up the phone and not record when the suspects are talking to their parents or planning dinner for the evening.
But in the foreign intelligence context, agents gather everything they can about the target and then select interesting and relevant intelligence from the collected materials. Some agencies have access to the raw data and can search it for information—related and unrelated to the foreign intelligence topic for which it was collected. Other agencies have access to minimized data where Americans’ identifying information has been blacked out, but it could be restored if need be.
Thus, the broader the surveillance of foreigners for general foreign intelligence purposes, the more Americans are spied on, too. Moreover, under section 702, the government is collecting international communications even when the foreign intelligence target is not a party to the conversation. Under Upstream collection, the government scans data flowing over the Internet for messages that contain particular selectors and thus are “about” the foreign intelligence target. Foreigners who are not targets are being spied on.
While incidental collection of information on Americans may be palatable for criminal or counterterrorism purposes, it is out of line for general foreign intelligence collection.
While incidental collection of information on Americans may be palatable for criminal or counterterrorism purposes, it is out of line for general foreign intelligence collection. Invading the privacy of Americans talking with foreigners targeted for their knowledge of topics such as trade disputes and the price of oil goes too far. Invading the privacy of Americans talking with foreigners about foreign intelligence targets is extreme. This is especially true because foreign intelligence targets are not only individuals, but organizations, too. Americans’ communications with these organizations—the United Nations, Doctors Without Borders, and more—results in expansive impact on citizens.
Further, under the Upstream program, the NSA is collecting “Internet transactions” rather than discrete messages. An Internet transaction might contain multiple messages—the agency refers to this bundle of messages as a multi-communications transaction (MCT). An MCT could be something like your email inbox, which contains many, many messages. If only one email in your inbox is responsive to the NSA’s targeting terms, the NSA collection system may nevertheless pull your entire inbox flow into the NSA databases. The collection of MCTs further removes the connection between the communicants and the intended target, because any communication that is embedded within a transaction that happens to include a communication that so much as mentions the targeted selector can get swept up.
The public is not fully aware of the scope of “abouts” collection. Much depends on what search terms, or “selectors,” the agency chooses to use. While a search term theoretically could be as broad as “France” or “oil prices,” the NSA says it does not use proper names like “Osama bin Laden” or “Petrobras” to conduct the surveillance. Rather, according to the intelligence agencies and the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, section 702 selectors are “things like” email addresses, phone numbers, or Internet protocol addresses. Thus, if the target is Angela Merkel, intelligence officials say you’d need to have her email address and not just her name in your conversation in order for your messages to be collected.
Narrow selectors are a good thing. But, email addresses and IP addresses still can lead to very broad collection. If the NSA is acquiring messages sent to or from addresses like “membership@doctorswithoutborders.org” or “mailinglist@greenpeace.net,” the incidental collection will be huge. Internet protocol addresses may be shared by many individuals or entities who are not themselves foreign intelligence targets.
In short, multiple people, none of whom is a target, may nevertheless be monitored because of the topic of their conversation, so long as one of the parties to the conversation is a foreigner located overseas.
What is particularly surprising for non-experts is that section 702 collection is not only about broad foreign intelligence interests. It can also be designed for criminal investigations |
, My-HiME) is handling the scripts. Shiro Sagisu (Bleach, Evangelion, Berserk films) is composing the music.
The first season premiered in Japan last October, and Crunchyroll streamed the series as it aired. Aniplex of America plans to release the first season on home video, and the first season will premiere with an English dub on Viz Media's Neon Alley service next month.
The second season of Valvrave the Liberator will premiere in Japan on October 10. The first season aired from April-June this year.
The story of Valvrave the Liberator is set the year Shinreki ("True Calendar") 71, when 70% of the human race lives in space due to the development of a space city called "Dyson Sphere." Between two major powers — the Dorssia Military Pact Federation and the Atlantic Ring United States (ARUS) — there is a small neutral nation called JIOR that has prospered economically. The protagonist Haruto Tokishima (voiced by Ryota Ohsaka), a high school student who lives in JIOR, encounters the mysterious "forbidden" humanoid weapon Valvrave when the Dorssian army invades. For the second season, singers Nana Mizuki and T.M. Revolution will again perform the opening theme song, and singer ELISA will perform the new ending theme.
Crunchyroll streamed the first season as it aired, and Aniplex of America licensed the first season for home video release.Frank Lawton (R) of Deadwood, South Dakota, fires his single action revolver after cocking the gun with his left hand during the Canadian Open Fast Draw Championships in Aldergrove, British Columbia July 20, 2013. REUTERS/Andy Clark (Reuters) - When Kim Forrest attends dog shows, she is there not just for her two wirehaired pointing griffons. She is also doing research for her day job as a portfolio manager and equity analyst.
Forrest, who works for the Pittsburgh-based Fort Pitt Capital Group, believes participation in dog shows is as middle class as it gets and as such is a great economic gauge.
"This is the very definition of disposable income."
Forrest is not alone in using an offbeat indicator. Several analysts and investors look at unusual data, hoping it will help them spot economic trends sooner or understand them better than those who rely on conventional fare.
"Many market strategists cling to the Fed minutes and other standard information," says Nick Colas, chief market strategist at the ConvergEx Group in New York. "If I want to be competitive I need something different."
Colas tracks gun permit background checks, food stamps and frequency of Google searches. Others analyze TV commercials for wedding packages, shopping mall traffic or garbage volumes. They all say unconventional indicators are especially useful at a time like this when standard data keep sending mixed signals.
For example, in the past few weeks, jobless claims hit a 15-year low, but gross domestic product data showed a marked slowdown in U.S. growth.
And what do the quirky data show?
Essentially a still somewhat tenuous U.S. recovery nearly six years after the end of the Great Recession.
Colas for example, notes that gun permit background checks have been rising, which he considers a good sign. He acknowledges there could be many factors affecting firearm sales, but reckons the willingness to spend hundreds of dollars on guns does work as a measure of spending power.
On the other hand, food stamp usage Colas also monitors has held steady, while the frequency of Google searches of the term "food stamp" has been on the rise.
"The bottom line is we are in a tepid recovery."
Forrest also saw a reason for concern when she took part in a dog show in western Pennsylvania last month and found that the number of entrants has been slipping.
"This really told me that things were not okay."
She believes regional shows she attends across the country are a better gauge than nationwide data which have held steady, but are skewed by big, high-profile events attended by professional breeders.
It's not all gloom, though.
AP
WEDDINGS AND MALLS
Bill Smead, chief investment officer of Seattle-based Smead Capital Management, for example, was encouraged by the frequency of Southwest Airlines (LUV.N) TV ads promoting low fares for the upcoming wedding season.
"Weddings are usually followed by buying houses, having babies and buying cars that fit car seats," he says. "That is the driver of the U.S. economy."
Smead acknowledges that it could take years before the newlyweds decide to have offspring, but says his investment philosophy is about being patient, sometimes contrarian, and looking years ahead, often with the help of non-standard indicators.
Peter Kenny, chief market strategist at New York-based trading firm Clearpool Group, also sees positive signs emerging from his research.
Once every four to six weeks he heads to a shopping mall to check how busy it is and how high-end retailers such as Apple (AAPL.O) or women's clothing chain Madewell are doing and notes that the traffic clearly picked up last month.
Flickr / David, Bergin, Emmett and Elliott Tracking dog shows sounds more fun than poring over non-farm payroll data, but does it work?
Tim Duy, economics professor at the University of Oregon, says offbeat indicators can help investors crystallize their views, but they need to be careful with their interpretation.
"The challenge of these indicators is to separate out the movements attributable to non-economic factors," says Duy. For example, firearm sales could rise in anticipation of tougher gun laws, he says.
Analysts and investors say that while it is not a precise science, going off the beaten track is well worth the effort.
Colas, for example, says food stamp use has been a reliable proxy of the U.S. economy's strength and has helped form his view that the Fed would be patient about raising interest rates.
Kenny says his trips to the malls chimed with the first quarter gross domestic product data that showed a slow economic recovery and now expects new data to confirm the pick up he has seen over the past few weeks.
And Duy himself, who collects monthly landfill data for Oregon because he believes theeconomy produces more waste when it is growing, says over the years the figures have consistently squared with the findings of the more traditional indicators.reysmarauders:
zamaron:
kramergate: zamaron: kramergate: I vividly remember the scene in like the second movie where the Weasleys were looking at their school supply list and Molly was like “I really don’t know how we’re going to afford it this year” after they had just risked life and limb to rescue Harry and Harry was sitting there eating their food like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Harry ‘Dickhead’ Potter through a mouth full of Wizardburger Helper “idk…….that’s……wow that sucks i guess lol so i’m thinking about buying this solid gold cauldron what do yall think? a little over the top?” “oh that’s wild lmao… hey check this out I’m gonna buy all the candy off the cart on the train” “dude you guys haven’t been able to buy new robes in like 10 years….wow that sucks i guess kek but hey lets go get some butterbeer my treat but fuck you :)”
He was literally 12 years old at this point in time, as well as the fact that he always felt extremely bad about their situation and even tried to pay for things for Ron numerous times, however he knew that Ron was ashamed and prideful over his lack of money.
Not to mention he gave Ginny all of Lockharts Defence Against The Dark Arts books, and gave Fred and George his triwizard winnings in the fourth book.
And if you think, for even a second, that Molly or Arthur Weasley would have ever taken money from him then you don’t know that family at all.
Oh, and when he got all the candy on the train, he was extremely malnourished after being mistreated and abused from living with the dursleys, and made sure that he got enough for himself and Ron, whom he had literally only just met.Story Highlights Woman accused of abducting her infant daughter from South Carolina 20 years ago
Her daughter, Savanna Catherine Todd, now 20, was in Australia living a normal life
Barnett did not have custody of her then 10-month-old daughter when she left in 1994 from Isle of Palms
CHARLESTON, South Carolina (AP) — A woman accused of abducting her infant daughter from South Carolina 20 years ago has been located in Australia and is facing extradition back to the United States to face charges, federal authorities announced this week.
On Thursday, U.S. Attorney Bill Nettles said that an indictment had been unsealed charging Dorothy Lee Barnett, 53, with international parental kidnapping and making a false statement on a passport application.
Her daughter, Savanna Catherine Todd, now 20, was in Australia living a normal life, Nettles said.
Barnett did not have custody of her then 10-month-old daughter when she left in 1994 from Isle of Palms, Nettles said. At the time, police said Barnett left for a birthday party with her daughter and never returned. In 1993, she had filed for divorce from her husband, Bowling Green, Ky., native and former Charleston stockbroker Benjamin Harris Todd III.
Authorities said Barnett was located in Australia earlier this month and had been living under several aliases.
Federal authorities have not given details on how they tracked Barnett down. In a news release, Nettles said federal law enforcement agencies from the U.S. and Australia cooperated on the case.
Court papers show that an arrest warrant was issued for Barnett in 1994.
Barnett has been denied bond pending extradition back to the United States, where no court date has been set, Nettles said. If convicted on all charges, she could face more than 20 years in prison, and court papers listed no attorney for her.
Australian Justice Minister Michael Keenan, who must approve any extradition request, said Barnett appeared this week in a court at Maroochydore, a coastal tourist strip north of the Queensland state capital Brisbane.
"As the matter is before the court, it would not be appropriate to comment further," he said in a statement Saturday.
The Australian Federal Police declined to comment on the case.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1ccX1sHWe may be nearing the end of the year but that hasn’t stopped Concepts from slowing down on its renowned sneaker collabs, this time teaming up with ASICS on a re-work of the brand’s GEL Respector sneaker.
Drawing inspiration from ’80s Miami and Colombia’s infamous cash crop – much like January’s GEL-Lyte V “Blow” – the sneaker is constructed with a rich premium suede upper that sits atop a contrasting white midsole, finished off with an embossed ASICS logo.
In addition to the sneaker – which is set to release on Concepts’ webshop on December 5 – Miami heads will have the chance to get the lowdown on a secret interactive retail space. Keep an eye out on the Concepts Twitter and Instagram accounts for further details.
SubscribeHouse intelligence committee Chairman Devin Nunes said Thursday the committee has found that senior Obama administration officials unmasked Americans’ identities during surveillance of a foreign target with “remarkably few” specific reasons for doing so.
In a letter to the Director of National Intelligence, Nunes said, “For example, this Committee has learned that one official, whose position had no apparent intelligence-related function, made hundreds of unmasking requests during the final year of the Obama Administration.
“Of those requests, only one offered a justification that was not boilerplate and articulated why that specific official required the U.S. person information for the performance of his or her official duties,” he added.
Nunes also said in his letter that Obama-era officials sought the identities of Trump transition officials within intelligence reports, and that “there was no meaningful explanation offered by these officials as to why they needed or how they would use the U.S. person information.”
While unmasking the identities of Americans incidentally swept up in surveillance is not illegal, leaking their names is, and Nunes said some unmasking requests were followed by leaks to the media.
“More pointedly, some of the requests for unminimized U.S. person information were followed by anonymous leaks of those names to the media,” Nunes’ letter said.
The committee has requested the appearance of former Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice, former CIA Director John Brennan, and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power to testify on the matter.
In March, several journalists reported that Rice had unmasked Trump campaign and transition officials. Rice denied doing anything illegal, but did not deny unmasking.
Rice supporters have argued she would have needed the information to do her job, but skeptics say she did not have a direct intelligence responsibility.
The Trump administration has faced seven times more leaks than during the Obama and George W. Bush administrations, according to a recent Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs report:
2017-07-06 State Secrets report (2)
Nunes said he is introducing a bill that would require “individual, fact-based justification” for each request. He said he would work with the DNI to draft the legislation during the August recess.
Chairman Letter to Dni Unmasking Drafting Assistance by Kristina Wong on ScribdA recurring theme in the Presidential Debates has been the role of the government in the economy. There are obviously many complex issues involved and a number of tradeoffs and caveats exist with any policy. That said, however, the assertion that the government cannot create jobs is ridiculous. It is a function of a biased definition of “job” designed to decide the question even before it has been asked.
To show this, start with a relatively neutral definition of job: any routine activity for which we earn income. This covers a wide range of pursuits, from managing a grocery store to selling financial derivatives. It does not include cutting your lawn (it’s routine but you don’t earn income) or selling that pool table you were positive you were going to use (you earn income but it’s not routine). As for myself, Texas Christian University contracts with me to teach, research, and perform service activities on a regular basis, and in exchange they direct deposit money into my account every month. I don’t think anyone would deny that what I do qualifies as a job.
But, those who say that the government cannot create employment are adding another element to the definition. To them, a job is any routine activity for which we earn income paid by an entity required to earn a profit. There is no compelling reason for this addendum and it arbitrarily excludes people like James Galbraith, who is an economist just like me, but at the University of Texas, and Jeffrey Halstead, Chief of Police in Fort Worth, Texas. By the qualified definition, they don’t have “jobs” because their income is derived from tax revenue and not private-sector sales. Ditto every single fireman, public school teacher, Marine, sailor, airman, soldier, national park ranger, defense industry employee, NASA scientist, social worker, librarian, etc., etc. None of them has a job.
Why would someone would embrace such a questionable characterization? Because their true goal isn’t to generate a scientific understanding of the manner in which the macroeconomy operates, but to make a moral statement. Specifically, their contention is that only those routine activities financed by profit are truly of value. Everything the government does is unnecessary because if people really wanted it, they would have bought it in the private sector: that which is useful is profitable. Furthermore, they say, were it not for my taxes, those in the public sector would not have a job. Firemen earn a salary only because some of mine was taken away (under threat of imprisonment).
It is not surprising that those who espouse this view are almost always in the private sector themselves. It says, "I deserve my income because I work hard creating something of value. Meanwhile, government employees are just handed a portion of my salary for doing something no one really wants. Therefore, not only am I morally superior, but my taxes should be cut!" It’s a very convenient philosophy, but it’s not economic analysis. (From time to time, you also hear this from some in the public sector, but they either conveniently ignore the contradiction or believe that where they work is one of the few exceptions.)
What this ignores is something I was arguing in my last post: not everything that is profitable is truly of social value and not everything of social value is profitable. If we defined a job as any routine activity for which we earn income paid by an entity whose activities are socially valuable, then we would most certainly be excluding things done by BOTH the private and public sectors. How much do private sector activities like pornography, reality TV, and cigarette smoking add to our well being? Meanwhile, if we depended solely on profit for motivation, we would not have national defense, child protective services, or education (or police protection or fire protection) for the poor.
Furthermore, the means by which public sector activity is financed is more complex than implied above. Not only do your taxes go to pay the salary of the fireman, but, when he spends it, his salary contributes to your wages. So who is supporting whom–is the government dependent on taxation of private sector salaries, or are private sector salaries dependent on sales to government institutions and employees? Obviously, they are largely interdependent and rely on the continuation of the flow between them. Largely, however, but not completely, for if one of the two can act with autonomy, it is the government. At the federal level, we can spend in deficit indefinitely and without fear of default (see It is Impossible for the US to Default), meaning that the government can spend even without tax revenue, and its spending can create private sector sales–and jobs. Therefore, in a world where we have a difficult time generating sufficient demand to hire all those willing to work, the private sector is actually more dependent on the government to boost its sales than the government is on the private sector for tax revenues (see Why the Private Sector NEEDS the Government to Spend Money). Now who is the parasite?!
This is not to argue that all government spending is socially useful. Of course it isn’t, any more than all private sector is. It is our responsibility to complain loudly when we think the public sector is wasting resources (something we will all have an opportunity to do on November 6). But, one thing is clear: the government creates jobs, and lots of them. In fact, the private sector needs them to do so. Don’t forget, the rules of accounting tell us that if the government is in deficit, then the private sector must be in surplus (see Why You Should Love Government Deficits)!Why are the nation’s conscience-keepers silent on the Panama Papers?
Faraz Ahmad Delhi
The media, including the ‘great crusader for truth and investigative journalism’, the Indian Express, has already decided who the holy cows are in the Panama offshore scam. A day after the Express carried a front-page story of once well-known sports journalist-turned-businessman Lokesh Sharma parking huge sums of money in tax haven British Virgin Island (BVI), it has made amends by carrying an edit on April 8 commending the finance minister, “It is heartening that Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has underlined that there are no holy cows in this regard.”
Thereby the paper has already exonerated Jaitley without bothering to ask what kind of bond exists between Jaitley and Lokesh Sharma, or ‘Loki’, as his ‘intimate friends’ like Jaitley call him. It is left to Congress leader and former Union Minister Jairam Ramesh to recall that, as the president of the Delhi District Cricket Association (DDCA), it was Jaitley who reportedly awarded contracts to Loki’s company, Twenty First Century Media (TCM) Private Limited.
Loki is very well-known in the world of sports journalists because TCM frequently provides them with an opportunity for moonlighting and pays them well. As the Express story stated, he started the company in 1993. Before that he was a sports journalist, like the present day IPL president and Congress MP Rajiv Shukla, both of whom worked together for the then popular weekly magazine Raviwar under the tutelage of MJ Akbar, now a Rajya Sabha member and BJP spokesman. Loki later married into the Akbar family. The existence of a symbiotic relationship between Loki and Jaitley for over two decades now is also known to almost anyone who is privy to the world of journalism or cricket in Delhi.
The same day the paper also carried the story of a BVI offshore company partly owned by Shiv Sena MP and Videocon owner Rajkumar Dhoot, who was a bidder at the IPL team auctions held in Pune in 2010. Now, Dhoot is another vocal crusader against corruption, but, as the report suggests, has been at the very least parking funds in the tax haven. Jaitley’s extraordinary and enthusiastic interest in the IPL even when Lalit Modi was heading it is no secret and so is his affection for Rajiv Shukla, who is widely perceived to owe his position as IPL president to Jaitley.
Another BJP MP, Abhishek Singh, the son of Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh, appears in the Mossack Fonseca e-mails as a shareholder in Quest Height Private Limited. Singh, of course, has refuted the allegations.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, taking immediate cognizance of the Express stories, has asked, of all people, Jaitley to probe and catch the guilty. Informing the media of this, Jaitley also added his opinion that not all the exposed wealth need be illegal. There is no question about the need for Indians to invest abroad; it is a welcome development. But, how can it be legal to park money in tax havens? And if the money parked in tax havens is legal, what is the hullabaloo about? The Indian Express, which has been blowing its trumpet for the last six days, has suddenly decided to qualify its claims by stating in the same editorial: “Indeed, some of the firms outed in the Panama Papers may very well be compliant with statutory norms…However, that’s not telling the whole story. The question is: Did many of those named in the list take recourse to floating firms in tax havens purely to avoid tax on their income?”
That’s the point. It’s not like the Tatas or Mittals were investing in some industry abroad. Why else would someone choose to park money in a tax haven if not to cheat on taxes? Looking at it from any angle, this is black money, stashed abroad. This was the issue Anna Hazare raised and sat on a fast for at Ramlila Grounds in Delhi, accusing the UPA of corruption. This frenzy provided an opportunity to novices like Arvind Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi to hone their political skills. Where is Anna Hazare today, when the people who were looting the country all along are out in the open?
As if Anna’s movement did not do enough damage to the UPA government, the billionaire yoga entrepreneur Ramdev jumped in too and perched himself on a high altar at the same Ramlila Grounds announcing yet another dharna under the banner of Bharat Swabhiman Andolan, defying a police ban. Later that night when the police arrived, he fled borrowing the salwar kameez and dupatta of one his female disciples.
And what about the honourable judges of the Supreme Court, who decided to take it upon themselves to hunt out, with the CBI, Indian treasure locked abroad? Where are they now? For six days now the Indian Express has been carrying the series of stories which clearly identify those who have stashed away black money abroad, but there is deafening silence all around. In fact, the very next day the Times of India actually carried a story on its front page debunking the Express probe. Why is the nation’s conscience-keeper, Arnab Goswami, not moved yet? Is it because most of the prominent names that have emerged so far have a direct or indirect connection with the BJP which rode to power shouting itself hoarse about black money and corruption, pointing all along its finger at Sonia Gandhi. And since so far nothing has emerged implicating her, what’s the fun?If you use an iPhone, you’re more likely to use Safari than someone who doesn’t use an iPhone. Google Chrome users are more likely to use Gmail than people who don’t use Chrome. And Microsoft Office users are more likely to use Skype than people who don’t use Office.
But overall, Apple and Google are doing a better job of connecting their respective products, with usage of one more naturally leading to usage of another.
That’s the key takeaway from this Microsoft chart, which was shown by the company’s top marketing executive, Chris Capossela, during a presentation this week at the Microsoft Convergence conference in Atlanta.
The relative size of the circles indicates the number of users during the window of time that Microsoft conducted the study. The lines indicate when users of one product are more likely to use another.
“It’s just a little snapshot in time. It’s not the end-all, be-all. I don’t want to reorganize everything around this. But it’s an interesting piece of data,” Capossela said to the crowd, according to a Microsoft transcript. “It shows you that we’ve got a lot of big businesses at Microsoft. Windows is big, IE is big, Office is big, et cetera. But it also shows you that we don’t have nearly the connectivity between our products that Google has engineered and that Apple has engineered.”
This is giving Apple and Google a marketing advantage, he explained.
“If you look at what Apple advertises on TV, at least in the U.S., it’s all iPhone and iPad. And yet you see all the lines that connect their ecosystem,” he said. They can focus their marketing dollars on a very small number of things, be very disciplined, but because they’ve engineered their things to work together, one product naturally leads to the next product without any marketing at all; very efficient marketing to build your marketing into your products.”
Microsoft is aiming to adopt this approach “in a big way,” Capossela said.
He pointed to several early examples, including the ability to click the Surface Pro 3 pen to open OneNote; the integration of Bing into Microsoft’s Cortana digital assistant; and plans to integrate Skype more tightly into Outlook.com.
Referring to the chart, he explained, “The beautiful thing about having lots of lines is that you don’t have to market all of your products. You only market the locomotives. And then when someone uses your locomotive, it pulls along the cabooses.”
Capossela’s speech made national headlines for his comments about the future of Internet Explorer, which upon closer examination were essentially what Microsoft had said in the past. (The company will roll out a new primary browser for Windows 10, code-named “Project Spartan,” under a new name, but continue to offer Internet Explorer, as well.)
But for people seeking to understand where Microsoft is headed under CEO Satya Nadella and his leadership team, Caposella’s talk was valuable for its insights into the company’s competitive mindset.
Another key component of Microsoft’s plan, Capossela explained, is its new freemium strategy. This is a common practice in the tech industry but radical in the context of Microsoft’s history: giving away a product to a large number of customers, broadening the base of users but making money from a smaller percentage of them.
That’s one of the drivers of the news this week that Microsoft is planning to offer Windows 7 and Windows 8 users free upgrades to Windows 10 even if their existing Windows copies aren’t considered “genuine.” (Although that offer to Windows pirates comes with some caveats, according to follow-up reports.)
Another example of Microsoft using the freemium model is the decision to make Office available for free on iOS and Android devices, with Microsoft betting that its business will be better off, ultimately, if more people are using Office, whether or not they’re paying.
“We weren’t making any money on Office on the iPhone or on Android phones, and we’ve had over 40 million downloads of the Office apps on those devices,” Capossela said. “And if you think about the Office business, we do roughly 70, 75 million copies of Office a year. And all of a sudden in less than a year we have 40 million more downloads on phones that weren’t running Office. Amazing. … That’s just a total mindbender in terms of opening up your mind to a different business model that your marketing can really help you advance.”
Notes: Chart via The Verge, from Capossela’s Convergence talk. Read the full transcript here. The video of the session has been taken offline, without explanation.The East India Company was granted the Charter to trade with India
During this time ships belonging to the company arriving in India docked at Surat, which was established as a trade transit point.
One of a pair depicting views of Surat, India, suggesting the healthy maritime trade of a busy Dutch East Indies factory port at the height of its success in the mid 17th century. Dutch merchants had established themselves with monopoly powers in the East Indies and trading stations on the mainland of India and Ceylon. This resulted in considerable hostility between the Dutch and English companies. The artist’s attempt to capture the admixture of familiar ships in the exotic surroundings of a Dutch settlement in India is particularly evocative. The fortified town of Surat can be seen with ships at anchor on the right and centre, and with smaller craft under sail on the left. National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
In the next two years, the Company built its first factory in south India in the town of Machilipatnam on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal.
The East India Company started cultivating Opium in Bengal and Bihar to finance its own private army of almost 2 lakh soldiers. The destruction of food crops in Bengal to make way for opium poppy cultivation for export reduced food availability and contributed to the famine resulting in deaths of 10 million people.
[ Read here for the complete Breakdown of Death Toll of Indian Holocaust caused during the British (Mis)Rule ]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1770
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/f/fiske/john/f54u/chapter9.html
Opium traders after hatching a conspiracy with Siraj-ud-Daulah, Yar Lutuf Khan, Jagat Seths (Mahtab Chand and Swarup Chand), Omichund and Rai Durlabh took over India after The Battle of Plassey establishing company rule in South Asia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Plassey
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagat_Seth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legendary_personalities_in_Bengal
It was Warren Hastings, the first Governor General of India’s, idea to first traffic drugs to China.
The History of the Trial of Warren Hastings
East India Company established a monopoly on Opium trade – and poppy growers in Indian could sell only to the East India Company. Thousands of Bengali, Bihari and Malva Indian farmers were forced to grow Opium.
Britain could no longer afford to buy tea from China in exchange for Silver. Opium was the free and easy option.
At the same time, there was commercial stagnation and trade depression throughout Europe. The directors of the company attempted to avert bankruptcy by appealing to Parliament for financial help. This led to the passing of the Tea Act. The arrival of tax-exempt Company tea, undercutting the local merchants, triggered the Boston Tea Party in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, one of the major events leading up to the American Revolution.
British Queen Victoria was the biggest drug trafficker. Even Queen Victoria used Opium ( Laudanum ), and records exist in the Royal Apothecary at Balmoral, as to how many times Opium was passed on to the royal palace. A lot of British noblemen were Opium eaters.
Now coming to the real question…
But first we need to understand who owned this East India Company.
Also, everyone knows how much gold and gems were looted from India by the East India Company…
…but let’s pause for a moment and ask another question; Whatever happened to all that gold?
Well, to this day it lies in the basement of the Bank of England, which indirectly is the basis for the establishment of almost all of the banking institutions of India and also many around the world.
http://www.jstor.org/pss/4412216
1708
Moses Montefiore and Nathan Mayer Rothschild loaned the British Treasury £3,200,000 (used to service the debt owed the privately operated Bank of England operated by Nathan Mayer Rothschild), in return for an exclusive grant of trading privileges with all countries of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, between Cape Horn and Cape Good Hope for the newly chartered joint stock corporation which Rothschild controlled – the British East India Company. They always operate through joint stock corporations in order to conceal their ownership and avoid personal responsibility.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses_Montefiore
Excrept from ‘The Romance of the Rothschilds‘ by IGNATIUS BALLA (Page 79)
” When I settled in London,” Nathan Rothschild continued, ” the East India Company had eight hundred thousand pounds’ worth of gold to sell.
I went to the sale and bought it all. I knew the Duke of Wellington must have it; I had bought a great many of his bills at a discount.
The Government sent for me and said that they must have it. When they had got it, they did not know how to get it to Portugal.
I undertook all that, and sent it through France. It was the best business that I have ever done.”
It should be kept in mind that it was the House of Rothschild who summoned Adam Weishaupt to begin and organize the formation of the Illuminati. In simple words the Illuminati through it’s initiates would infiltrate all aspects and organisations of human society and get into the key positions to exercise enough influence so as to bring about the New World Order.
1844
The Bank Charter Act was passed under the government of Robert Peel, which restricted the powers of British banks and gave exclusive note-issuing powers to the central Bank of England.
This meant that the Rothschilds were able to control more, because all the banks were now forced to use Bank of England notes, instead of their own.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_Charter_Act_1844
George Warde Norman was a Director of the Bank of England from 1821 to 1872, a key figure behind the Bank Charter Act of 1844. His vision was of increased human happiness through a wholesale reform of the revenue system founded upon direct taxation in the form of a comprehensive property tax.
1851/1853
Later The Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China was founded in London by Scotsman James Wilson following the grant of a Royal Charter from Queen Victoria.
The bank’s business dealt specifically with large volume discounting and re-discounting of opium and cotton bills. Although opium cultivation gradually increased in China, opium imports still increased from 50,087 picul in 1863 to 82,61 picul in 1888.
1859
James Wilson (founder of The Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China) was sent to India to establish the tax structure, a new paper currency and remodel the finance system of India after the revolt of 1857.
He is known as the forefather of the Indian Tax structure.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Wilson_%28UK_politician%29
Transactions in the opium trade generated substantial profits for Chartered bank.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartered_Bank_of_India,_Australia_and_China
The same year (1853) The Mercantile Bank of India, London and China was established in Bombay by the Parsis who were the middle men (drug runners) (will be addressed in the next post) for the East India Company.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercantile_Bank_of_India,_London_and_China
Later, the Bank also became one of the principal foreign banknote issuing institutions in Shanghai; which we know today as the HSBC Bank.
http://www.hsbc.co.in/1/2/miscellaneous/about-hsbc/150-years-in-india
Chartered Bank merged with the Standard Bank in 1969, and the combined bank became the Standard Chartered Bank.
That same year the Government of India nationalized Allahabad Bank.
http://www.standardchartered.com/about-us/history/en/index.html
http://www.allahabadbank.com/about_us.asp
State Bank of India
The SBI’s origins lay in Calcutta – the then capital of British India – when it was born as the Bank of Calcutta on June 2, 1806, mainly to fund General Wellesley’s wars against Tipu Sultan and the Marathas. It was renamed Bank of Bengal on January 2, 1809. Similar joint stock banks, the Bank of Bombay and Bank of Madras, came up in 1840 and 1843, respectively.
In 1921
these banks with their 70 branches were merged to form the Imperial Bank of India. After Independence, several state-owned banks were merged with the Imperial Bank of India to form the State Bank of India in 1955. It is still known as State Bank of India.
RESERVE BANK OF INDIA
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) was conceptualized as per the guidelines, working style and outlook presented by Dr Ambedkar (as we’re told, however the genesis lay somewhere else which will be discussed in the next post – Genesis of Reserve Bank of India) in front of the Hilton Young Commission. When this commission came to India under the name of “Royal Commission on Indian Currency & Finance”, each and every member of this commission were holding Dr Ambedkar’s book named “The Problem of the Rupee – It’s origin and it’s solution.”
An excerpt from – The Problem of the Rupee – It’s origin and it’s solution by Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar.
(CHAPTER V – FROM A GOLD STANDARD TO A GOLD EXCHANGE STANDARD)
“When the standard of value is standard metallic money the expansion cannot be very great, for the cost of production acts as a sufficient limiting influence. When a standard of value is a convertible paper money the provisions as to reserve act as a check on its expansion. But when a standard of value consists of a money the value of which is greater than its cost and is inconvertible, the currency |
reaction, quite honestly, was: ‘No bloody way. I won’t be reminded of Christopher every time I hear somebody talk about this legislation,’ ” Jim recalls. “But my wife felt very differently about it. She thought that naming the legislation in Christopher’s memory would mean that something positive would come out of what he had suffered.” Jim relented. On April 23, 2001, “Christopher’s Law” took effect, making Ontario the first jurisdiction in Canada to boast a sex offender registry.
On a strictly technical level, the Ontario registry is undeniably impressive. Inclusion is mandatory, and sex crimes investigators anywhere in the province can see exactly how many people in their region are compliant (offenders must sign in every year and every time they move). If a person is one second overdue, the system automatically issues a red flag. It also records dozens of different descriptive features, such as height, weight, nicknames and tattoos. Based on a single clue — a scar on the left cheek, for instance — investigators can scan for suspects. They can also search by geographic area, generating a map and a list of all offenders who live within, say, two square kilometres of a crime scene.
Harris was so impressed with his government’s creation that he offered the software to the feds, free of charge. They didn’t bite. The Liberals insisted that CPIC — the central computer that contains criminal records, and is available in all police cruisers — was more than adequate (this, despite the fact that no one, including sex offenders, are compelled to update their contact information on CPIC). Undeterred, Harris shifted the offer to his fellow premiers. It soon became clear that if the feds didn’t create a countrywide registry, the provinces would build their own.
The Liberals had no choice but to act. Lawrence MacAulay, then the solicitor general, announced a $2-million plan to overhaul CPIC. The changes, he said, will allow police to search for sex offenders based on name, address or description — but it still wouldn’t force offenders to update their addresses and phone numbers. That same day, a group of provincial ministers held their own press conference, denouncing MacAulay’s plan. “Everybody said: ‘This is going to be the front-page story in Canada tomorrow,’ ” recalls David Turnbull, then the solicitor general of Ontario. “It wasn’t. As I walked back into the hotel, someone said: ‘Have you seen what’s on television?’ ” It was Sept. 11, 2001.
In an instant, national security became the only item on the federal agenda. To his credit, though, MacAulay agreed to meet the Stephensons a few weeks after 9/11. “There was some shouting and screaming, but he gave us an hour and a half of his time,” Jim recalls. “However, he stated categorically that his government was opposed to a sex offender registry and he would have no part of it.”
Turnbull kept badgering his federal colleagues, and by Christmas, numerous provinces were ready to accept Harris’s offer. Under increasing pressure, MacAulay promised to elaborate on his CPIC plan at a meeting of justice ministers in Moncton. But when that day came — Feb. 13, 2002 — he stunned the audience instead: the feds, he said, are going to build their own registry.
“It was political posturing, straight and simple,” says Terry Nicholls, a retired Ontario Provincial Police staff sergeant who managed the Ontario registry. “It was to pacify everybody and allow the then-Liberal government to say: ‘We now have a national sex offender registry.’ And nobody has asked any questions since.”
As soon as the news broke, Turnbull phoned Jim Stephenson. He, too, was floored. “Anna and I were a little bit reluctant to support it, other than to say it’s a good news announcement and we’ll wait and see what actually results from it,” he says. Today, Christopher’s father remains unimpressed with the results. “The public believes there is a national sex offender registry,” he says. “But it is not a national registry. It is a notional registry.”
“In retrospect, to do this over again I think we probably would have done it a lot differently,” Glenn Woods says. Now retired after 35 years with the Mounties, Supt. Woods was in charge of the RCMP’s Behavioural Sciences Branch when the Liberals changed their minds. The marching orders fell on his desk: build a sex offender registry from scratch.
From the outset, the only sure thing was that Ottawa had no intention of borrowing Ontario’s system. The Justice Department crafted its own legislation, collecting input from the Federal/Provincial/Territorial (FPT) High-Risk Offenders Working Group. It was a secretive process, full of compromise and concessions, but Woods and his staff — the people who would build and maintain the registry — had little say in the process. “There wasn’t a whole lot of consultation with police,” Woods says now. “How do you enact legislation that involves the RCMP or any police organization without getting them in to ask: ‘How do you plan on implementing this?’ ”
The Sex Offender Information Registration Act (SOIRA) was tabled in the House of Commons on Dec. 11, 2002. The bill died a year later, but was reintroduced in 2004. Days before it resurfaced in the House, Woods participated in a video conference with police from every province and territory. Also on the line were Cliff Yumansky, a Public Safety bureaucrat, and Doug Hoover, a Justice official. According to the minutes, obtained by Maclean’s, many officers were unimpressed with the legislation. “How can police monitor compliance if most cops can’t access the system?” “Why are offenders allowed to leave home for two weeks and not tell anyone?”
Hoover said “the police perspective is only one perspective,” and that their concerns would be better dealt with after the law is passed. “Police agencies, I hope, if given a bowl of lemons will make lemonade and make it sweeter as time goes by,” he said.
When the system was introduced on Dec. 15, 2004, the press release didn’t say anything about lemons. Nor did it mention that the official unveiling had to be postponed by 2½ months because the RCMP was still scrambling to build the database.
Still, at $2 million for start-up costs and an annual budget of $400,000, Ottawa had found an inexpensive answer to years of criticism. Unlike the much-maligned gun registry, which has cost the feds more than a billion dollars, this registry is a trickle-down operation. The bulk of the costs — and the work — falls on the provinces, territories and municipalities.
Each of the 13 regions houses one central registry office run by the RCMP, except in Ontario (the OPP) and Quebec (the Sûreté du Québec). Nearly 800 other police stations are secondary registration sites. When an offender is ordered onto the list, he must report to one of those detachments and provide basic facts, including name, aliases, height, addresses and phone numbers. A photograph is also snapped. That information is then forwarded to the central registry office in that province or territory, where the details are entered into the database. Offenders are obligated to report every year, and every time they move. Breaching those rules could cost them $10,000 or six months behind bars.
The registry’s main purpose is to help police locate suspects. It has dozens of search options, including description, offence type, and even odour. (A victim might not be able to describe her attacker’s face, but might remember the unmistakable smell of gasoline on his clothes.) The system can also search by location, although it’s not as precise as the Ontario registry. The national searches by postal code, not by specific distance to a crime scene.
There is another big difference: unlike in Ontario, inclusion on the national registry is not mandatory. A prosecutor must apply for an order (a Form 52), and a judge can refuse. As the RCMP wrote in that memo to Day: “There is a fear that some offenders who do pose a risk are falling through the cracks.”
Last year, the Mounties tried to pin down the exact figures. Using court statistics, they estimated that in 2006, 3,563 people were convicted of a sex crime. Of those, just 2,066 (58 per cent) were ordered onto the registry. That means every single day, four new sex offenders are spared the hassle of reporting. “It is a very, very false sense of comfort,” says Nicholls, the OPP officer. “We don’t even know what percentage are getting on.”
When they drafted the rules, the feds were rightfully worried about Charter challenges. Months before the national system went live, Abraham Dyck, a sex offender in Ontario, convinced a court that Christopher’s Law is unconstitutional because it paints all offenders — from flashers to rapists — with the same brush. Ottawa didn’t want to be hit with a similar judgment, so it adopted a series of controversial safety nets. An offender can avoid registering altogether if he can prove that the personal impact will be “grossly disproportionate to the public interest.” A long-distance trucker, for example, didn’t have to check in because his job makes it “impossible” to tell police where he is at all times.
But in 2005, the Dyck decision was overturned by a higher court judge, who said Ontario’s automatic rule places a “modest” but necessary burden on offenders. Justice P.B. Hambly also suggested that the national registry is the weaker of the two. “There is a danger that judges get caught up in the intellectual exercise of applying the standard for exemption set out in the legislation and lose sight of basic common sense,” he wrote. The Dyck case is now before the Ontario Court of Appeal, but whatever the result, Hambly’s prediction rings true. Judges have refused to register countless sex offenders for reasons that defy basic common sense.
Ian Have, whose computer was loaded with child porn, is not on the national database because a judge decided that such hideous material is “not a crime of a sexual nature.” An Alberta man broke into a home, stripped naked, and “fondled” a woman and her 10-year-old daughter, but he, too, isn’t on the registry. Neither is G.S., a 38-year-old man who molested his stepson, told him he would “get it” if he tattled, then ran away.
Judges don’t deserve all the blame. Prosecutors often neglect to ask the court for authorization. One of the most disturbing oversights involved a repeat pedophile from B.C. who molested his six-year-old daughter, among others. At sentencing, the Crown didn’t raise the registry issue. When the judge asked why, he replied: “I forgot.”
For all those offenders who fall through the cracks, there are thousands of others who were never included in the first place. The registry was not designed to be retroactive. As of Dec. 15, 2004, everyone listed on the Ontario database, and any other sex offender currently serving a sentence, was ordered to comply. But loads of other known criminals, Whitmore included, were left off the list. Many had finished their sentences by 2004, and therefore didn’t qualify. And in Whitmore’s case, he was in jail for breaching probation, not for committing a sex crime.
Irrational or not, the decision still left police with a monumental task. They had to personally serve every qualified offender — more than 10,500 people — with a written notice to comply (a Form 53). Finding a current address often required the same legwork as solving a crime. In Alberta, police identified 680 eligible offenders; 27 were never found. In B.C., hundreds of Form 53 notices were returned as “unopened/non-deliverable.”
The process consumed countless hours of manpower, but the biggest frustration was not the offenders. It was the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC). Many criminals ordered onto the registry were — and still are — serving prison terms. Yet the federal corrections department refuses to tell registry staff when those people finish their sentences. In meeting after meeting, CSC reps have told the RCMP that neither SOIRA, nor any other law, allows them to share that information directly with the registry. Local prison officials have agreed to provide release dates for offenders serving time in provincial institutions, but the CSC remains unwilling to budge when it comes to federal inmates. “There is no systemic process in place to ensure that the information gets to the provincial sex offender registry centres, increasing the chance of error,” says one RCMP report. “Without this information, it is not possible to properly monitor the compliance of these offenders.”
By December 2005, the program’s one-year anniversary, the Mounties encountered yet another glitch — the direct result of Ottawa’s unwillingness to copy Ontario’s software. The OPP suddenly had 12 new computer terminals linked to the national registry, but they also maintained their own system, a completely distinct piece of technology. Rather than manually retype thousands of files into the national mainframe, the OPP asked the RCMP to create an electronic interface that could transfer data between both networks.
From day one, the interface was a disaster. It was supposed to take six weeks to build; it took almost four months. When it finally went online, things only got worse. Almost 5,000 records were transferred from the Ontario to the national, but half were “rejected for various reasons.” The RCMP also discovered that OPP officers, unable to pinpoint an offence date for many files, decided to type “Jan. 11, 1911” instead. Up to 2,000 records had to be corrected.
While staff fixed kink after kink, other regions began “expressing signs of displeasure with what appears to be a complete devotion to one province at the expense of all others.” By February 2006 — 14 months after the national registry went live, and just weeks after Harper’s Conservatives won the election — the system was nothing more than a big pile of information with limited search capabilities. “The RCMP stands to be embarrassed if the NSOR database continues to have only limited functionality,” wrote Melissa Martineau, then the registry’s manager.
Her boss, Insp. Art Crockett, wrote his own memo to superiors. After months of “crippling” delays, he said the interface should be scrapped. “Although we state that the [registry] was implemented in 2004, there are those who would suggest that the registry cannot be deemed as being rolled out as a completed system until the data can be collected, analysed, searched and retrieved with logical and informative system-generated reports.”
The Mounties still can’t do that. But they did pull the plug on the interface.
“We’re very good at keeping them on their toes,” says Dan Noordman, a constable with the Winnipeg city police. Dressed in a black fleece and a bulletproof vest, Noordman is sitting behind the wheel of a brown Lincoln Towncar, steering through the downtown side streets near Portage and Main. His partner, Kurtis Pillipow, is in the passenger seat, flipping through tonight’s agenda.
“The fact that we’re checking enforces the notion that we’re monitoring this, and it’s not just some phantom computer,” Pillipow says. “We are out knocking on doors.”
Pillipow, an RCMP investigator, and Noordman are both assigned to Manitoba’s Integrated High Risk Sex Offender Unit, a task force that monitors dozens of remorseless, violent criminals who have served their time. The unit also maintains the NSOR. Again, each person must report once a year, but in Manitoba, police also make surprise house calls. “We are diligent in that,” says Sgt. Dave McInnis, who runs the centre. “Without that, there is no sense having a database.”
Indeed, a sex offender registry is only as valuable as it is accurate. Yet while some regions, like Manitoba, consider it a top priority to knock on doors and say hello, thousands of offenders in other parts of Canada have never been visited by a police officer. Only now, three years later, is that slowly starting to change. “There are certain provinces that have to do a lot more, but that’s up to them to say that,” says Gary McLennan, a retired RCMP sergeant who implemented the registry in Saskatchewan.
All told, almost 1,300 of the 16,000 people listed on the national registry (eight per cent) have disappeared. That may seem encouraging. After all, that means 92 per cent are doing what they’re told. But remember, thousands of convicted offenders are not on the registry — and that number gets bigger every single day. Where those people are living right now is anybody’s guess.
Even if you ignore that fact, the whole notion of a “compliance rate” is still misleading. In its 2006 update, Saskatchewan claimed 93 per cent compliance. “But that statistic is very skewed and definitely does not speak to the work that is required,” the report notes. As McLennan says: “A person might have been non-compliant for two months, but we couldn’t locate him. Then one day the light goes on and he walks into Regina city police and registers. But for two months he roamed the streets.”
Realistically, a person can provide one address, then live somewhere else unless the law comes knocking. The registry is an honour system, dependent on the goodwill of convicted sex offenders.
That said, the system is so badly designed that it actually encourages defiance. A provincial centre can check on offenders who live in that city. But if they want to verify an address for someone who lives 400 km away, they must ask the local police force. Unlike in Ontario — where many cities have a unit solely dedicated to monitoring compliance — cops in Lethbridge, Alta., or Victoria can’t log onto the system themselves. They must wait for the centre to forward a list of offenders who live in their postal codes.
And that doesn’t always happen. Take New Brunswick. Officials are trying to institute mandatory door-knocks, and between May and September they forwarded 156 requests to local police. Only 59 checks — barely one-third — were completed. Most officers are just too busy to visit registered sex offenders.
Enforcement efforts across the country are equally inconsistent. In the first half of 2007, 98 people were charged with non-compliance. Most of those cases (84) were in three provinces: B.C., Saskatchewan and Manitoba. In Quebec, where 480 offenders are missing, only one was criminally charged. Authorities in Alberta, despite having 201 non-compliant offenders, laid just two charges. Page Eisworth, the Alberta coordinator, said it comes down to one problem: “Resources. I get that a lot from the field, and I wouldn’t be supporting them if I didn’t voice that.”
Wait a few more years, when the registry is expected to double in size. That’s a lot of random door-knocks that won’t get done — and a lot of Rolodexes.
And that should disturb Canadians more than anything: the database itself is unable to monitor compliance. If the RCMP knows when a person is scheduled to register, it’s not because the computer tells them. The law simply doesn’t allow the Mounties to record that information on the database.
The Ontario registry isn’t perfect, either. Last month, the provincial auditor general revealed some serious flaws: some offenders have been missing for years, files are incomplete, and budget cash was misspent. But at least the Ontario version resembles a modern piece of technology. It is a one-stop shop for instant statistics, minus the paper trail. On Oct. 23 at 6:45 a.m., there were exactly 7,908 active files. Of those, 495 were in breach of the rules, for an overall compliance rate of 93.74 per cent. Three weeks later, the compliance rate was up to 94.06 per cent (7,923 offenders; 470 non-compliant).
If the Prime Minister wanted up-to-the-minute numbers from the national registry, it would take a few weeks. “The information is recoverable now, although it would be complex,” says Insp. Andréa Sloan, the RCMP officer who, up until a few weeks ago, was in charge of the registry. “We are waiting to have a better system in place.”
They have been waiting — and complaining — for three years. In 2006, Harper’s government introduced Bill S-3, a law that ensures Canadian soldiers court-martialled for sex crimes are added to the registry. Again, much the pre-draft debate occurred behind closed doors. And again, the RCMP felt shut out. In a memo written to the deputy commissioner, Supt. Woods said “the working relationship between [Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada] and those in the RCMP charged with the implementation of SOIRA is strained and remains the single most challenging issue for the success of this investigative tool for Canadian law enforcement.”
The Mounties were so unimpressed with Bill S-3 that they crafted their own list of concerns for the FPT committee. Obtained by Maclean’s, it is a reality check for anyone who still believes the registry is a high-tech success.
For one, the bill won’t mean the end of Rolodexes or calendars. The computer still can’t record “next expected reporting date,” which means the Mounties aren’t able to build an electronic flagging system. The bill also doesn’t include an “effective date” beside each address and phone number. “There is no way of knowing if an offender lived in a specific area during a specified period of time,” they wrote. “It is only reasonable that police have the information to determine which of numerous addresses recorded for the offender is their current place of residence.”
Bill S-3 is now law. It included none of the RCMP’s key recommendations.
The Mounties are stuck in the middle of two battles. While they beg Ottawa for much-needed improvements, they’re also trying to convince detectives that the registry is actually useful. Each provincial centre is available 24 hours a day to conduct a search, but many front-line cops still feel the same way: if I can’t access the system myself, what good is it?
“That is an education problem we’ve identified,” Sloan says. “The question of access is sometimes a confusing one within the law enforcement community. We have been careful to respect the two founding principles of the law, which is balancing the privacy of the offender with the release of quick information, as appropriate.”
Appropriate is the key word. There are so many occasions on which the registry can’t be used that many cops don’t bother. Police must be investigating a crime of a sexual nature. An attempted rape would warrant a search. So would a case like Stephenson’s, where a witness saw the boy being dragged away from the mall. But what if a child goes missing and there is no sign of an abduction? The law doesn’t provide such detailed direction, and authorities seem split on the answer. “Are we going to wait for the body to show before we use the benefits of the sex offender registry?” asks Cpl. Dave Ward of the New Brunswick registry centre. “I would hope not.”
One thing is clear. The database cannot be used proactively. Police must be dealing with a crime that has already occurred. A suspicious man near a playground isn’t enough.
In theory, Ottawa’s obsession with privacy is understandable. These offenders have paid their debts to society. But as hard as the feds try, it is impossible to shield the identity of every single one. The media regularly reports the latest case of a person added to the system, as do courthouse websites.
Thierry Jacques, a former Mountie, appears on the registry. He was convicted in Saskatchewan after ejaculating on a female prisoner. Marcello Ianni’s name is also there. A 20-year-old from London, Ont., he attacked a female gas station attendant. The list goes on and on: Maluak Jock Gai, a Sudanese immigrant who had sex with a 10-year-old mentally retarded girl in Alberta; James Fairweather, a Boy Scout leader charged with distributing child porn; Justin Raven, who beat a Winnipeg woman with a broomstick, raped her, then tossed her pants into the garbage.
Ask the RCMP, though, and they won’t confirm that any of these men are actually on the registry. For privacy reasons.
In fact, the Mounties are so handcuffed by Ottawa’s privacy fixation that they are afraid to disclose the names of non-compliant offenders. The practical reality is ridiculous: if you’re a drunk driver or a drug dealer, your name will end up in a police press release. If you’re a sex offender who hasn’t registered on time, you’ll be spared the embarrassment.
Maclean’s asked the RCMP to release the names of missing sex offenders. We didn’t ask for a list of all 1,200 — just the blatant violators who were charged with non-compliance and have a warrant out for their arrest. The Mounties refused. When Maclean’s submitted a formal Access to Information request, registry officials did cobble together a list of warrants, but again, the force declined to hand it over. Privacy rights, they said.
Maclean’s has appealed the decision to the information commissioner of Canada.
“I am serving a 3½-year sentence for one count of sexual exploitation,” Ralph says, leaning forward in his chair. “I’m here for molesting my daughter.”
Ralph (not his real name) is polite and well-spoken, a former soldier with an unblemished career in uniform. Until the truth emerged. For the past eight months, Ralph has lived at the Alberta Hospital Edmonton, a psychiatric facility that houses the Phoenix Program, one of Canada’s most renowned treatment options for sex offenders. “I’m going to struggle for the rest of my life with my behaviour,” says Leo, another inmate (numerous patients agreed to speak on the condition that their real names not be published). “But I want to spend the rest of my life acting like an adult and a respectable member of society.”
Despite popular myth — that all sex offenders are incurable monsters — the majority of people like Ralph and Leo will re-enter society and never strike again. A recent study of 4,700 offenders found that after 15 years, fewer than one-quarter were rearrested for another sex crime. Those who undergo treatment are even less likely to reoffend.
But scientific logic doesn’t generate headlines — or, in many cases, good government policy. In 2006, the feds hired Jim Coflin, a former bureaucrat, to examine the registry’s implementation. His report mentions some of the concerns raised by police, but it is more of a progress update than an evaluation of the legislation. In an interview, however, Coflin is much more frank. “I have yet to see any solid evidence that [registries] actually assist in investigations,” he says. “If they were that effective, it would seem to me that the authorities would want to put that forward.”
He’s right. As of today, Canada’s national sex offender registry has yet to solve a single crime. The same is true of the Ontario system.
Put aside the most basic fact — that a small percentage of sex offenders actually repeat their crimes — and there are still many other myths on which registries are built. For one, it is merely a collection of some known offenders, and the bulk are first-time criminals. In those cases, there is nothing a registry can do to either save their victims or solve the crime. The Ontario database didn’t help Holly Jones, the 10-year-old Toronto girl who was kidnapped from her home in May 2003. Nor nine-year-old Cecilia Zhang, abducted and murdered five months later. Their killers — Michael Briere and Min Chen — were first-time offenders. “The stats are really, really clear,” says Robin J. Wilson, a clinical psychologist who works with sex offenders. “If you are going to be offended by anyone, it will be by someone you know, most likely in your own home, and that person is not going to be on a sex offender registry.”
Wilson is not naive. He knows full well that some sex offenders are unrepentant and untreatable. But he also believes the registry is more of a public relations tool than a crime-fighting tool, and that resources would be better spent on prevention, treatment, and bolstering some of the safeguards already in place to deal with the worst of the worst.
Police chiefs have the power to warn the public if a prolific sex offender is back on the streets. Canada has dangerous offender legislation, which allows for indefinite jail terms (think Paul Bernardo). If that doesn’t apply, prosecutors can also seek 810 peace bonds, like the one Whitmore was under.
Of course, none of those systems are foolproof, either. Whitmore’s peace bond expired after he left B.C., and nobody seemed in any rush to renew it. But that doesn’t mean the entire Section 810 system is pointless; it means the system needs to be improved. Same goes for the national sex offender registry.
“There is more to it than strictly the numbers,” Jim Stephenson says. He should know. Since his son was killed, he has visited dozens of sex offenders as part of a restorative justice program. “They know who I am,” he says. Many have told Jim how much they appreciate the fact that someone is keeping an eye on them. Some have thought twice about reoffending solely because they’re listed on a registry, he says. “How do you measure success? When people start saying they don’t have any statistics to bear out the success, they’re being led down the wrong path.”
Every flaw that’s crippling the registry will be instantly forgotten if the system saves the next Christopher Stephenson. If police use the database to rescue a kidnapped child, or arrest a rapist, who could call it a failure?
But that “if” works both ways. As the RCMP wrote to Stockwell Day in 2006, it will take just one negative case to expose all the problems. What if that stranger outside a school — the one whose description can’t be searched on the database — comes back and abducts a student? What if an offender leaves his house for a week, commits a crime in another province, then returns undetected? Or that child pornographer — the one who wasn’t added to the registry — acts on his fetish?
Maclean’s wanted to discuss some of those questions with senior officials in both the federal Department of Justice and the Public Safety ministry. Both interview requests were declined. Instead, Day’s press secretary, Mélisa Leclerc, provided an email response to a list of written questions. “Concerns related to the limitations in the legislation have been raised by law enforcement,” she wrote. “Issues that were known at the time of drafting Bill S-3, and on which there was national consensus, were addressed.”
As for specific shortcomings (no proactive use, the 15-day rule, discretionary inclusion), she wrote: “These are important and valid concerns. Our government is prepared to examine options to ensure that any loopholes are closed... While the previous government may have seen the registry as primarily a public relations exercise, we regard it as a critical tool and will work with law enforcement agencies and the provinces and territories to strengthen it as required.”
For Jim Stephenson, that can’t happen soon enough. As he knows better than anyone: “It takes something really, really ugly before people start to get their heads together and say there should be changes.”Steven Boyle Will Be Your New Crush When You See Him In Action
OK, poetry readings make us a little nervous. There’s always that distinct chance you may end up witnessing a car crash in slow motion.
But Steven James Boyle certainly didn’t cause any casualties when he performed his spoken word “I Hit Send, or Modern Meltdown” to a small and lucky crowd in what appears to be the basement of a public library. We heard that’s where Bruce Springsteen got his start, too.
Move over, Susan, there’s a new Boyle in town.
It also doesn’t hurt that he’s nice to look at, making us wonder how on Earth he could have experienced the amount of unrequited love he talks about in the poem.
Steven, we’re sure we could line up some dates for you.
Watch it here:
And as if that’s not enough, here’s some of Steven’s Instagram feed to seal the deal:According to the latest data from IDC, Google, for the first time ever, has overtaken Apple in United States schools. The research firm claims that Google shipped 715,000 Chromebooks to schools in the third quarter, while Apple shipped 702,000 iPads to schools. Chromebooks as a whole now account for a quarter of the educational market (via FT).
Samsung U28E590D 28-Inch 4K Monitor
IDC says that the lower cost of Chromebooks when compared to iPads is a huge factor for school districts. Chromebooks start at $199, while last year’s iPad Air, with educational discounts applied, costs $379. The research firm also says that many school corporations prefer the full keyboard found on Chromebooks instead of the touchscreen found on iPads. Some schools that use iPads, however, supply students with a keyboard case as well, but that only further increases the cost of iPads compared to Chromebooks. IT departments also tend to favor Chromebooks because they are simpler to manage when compared to iPads.
Regarding the shift this quarter, IDC analyst Rajani Singh had the following to say:
“Chromebooks are really gaining traction. The growth of Chromebook is a major concern for Apple’s iPad. As the average age of the student grows the need for a keyboard becomes very important.”
Apple, back in 2013, worked diligently with the Los Angeles Unified School District to supply every student with an iPad. The deal fell apart, however, over how the iPads would be given to students and the fact that students were figuring out how to bypass restrictions. The Los Angeles Unified School District has since supplied students with Chromebooks and Windows laptops.
Chromebooks have consistently been among the most popular and highest rated laptops on Amazon since their initial release. The Acer C720 is currently the best selling laptop on Amazon with a 4 and a half star rating from more than 2,600 reviews.
IDC notes, though, that Apple still has the largest selection of educational apps on its App Store, with more than 75,000 currently available. The company also has iTunes U, which allows teachers and professors to share lectures and create custom courses. Google, last year, launched its competitor to iTunes U and the App Store in Google Play for Education. Play for Education is simply a customized version of the Play Store with only educational apps.Git for Windows focuses on offering a lightweight, native set of tools that bring the full feature set of the Git SCM to Windows while providing appropriate user interfaces for experienced Git users and novices alike.
Git BASH
Git for Windows provides a BASH emulation used to run Git from the command line. *NIX users should feel right at home, as the BASH emulation behaves just like the "git" command in LINUX and UNIX environments.
Git GUI
As Windows users commonly expect graphical user interfaces, Git for Windows also provides the Git GUI, a powerful alternative to Git BASH, offering a graphical version of just about every Git command line function, as well as comprehensive visual diff tools.
Shell Integration
Simply right-click on a folder in Windows Explorer to access the BASH or GUI.LAROSE, La.--Bobby Pitre dabbed paint onto a canvas inside the Southern Sting Tattoo Parlor and talked about the man-made disaster that threatens the only way of life he's ever known.
Except for an assignment in a high-school art class, Pitre, 33, had never painted a portrait until an oil rig operated by BP exploded on April 20, sending millions of gallons of crude pouring into the Gulf of Mexico.
Since then, he's painted several, including one of BP CEO Tony Hayward with buck teeth and donkey ears.
"I was in a bad place. That's why I started painting these," he said recently. "This is my way of screaming to people."
Pitre's art has become an outlet for his rage. Income at the tattoo parlor is down 50% since the spill. Unemployed sailors and oil workers don't spend money on tattoos.
But his anger is about more than money.
"I could go anywhere in the world and make a living," he said. "But I don't want to. This is my home."
His largest piece so far, done in cooperation with an artist friend, is a mixed-media tableau splashed across the exterior of the tattoo parlor at a bend on Louisiana Highway 1, a busy corridor to the Gulf. Dark and desperate, the mural incorporates a bloody torso and a wraith, cloaked in oily black and bearing a BP logo, extending its arms in a deadly embrace toward an outline of the Gulf Coast.
"You killed our Gulf... our way of life!" reads the message at the top.
MAP: Environmental impacts of the oil spill
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PHOTOS: Oil gushing in the Gulf of Mexico
Pitre's family has lived in the bayou for generations. His father and grandfather worked in the fishing and oil industries. Before opening the tattoo parlor, Pitre worked as a welder and pipefitter. But he also spent plenty of time on the water.
"I was born and raised on a trawler boat," he said. "If you were an able body, you went to work on a shrimp boat."
Like many in Southeast Louisiana, Pitre feels bound to the land by generations of family history. Like many of his neighbors, he fears environmental and economic disaster could force him to leave.
If he does, what will he become?
"To be a Cajun you have to do the things a Cajun does," he said. "If you don't, then you are someone else. I guess you will turn into a northerner."
Outside, tattoo parlor employee Derek Matherne, 35, pulls on a cigarette and watches a downpour spawned by Tropical Storm Alex, which later became a hurricane.
"I've been working for nine years with that man and I don't think I've ever seen him more passionate," he said of his boss, who was readying another biting pictorial attack on Hayward. "I've been letting him scream for me."
Matherne is screamed out. In fact, he's looking to leave Southeast Louisiana altogether.
His buddies inside the tattoo shop joke that Matherne has threatened for years to leave the city of about 7,000 people. Matherne insists this time he's serious.
"I'm not going to chance it. I'm tired of running from the hurricanes," he said. "I'm going to get the house fixed up before the property value goes down. I don't know too many people who want to live in an oil-infested swamp."
Matherne has been married for a dozen years and has five children. He's looking for a place that would nurture |
inches
Beverly Hills 2.39 inches
Costa Mesa 1.1 inches
Downtown Los Angeles 2.28 inches
Eagle Rock Reservoir 2.6 inches
Fullerton 1.13 inches
Hollywood Reservoir 2.01 inches
Huntington Beach 0.89 inches
Laguna Beach 0.9 inches
Los Angeles International Airport 1.62 inches
Long Beach 1.03 inches
Pasadena 2.64 inches
Redondo Beach 1.28 inches
Santa Monica 1.68 inches
Santa Ana 1.14 inches
Sierra Madre 2.39 inches
Torrance 1.11 inches
Van Nuys 2.6 inchesFacebook Part of ALEC
Facebook plans to power 25 percent of its operations with renewable energy sources, informed Bill Weihl, a representative of the social media giant; however, last year, it joined the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a powerful lobbying organization that actively seeks to “roll back renewable power standards that support Facebook’s targets,” reports Brad Johnson of Grist magazine, a nonprofit news source that mainly delivers news related to the environment.
According to a quote by Johnson in an article by Tim Worstall on Forbes’ website, ALEC is a nationwide lobbying group that connects conservative corporations to state-level Republican legislators. Worstall asserts that companies have to join lobbying groups from all sides in order to influence politicians from all spectrums – maybe to prevent them from doing something stupid that would undermine the companies’ goals. However, if that was the case, then why did the representative of Facebook, Bill Weihl, not say so on a forum on the Internet industry’s support for green energy, which is part of what Johnson is questioning.
Not only is Facebook a member of ALEC, but so is Google. Johnson reports that representatives from Google and Facebook could not explain why their companies belong to powerful lobbying organizations that oppose their mission of using renewable energy sources.
The forum, held at the San Francisco Exploratorium last year by the environmental organization Greenpeace, titled “Greening the Internet,” allowed several companies, such as Google and Facebook, to express why their companies are committed to renewable energy when it comes to powering their data centers, informs Johnson.
However, Brad Johnson, the editor and publisher of Hill Heat, a website that covers environmental issues in the realm of politics, asked during the forum the following question: “…As kind of a failed climate scientist, I’ve dedicated my life to fighting climate change, and you’re actually getting real results in that. One thing that concerns me is that the American Legislative Exchange Council — which is a corporate group that anyone who is a member of Greenpeace or has read anything of their work [knows] — works to block renewable energy legislation at the state level, question the science of climate change, and basically establish policies that prevent the kind of work that you’re doing. So I’m wondering why Google and Facebook are members of this organization, and how it makes you feel that the work that you’re doing is essentially being countered by the political arms of your own groups?”
In response to Johnson’s probing, Weihl stated the following: “We’re not an advocacy or a single-issue organization. We’re a company. We are members of many different organizations, that one included. We don’t necessarily agree with everything that these organizations says and certainly individual employees may not, but we do an enormous amount of good, and we’re really proud of the work we’ve done through other organizations. We work with Greenpeace, [Businesses for Social Responsibility], [World Resources Institute], [World Wildlife Fund], and etc.” What is the point of mentioning Facebook’s work with those organizations since they would likely oppose the use of Facebook’s membership to ALEC. Greenpeace certainly does.
Johnson points out that Greenpeace simultaneously challenges ALEC’s agenda, blows the whistle on companies like Google for supporting the politics of climate denial, and encourages internet companies to “clean the cloud.” Greenpeace considers political advocacy a major component when scoring companies for their “Cool IT” rankings. Google outscored all other tech companies in 2012, which Johnson reveals was partly due to the fact companies like Microsoft and AT&T were members of ALEC.
Brad Johnson reported on Hill Heat what Google representative Gary Demasi stated during a panel about climate change: “The DNA of Google isn’t just about being an environmental steward…It’s a basic fundamental issue for the company.” Like Weihl, Demasi was unable to explain why Google was a member of ALEC, Johnson informs, even though “[Demasi] expressed discomfort with the company’s action.” When a reporter asked Demasi why Google supports ALEC, he responded, “I would say the same as Bill [Weihl].” Neither Demasio nor Weihl had an answer then.
Johnson shows that ALEC’s corporate board is dominated by fossil-fuel and tobacco interests, including Koch Industries, Exxon Mobil, Altria and Peabody Energy. Policy briefs, states Johnson, illustrate that ALEC questions the science of climate change and opposes renewable energy standards, regulation of greenhouse pollution, and other climate initiatives. So, if Google and Facebook are truly committed to renewable energy sources and the future of clean energy, then they might want to rethink their membership into ALEC.
Those who oppose Facebook’s membership into ALEC can sign a petition from the Union of Concerned Scientists at https://secure3.convio.net/ucs/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=4072.The administrative committee of urban management of Guangzhou, which has 20 vacancies for garbage classifiers, attracted more than 200 candidates on its first recruitment day in the Guangdong provincial capital on Monday.
It means that more than 10 candidates will have to compete for each vacancy.
The southern metropolis, which is now being surrounded by rapidly increasing household waste, plans to introduce a new garbage-sorting system to help reduce the amount of trash, said Bao Lunjun, chief engineer of the Guangzhou administrative committee of urban management.
To this end, the city's government decided to advertize for garbage classifiers in the city's 12 districts and suburban towns before the end of the year.
Four streets in Tianhe district, in a commercial center in Guangzhou, took the lead in advertizing 20 garbage-classifying positions this week.
According to Bao, Guangzhou plans to be able to deal with more than 15,000 tons of garbage a day to help settle the garbage crisis by 2015. The city can now handle about 12,000 tons of garbage a day.
"Sorting the garbage for recycling will be an effective way to reduce the amount of garbage in the future," Bao said.
Yu Shangfeng, an official in charge of the garbage-sorting department under the committee, said: "Every neighborhood will have garbage classifiers to help sort the garbage, guide locals to classify the waste and promote the city's garbage-sorting system." Currently the committee offers a monthly salary of at least 4,000 yuan ($635) to a garbage classifier.
All the candidates are required to be college graduates, or above, said Yu.
And now the candidates that have applied for the vacancies include postgraduates, he added.
【1】 【2】As his departure from Fox News comes ever closer, Glenn Beck is branching out into yet another new business territory: the world of online deals.
Beck's company, Mercury Radio Arts, announced Monday that it has launched Markdown.com, a Groupon-like site that will offer discounted deals on various products. The first deals are for Chocolate.com and LifeLock, an identity theft prevention company.
The deals will also be promoted across Beck's media empire, including on his news site, The Blaze.
In a statement, Beck said, "as a small business owner myself, I understand the daily challenges that entrepreneurs face and how frustrating it can be to get well-deserved attention for a great product or service. With Markdown.com we will be able to feature these great local and regional businesses right alongside some of the most well-known brands in America.”Thailand and Malaysia have floated an idea of a joint bid for the 2024 Olympics, Tourism and Sports Minister Kobkarn Wattanavrangkul said yesterday.
Kobkarn Wattanavrangkul.
Kobkarn said she met her Malaysian counterpart Khairy Jamaluddin in the US last month and both sides were interested in a joint bid to host the 2024 Olympics, as well as the football World Cup.
The minister said Southeast Asian countries could host a number of international sports events with co-operation among them.
Malaysia and Thailand agreed that sports could help boost tourism in the region, Kobkarn said.
She said that her ministry would allocate about 70-80 million baht to support the Thai men's football team to win a place at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
Meanwhile, the Volleyball Association of Thailand (VAT) is working hard in an attempt to push for the women's national side to win the country's first ever Olympic berth in the sport at the 2016 Games.
With the Asian Women's Volleyball Championship to be held in China from May 20-28 and the SEA Games in Singapore from from June 5-16, the VAT has decided to send a second-string side to defend the SEA Games title.
Their full national side will be in China where they need to finish in the top-four to get a place for the final stage of the Olympic qualifying event in Japan.
"We are focusing on the Olympic Games,'' said coach Nattapon Srisamutnak.
"For the SEA Games, we are confident our fringe players have a good chance to win our 12th title of the tournament."A conservative radio talk show host in Iowa wants to turn undocumented immigrants into "property of the state" and forced into labor.
"Put up a sign that says at the end of 60 days, if you are not here with our permission, can't prove your legal status, you become property of the state," Jan Mickelson said during his show on Monday. "And then we start to extort or exploit or indenture your labor."
Audio of Mickelson's segment was posted online by Media Matters.
When a caller said "it sounds an awful lot like slavery," Mickelson asked: "Well, what's wrong with slavery?"
He also claimed that Americans are "indentured" to undocumented immigrants by supposedly being forced to pay their expenses.
Mickelson said the undocumented immigrants could be housed in tents, similar to the "Tent City Jail" set up by Maricopa County, Arizona, Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
"Put up a tent village, we feed and water these new assets, we give them minimal shelter, minimal nutrition, and offer them the opportunity to work for the benefit of the taxpayers of the state of Iowa," Mickelson said. "All they have to do to avoid servitude is to leave."
In another excerpt posted by Media Matters, he also suggested that the "slaves" could be forced to build a wall across the Mexican border:
"We say, 'Hey, we're not going to make Mexico pay for the wall, we're going to invite the illegal Mexicans and illegal aliens to build it. If you have come across the border illegally, again give them another 60-day guideline, you need to go home and leave this jurisdiction, and if you don't you become property of the United States, and guess what? You will be building a wall. We will compel your labor. You would belong to these United States. You show up without an invitation, you get to be an asset. You get to be a construction worker. Cool!'"
Mickelson also insisted his proposal was serious.
"You think I'm just pulling your leg," he told the caller. "I am not."
Listen to his comments in the clip above, or read more of the transcript at Media Matters.
However, his talk show is influential among conservatives in the state and Republican presidential hopefuls routinely appear on the broadcast.
Also on HuffPost:WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 15: Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee, listens during a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee July 15, 2014 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. The hearing was to examine 'S.1696, The Women's Health Protection Act: Removing Barriers to Constitutionally Protected Reproductive Rights.' (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
The anti-abortion movement has long claimed that the aim of passing new abortion clinic regulations is to protect women's health and safety. But a leader in that movement admitted on Sunday the real motivation behind those laws is to block women's access to abortion.
In a heated exchange on ABC's "This Week," National Right to Life President Carol Tobias defended a wave of state laws requiring abortion clinics to meet the same physical building standards as ambulatory surgical centers, including specific parking lot designs, hallway widths and ventilation systems. She said clinics are shutting down because "they don't want to meet the minimum of safety standards."
But when host Martha Raddatz pointed out that the American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have said the regulations are not necessary for patient safety, Tobias strayed from the anti-abortion movement's usual talking points.
"But it's not up to the state, or at least it shouldn't be up to the state, to make it easier for women to kill their unborn children," Tobias said.
Asked directly whether all the new abortion restrictions are about restricting access to abortion or about women's safety, Tobias said, "It's about both."
"We want to protect unborn children from death," Tobias said. "We want to protect the women who are going to be harmed by abortion. It might not be an immediate physical reaction. There are long-term physical consequences, long-term mental and emotional consequences to abortion. This is about protecting women and children."
Numerous medical studies have found that abortion is an extremely safe procedure -- significantly safer than childbirth. Women's health advocates argue that shutting down abortion clinics is the bigger threat to women's safety, because those women could either seek illegal, unsafe providers, or have to wait much later into their pregnancies to have the procedure.
Federal judges in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama have sided with abortion-rights advocates this summer and blocked or struck down laws that would have forced most or all of the clinics in those states to shut down. Judge Lee Yeakel wrote in his ruling against the Texas law on Friday that the state's claim about protecting women's safety is "disingenuous."OTTAWA — More than two dozen service members have been kicked out of the Forces since Canada’s top military officer promised to take no prisoners when it came to sexual misconduct in the ranks.
And that could be just the beginning as defence officials say they are still reviewing dozens of other cases in which military personnel have been implicated in inappropriate sexual behaviour.
Chief of defence staff Gen. Jonathan Vance warned Forces members last year that he would seek to remove anyone and everyone who is found to have acted inappropriately.
The move came amid frustration that some members were continuing to engage in such activity despite his unequivocal orders to cease and desist.
“I gave an order to every member of the Canadian Armed Forces that this behaviour had to stop,” Vance said in November 2016. “My orders were clear.”
Figures released to The Canadian Press by the Defence Department show that since the beginning of the year, 29 service members have been forced to leave the military as part of that crackdown.
Ten others have been allowed to stay, but have either been given a formal warning or are on probation or under orders to seek counselling. Four more escaped without any punishment due to a lack of evidence.
Another 83 cases are currently being reviewed by military officials in Ottawa — meaning the number of service members kicked out of uniform because of inappropriate behaviour is almost certain to rise.
It may come as a surprise to hear that some members are being allowed to stay in the Forces despite inappropriate behaviour, particularly given Vance’s hard-line stance.
Col. Lloyd MacKenzie, chief of staff for the Canadian Forces strategic response team on sexual misconduct, said those cases being reviewed include both criminal behaviour and arguably lesser offences such as sexual jokes.
“The release relate for those who have actually been found guilty in a service tribunal or civilian court is something like 98 per cent,” MacKenzie said. “But for those who have told a couple dirty jokes … (the reviewers) look at a whole bunch of different things.”
Among the considerations are the nature of the behaviour, whether the person is a first-time or repeat offender, and if they have been in the Forces for a long time or hold a senior position.
“Where it’s not a repeat problem and there doesn’t seem to be other exacerbating circumstances,” MacKenzie said, “they’re the ones getting the recorded warnings, the counselling and probation.”
Military personnel reported 504 incidents of inappropriate sexual behaviour in the year between April 1, 2016 and March 31, 2017, National Defence has previously reported, with the majority involving jokes and language.
Vance took a hard line on inappropriate sexual behaviour in the Forces after a series of media reports several years ago that described the problem as chronic and endemic.
Those findings were supported by a damning report in 2015 by retired Supreme Court of Canada justice Marie Deschamps, who was recruited by the military to examine the extent of the problem.Someone had to go first, so on March 15, 1985, Lisp computer maker Symbolics, Inc., registered the Internet’s first dot-com address: Symbolics.com.
Sunday will mark the 30th anniversary of that registration.
+24 MORE ‘Geeky’ Happenings From 1985+
The Cambridge-headquartered company went out of business about a decade ago (though remnants live on) and in August 2009 the Symbolics.com address was sold for an undisclosed sum to XF.com Investments, whose CEO Aron Meystedt said in a press release: “For us to own the first domain is very special to our company, and we feel blessed for having the ability to obtain this unique property."
Today it looks like more of a white elephant than a blessing, what with a largely empty “cityscape” design and a blog that hasn’t been updated in two years. Yet Meystedt remains optimistic, at least outwardly.
“We created the city concept to make browsing the site fun, but it also could grow into a revenue-generating property if we allow advertisers to sponsor elements in the cityscape,” he says.
The design includes clickable elements that reward the visitor with nuggets of information about the Internet, such as: “Gmail first launched on April 1st, 2004. It was widely assumed the service was an April Fools Day joke.”
Not exactly Reddit’s “Today I Learned.”
“As far as traffic, the daily visitors can range from several hundred to several thousand,” Meystedt says. “This usually depends on how well Symbolics.com is circulated on social media or news blogs.”
And that probably picks up around March 15.
The problem here appears obvious: Symbolics.com is not Plymouth Rock; it would appear to be valuable – at least in a business sense – only if you’re running a company called Symbolics.
I asked Meystedt if Symbolics.com might be for sale.
“We have no plans to sell the name at this time.”
Make him an offer.Baby Driver is an instant classic
Director: Edgar Wright Starring: Ansel Elgort, Kevin Spacey, Jon Hamm, Eiza González, Lily James Running Time: 113 minutes
In recent years, trailers have somehow nearly overtaken films in terms of their quality. We spend months looking forward to the big summer movies, assuming that with all the money pumped into them we’re in for something new and exciting, only to have it all come crashing down when we are served with overproduced CGI crap that sees us leaving the cinema cold. But then came Baby Driver.
When the trailer was released for Baby Driver, I had some concerns. I thought that Ansel Elgort might struggle to carry a film of this calibre, and having followed Wright’s career, I wondered how he would handle such an action-packed film when his previous successes have all been so character driven. Wright’s experience with characters turned out to be exactly what a film like this calls for. The thing with heist movies is that they play well in the cinema but afterwards they tend to lose most of their spark. Baby Driver’s main strength is that it’s not really about the heists at all. The heists serve as a slick backdrop to a funny, sweet film about a good guy stuck in a bad situation.
Like all the best movies, if you watched Baby Driver with the sound off it communicates enough visually that it would still be a pretty compelling watch. Wright’s use of match on action in this film is masterful, it keeps everything moving and gives a real sense of rhythm which perfectly complements the film’s all-important soundtrack. Baby is a man of few words, so his character is built mostly with his actions. But rather than having this translate into hyperviolence as it does for Gosling’s character in Drive, Wright creates an affectionate, kind of goofy character who is fascinating to watch. I would be shocked if there were no essays penned comparing Ansel Elgort’s understated, good-guy action hero to that of Keanu Reeves (in fact, watch this space!) Watching Baby dance around and juggle his foster father’s food as he prepares it like a cocktail-maker in a hipster bar is a refreshing and unexpected scene that genuinely warms the heart without resorting to yanking on the strings. When Baby has his sunglasses knocked off his face by Bats (played by Jamie Foxx), seeing him whip out a second pair and don them unphased is a subtle bit of humour that gives an insight into his unflappable and determined nature. It would be easy to rely on the high-speed car chases to keep the audience’s interest, but Wright pushes past that building up to a scene where Baby is forced to flee on foot and Wright’s skill keeps this sequence feeling as tense and visually spectacular as those preceding it.
But of course, Baby Driver owes its personality to its soundtrack. Considering Baby has tinnitus and is listening to his various Ipods (one for each mood) throughout the film, a killer soundtrack was vital. The film starts as it means to go on with a fabulous song that makes us happy we’re outside with this kooky getaway driver and his earphones rather than inside the actual bank heist. Even when Baby is just walking down the street, by pairing this with Bob & Earl’s Harlem Shuffle, Wright does something special. And we wouldn’t want to lose out on the dialogue, which at times is as iconic as lines from classic Hollywood – “Sometimes all I want is to head West on 20 in a car I can’t afford with a plan I don’t have” or “The moment you catch feelings is the moment you catch a bullet” will stick in our minds for years to come.
If you held a gun to my head and asked me to gripe, I would point out that the film’s ending gets a bit over the top, with the final confrontation calling Karl the unkillable German from Die Hard to mind. Nonetheless, Baby Driver is a unique action film. The actions have consequences! Baby feels every single death, which prevents the audience from skimming over the casualties as we’re usually encouraged to in a blockbuster. He prevents Bats from killing a security guard even though it will put him in danger both because the guard has seen him and it pisses Bats off. And although we get a happy ending, Baby still has to answer for his crimes.
If Baby Driver were a car, it would be a Rolls Royce – flashy maybe, but with enough substance to guarantee its status as a classic. (5 / 5)
Baby Driver hits Irish cinemas on June the 28th.The Jiu Jitsu Times recently posted a piece entitled, "Old Man Jiu Jitsu." Like much of what they post at TJJT, this piece is composed from several different original sources--ranging from a video by Rener and Ryron to excerpts from things Roy Harris has said over the years about rolling into your later years. Much of the advice given in this (and related) pieces is sensible. As a 43 year old with a replaced ACL and a three level cervical fusion, I am especially appreciative of the encouragement and advice. The more stubborn one is, the more difficult the transition to old age will be--especially on the mats (which are often filled with young, hungry grapplers who want to earn their stripes off your aging and aching back). But I nevertheless have a major complaint about this particular piece (and all previous iterations)--namely, it targets the *wrong audience*!
Before I explain what I mean, let me begin by favorably summarizing what Rener and Ryron call the "Boyd belts." On their view--which runs afoul of traditional Gracie orthodoxy (but that's neither here nor there for present purposes)--it turns out that size and age matter. Indeed, they matter enough to counter-act and countervail experience and skill under certain circumstances. As such, the Gracie brothers have adopted a general guideline for acknowledging the advantages that can be gained on the mats by size/strength and age alone. It works something like this: Every additional twenty pounds equals a higher belt level (all other things being equal). Similarly, every additional ten years equals a lower belt level. Here's how it works in practice: Take a 40 year old back belt who weighs 160 lbs. Imagine he's rolling with a 20 year old blue belt who weighs 200 lbs. If you apply the Boyd belt equation, the younger and heavier grappler effectively gains three belt levels for the weight advantage and an additional two belt levels for the age advantage. Obviously, this math doesn't work out especially well--since it should mean that the young blue belt should actually have an edge (which doesn't seem right, at least in my experience). But the underlying idea is right (even if it's application doesn't always work out accordingly). In short, youth and strength can offset skill and experience when the differential is great enough. This is clearly correct (as anyone knows who has spent enough time on the mats). So, why am I complaining about the piece in TJJT?
Here is the gist of my gripe--both about this piece and about similar pieces that get published from time to time: They are pitched at the old grapplers who are struggling to adjust to their aging bodies and diminishing strength in a sport with a constant influx of young and hungry grapplers who are often full of piss and vinegar (as they say). In short, the advice is directed at the geriatric wing of the jiu jitsu academy. Older grapplers are told how to temper their expectations, how to roll differently, how to keep themselves safe, how to keep their pride in check, how to adopt a more sustainable mindset and skill set, etc. Of course, this is all fine advice as far as it goes. But I think it only tells one side of the story--and in doing so, it places the responsibility squarely on the (often arthritic) shoulders of the wrong age group. For while it's certainly true that as we age, we need to rethink and refashion our approach--e.g., inverted guard works better at 20 years of age than 70 years of age, after all--the old farts amongst us are not the only ones who need to be sensitive to age and strength differentials.
Indeed, I think the problem lies more with the young guns than the aging lions. After all, it's easy to lose sight of the advantages one has when one is in one's physical prime. For instance, I just witnessed a student at our gym yesterday complain about being 28 (as if that were old)! We all had a good laugh, of course. But it represents an important lack of insight many of the younger practitioners in jiu jitsu carry with them into rolls with people who are sometimes twice their age. In a blind zeal to demonstrate just how tough they are and just how good they've become, the young ones often forget what an advantage it is to be in one's physical prime--especially in a sport which takes such a toll on the body as is the case with jiu jitsu. I spent a childhood wrestling and most of my 30s and 40s doing jiu jitsu. My body is pretty beat up--despite eating well, regularly doing mobility work, rolling smarter, etc. Yet, in a friendly roll at the gym against a newly minted blue belt, it may seem like we're competing for the Mundials. Why? Because the blue belt has failed to take into account my age and limitations. Rather than rolling at a reasonable rate and trying to learn from their more experienced elders, young grapplers often come out guns blazing--with imagined scores to settle and onlookers to impress. After all, submitting an older and more experienced grappler is viewed as a feather in one's developmental cap (rather than as a misguided effort and missed opportunity to learn from someone who has more to offer).
There are lots of reasons this youthful mindset is counter-productive and even toxic to gyms. First, in my experience, the older students are more likely to stick around, more likely to come to class, more likely to be on time with their dues, more willing to help others learn, etc. Yet, they are also more prone to injuries. So, when they are regularly forced through the paces--when flows rolls would have been more appropriate--there is a real risk that the gym will lose important assets as these old guards end up on the sidelines with minor (or even major) injuries. It's a net loss to the gym when a dedicated 40+ year old purple, brown, or black belt ends up having to spend time away from the gym. Conversely, young and hungry white and blue belts are usually in much more abundant supply. Second, when older and more experienced grapplers get the sense that a younger, lower belt is coming after them with more gusto than is necessary or appropriate, tempers are likely to flare. In these contexts, it is the younger grapplers who end up on the short end of the stick--since they get purposely roughed up more than would otherwise have been the case if they had just relaxed from the outset. I have to admit to being guilty as charged on this front. Through a life time of grappling, I have learned to apply an awful lot of pressure--pressure I rarely use in full force against training partners because...well, because we're just training partners after all! But when I get the 220+lb 20-something barreling into me like our lives depended on it, I am ready to give a free lesson in shoulder pressure from side control. Sometimes, this ends up being bad for my training partner. Sometimes, the extra effort ends up hurting me as well (or instead). This is a very counter-productive and completely avoidable state of affairs.
I am writing this piece to suggest that both the aging lions and the young guns share responsibility for maintaining the proper balance when it comes to differentials in strength, age, and experience. It's not all on me to learn "old man jiu jitsu." Those who are new to the sport also need to learn respect for their elders early on and view them as important and invaluable learning tools and not just opportunities to show off. Test your mettle against someone your own size, age, and experience. Tailor your rolls to your training partner. There is a time and a place for going all out and a time and a place to slow things down to work on minor details, key principles, etc. Pushing the pace against someone twice your age only shows your immaturity--nothing more. It doesn't prove a single positive thing about your jiu jitsu. So, while it is important for old farts like me to let go of our stubbornness and accept the inevitable failures of our bodies as we move into old age, it is no less important for young grapplers to do a better job of being mindful of who they're rolling with (and how to roll most productively). For if you try to bully me around when you're half my age, we may both end up being hurt. I, too, was a young lion once after all (with all the lingering pride that goes along with that fading status). That's a net loss not just for both of us--it's a net loss for the school as well. So, the moral of my story: While "old man jiu jitsu" is an important mindset for the aging lions to adopt, "young man jiu jitsu" ought to be a mindset that is cultivated in the up-and-comers as well.
In short, the lesson is simple: Hespect your elders! The more this lesson is learned, the less time the aging lions have to spend learning old man jiu jitsu! The flow rolls will take care of themselves (to everyone's betterment and advantage).Today's Top 10 is a guest post from Matt Nolan, his third. His previous one is here.
As always, we welcome your additions in the comment stream below or via email to david.chaston@interest.co.nz.
And if you're interested in contributing the occasional Top 10 yourself, contact gareth.vaughan@interest.co.nz.
See all previous Top 10s here.
1. Labour market recovery on the way in New Zealand …
The labour market has been strengthening according to Statistics New Zealand data.
The Household Labour force survey was a strong one, with employment, participation, and usual hours worked all rising strongly and the unemployment rate easing to 6.0%.
The Reserve Bank expects things to keep improving, with the unemployment rate down to 5.6% in March – and down to 4.9% by March 2015.
At these levels, the vast majority of those out of work will be “in transit” between jobs, rather than excluded from the labour market – a definite improvement on recent years.
2. … and around much of the world
Of course, New Zealand isn’t the only country experiencing a resurgence in its labour market. Our friends in the United States and the United Kingdom are also seeing unemployment rates shift downwards.
Where we are bucking the trend is against our big brother – Australia. The unemployment rate in Australia is now 6.0%.
It is likely higher than the current New Zealand unemployment rate for the first time since March 2009.
3. Regional divergence bites the north
Coming back to New Zealand, it is important to keep in mind that aggregate (over the country as a whole) numbers never tell the full story – and sometimes they can hide important issues.
Shamubeel Eaqub touched on one of these issues by discussing the rate of unemployment between New Zealand’s regions here.
The stark difference between the North and South Island – with unemployment a lot higher in the North – is indicative of one way that New Zealand is experiencing a “two-speed” economy at present.
4. Job types and the nature of the recovery
Although I mentioned that New Zealand wasn’t the only country experiencing a labour market recovery, it is a different type of recovery.
After a period of preparation it appears that rebuilding activity in Canterbury is picking up – this is a significant lift in the level of “non-traded capital” in New Zealand. This type of issue is discussed in the economic literature, with two useful papers found here and here.
Although considering the New Zealand economy in this way is useful for thinking about a number of things (eg higher current account imbalances if we view household durables/firm investment as complements in production), the key point when it comes to employment is that higher demand for construction will increase employment in construction and construction exposed sectors.
However, once our labour market is back to normal this increased demand is met by bidding up the price of these workers – reducing the quantity demanded by other industries. We may see this through a high exchange rate and/or high wage growth, but either way it will change the composition of industries people are working in and the types of jobs people train for.
5. Is this “structural” unemployment?
One question I’m often asked is, given the prolonged nature of the slowdown, will unemployment get stuck at a “high” level during the recovery?
This is a fair question, if individuals have been disconnected from the labour market, or young people have been unable to enter in the first place, it may be harder for them to get work until an economic recovery is well underway.
When economists discuss this they are asking whether there is some “structural unemployment”.
Recent writing in the United States and in New Zealand indicate that structural unemployment is not a significant issue, and as a result once the economy is back on track the labour market will get back there soon as well.
In the New Zealand context, the fact that changes in the unemployment rate seem well explained by changes in real GDP, “matching efficiency” doesn’t appear to have declined during the recession, and also the fact that long-term unemployment has peaked at a relatively low rate make the case for why there isn’t likely to be a structural unemployment issue going forward.
6. Youth unemployment, long-run unemployment
However, it isn’t just an issue of whether unemployment is structural - as a society we are justifiably concerned if certain, otherwise disadvantaged, groups face a disproportionate amount of the pain associated with any adjustment. Concerns about both youth and long-term unemployment are part of that.
So what has been happening with these?
The youth unemployment rate takes all those, both in education and not in education, who are willing to work - but aren’t. The NEET (not in education, employment, or training) rate tells us what proportion of people between the ages of 15 and 24 are not in education, employment, or training.
The long-term unemployment rate is somewhere between the following two graphs:
Unemployed individuals in the HLFS are asked how long they have been out of work. Most respond, but some proportion are unsure and don’t specify. The bottom graph adds a proportion of the group that don’t specify to the long-term unemployed, equal to the long-termed unemployed ratio of total unemployment. However, it is likely that more of the people saying that they can’t recall have been unemployed for longer. The highest graph simply adds all not-specified individuals to long-term unemployment - so is a maximum.
Both the long-term unemployment rate and youth unemployment rate have been coming down but remain high. These will be important indicators to keep an eye on - to see if the recovery is benefiting those in the most difficult circumstances - over the next year.
7. Long term unemployment in the United States
The long-term unemployment issue, and its relation to potential structural unemployment, has recently been getting play in the United States.
A key point from this is that, once someone has been out of work for a long time, employers look at them in a different way - and impose certain judgements about why that individual has been out of work.
As a result, the labour market is “segregated”, and we can’t necessarily just rely on monetary policy or good luck to help people out.
In this way, the bad luck associated with a long-recession reduces the opportunity of some in society - and it may well give cred |
-like style, and with few clear-cut heroes or villains. The vibrancy and dynamism of the filmmaking, plus its shocking violence, Shakespearean plotlines, and wide tapestry of characters, launched a revolutionary new genre, establishing the series as one of the great masterpieces of world crime cinema.
Special Features: Limited Edition Blu-ray Collection
High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentation of all five original films
Original Mono audio (uncompressed PCM on the Blu-rays)
Optional English subtitles for all five films
Remembering Kinji a new featurette about director Kinji Fukasaku and his work, featuring interviews with Kenta Fukasaku and film critic and Fukasaku biographer Sadao Yamane
Secrets of the Piranha Army a new documentary about the troupe of supporting actors who appeared throughout the series, featuring new interviews with original Piranha members Masaru Shiga and Takashi Noguchi, plus second-generation Piranha, Takashi Nishina and Akira Murota
All the Bad Guys a new, comprehensive video guide to the actors in the films
Fukasaku Family a new interview with Proxy War and Police Tactics assistant director Toru Dobashi
Man of Action a new interview with series fight choreographer Ryuzo Ueno
Tales of a Bit Player a new interview with supporting actor and stuntman Seizo Fukumoto
Last Days of the Boss a new interview with Final Episode screenwriter Koji Takada
Yakuza Graveyard a new interview with Takashi Miike about Kinji Fukasaku and the yakuza film genre
Original trailers for the series
Original poster gallery for the series
Limited Edition packaging and reversible sleeves for all five films including original and newly commissioned artwork by Reinhard Kleist THE COMPLETE SAGA [LIMITED EDITION EXCLUSIVE] English-subtitled premiere of the 224-minute compilation edition of the first four films, previously screened only as part of a limited Japanese theatrical release in 1980 and on the Toei cable channel
Introduction by Complete Saga editorial supervisor Toru Dobashi THE YAKUZA PAPERS [LIMITED EDITION EXCLUSIVE] 150-page hardback book featuring writing on the history of the yakuza film genre, the background and continuing importance of the Battles series, and additional essays on the men who made them, including a newly-reprinted and fully annotated edition of Paul Schrader's classic 1974 Film Comment essay Yakuza-Eiga: A Primer, a new, exclusive English translation of screenwriter Kazuo Kasahara's 1974 Scenario magazine essay on his writing process for the first four films, as well as new essays and interviews from critics and authors Chris D., Grady Hendrix, Patrick Macias, Tom Mes, Mark Schilling, and Jasper Sharp. UK LIMITED TO 2000 COPIES
U.S. LIMITED TO 3000 COPIES
UK RELEASE DATE: NOVEMBER 16
U.S. RELEASE DATE: NOVEMBER 17
Source: Blu-ray.com | Permalink | [Country settings]
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Genji Press Aug 13, 2015 "Battles Without Honor and Humanity", good god. More like "Wallets Without Money or Credit"!
ouchmyfacehurts Aug 13, 2015 this could actually be the best box set announcement of all time Top contributor whiteberry Aug 13, 2015 Finally. Been waiting for someone to license Toei's HD masters of Battles Without Honor and Humanity
rootless Aug 13, 2015 Fireman's Ball, Hard to be a God, The Black Cats box set, the Kiju Yoshida box set, and now this! Stop Arrow, you're driving me to the poorhouse this fall!
....
(what about licensing "Cutter's Way", btw?)
OldPangYau Aug 13, 2015 Every time I see Arrow make an announcement for Japanese films, I feel we get one step closer to a Sonny Chiba Street Fighter / Satsujin Ken blu ray box set. Although the public domain status in the US may scare distributors off. HarryKari Aug 13, 2015 This new Battles Without Honor and Humanity set is fantastic news. I currently own the Yakuza Papers DVD housed in a metal box and can't wait to upgrade. Now maybe Arrow can get the rights to Beat Takeshi's films and release those on BD. PT Ryan Aug 13, 2015 *cries at the current state of the Australian dollar*
jirukko Aug 13, 2015 yakuza papers! wow! Thank you Arrow!
Top contributor rapta Aug 13, 2015 RE: Beat Takeshi - last I heard Third Window Films are still tackling those, with Gareth Evans (THE RAID, THE RAID 2) assisting them in some capacity, but the sales team they're dealing with are a little uncooperative and the masters need a good tidy-up.
Just to confirm, they are planning to release HANA-BI (aka FIREWORKS), DOLLS (aka DORUZU), and KIKUJIRO (aka KIKUJIRO'S SUMMER) one at a time, and maybe some more to follow if those succeed (possibly KIDS RETURN or SONATINE, but we'll have to wait and see). For a start, they're suffering from 'gate weave' where Office Kitano didn't use image stabilisation to transfer the prints to HD, and it's going to cost Third Window Films thousands of pounds to fix - which I'm pretty sure they are doing, since these are probably the most wide-appealing titles they've released to date - and they're doing this all through a French sales agent, so safe to say they're having a bit of trouble but slowly getting there. They're not even getting access to the prints themselves and are relying on Office Kitano to restore them, something which has been a widespread problem across Japan (you're lucky to get a good, clean 2K print, let alone a 4K one like the ones Shochiku are coming out with).
Anyway, originally set for Q4 they'll be pushed back to early 2016, but they are coming. They were considering a box set, but Evans wanted them separate with different artworks so that's what they're doing (and the public got to vote on the concept art for HANA-BI), plus they should come with a slipcover. Not sure about extras but I am looking forward to upgrading these (and never even bought DOLLS before on DVD)! HANA-BI is most certainly first.
Worth mentioning these BATTLES WITHOUT HONOUR AND HUMANITY films should be pretty decent HD transfers or else Arrow wouldn't have even announced them, and I know for sure that the first film is a 2K restoration that played at some film festivals including Cannes. Looking forward to these, but as I have said elsewhere I will wait for the separate releases (as Rivette and Yoshida have caught my attention).
Top contributor Blu Titan Aug 13, 2015 Wow, this is truly an amazing announcement (Battles Beyond Honor and Humanity). Pre-ordering day one...price is irrelevant here for me. billyearle Aug 13, 2015 Very exiting announcement. But damn, these things are coming out when I can no longer afford them. Will try to squeeze in that box set somehow, but if I can't, I can hold out hope for eventually picking up the singles.
monque Aug 13, 2015 Best news and release of the year.
Top contributor Top reviewerTop contributor Cat III Aug 14, 2015 That set is unexpected, but very much appreciated. Can always go for more Fukasaku. I'd love if Arrow (or anyone for that matter) follow this up with a release of Fukasaku's "Black Lizard" which has never officially been released on home video (as far as I know).
I don't see a price on the American set. Anyone know the MSRP?
Tweety Aug 14, 2015 Would love to buy Battle without Honor and Humanity. If they removed the DVD's, would it then be cheaper?
I have many movie releases including a DVD, but I never wacht the DVD...
Top contributor jacobb1313 Aug 14, 2015 Wow i almost bought the DVDs the other day because I was getting impatient.
This release is insane. Day 1 save-up-milk-money time.
Top contributor John_Drake Aug 14, 2015 Battles Without Honor & Humanity is a very welcome announcement--I could do without the DVDs tho'.
Agree that Fukasaku's Black Lizard would be a brilliant release (@Cat III: it did have a VHS release in the States, fyi).
thrillmygorilla Aug 15, 2015 Wake Up and Kill!!
Top contributor Top reviewerTop contributor Cat III Aug 16, 2015 Thanks John_Drake, I didn't know there was a VHS release. Until it gets an official DVD/BD release, I'll stick with bootlegs (it looks like someone has uploaded it to YouTube).
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Please login to post a comment.Having to overturn a 3-1 deficit against UEFA Champions League holders Real Madrid will not be the easiest of tasks for Napoli on 7 March – but there are some useful precedents to give them hope.
One is a tie Napoli would want to forget: their lone previous round of 16 appearance, against Chelsea in 2011/12, when the Italian side won 3-1 at home only to then lose 4-1 after extra time in London. Yet Madrid's fortunes after winning a home first leg 3-1 are not that much better.
In all, Madrid have previously held such a lead eight times going into UEFA club competition second legs, and have made it through on only four occasions – two of them back in their run of lifting the first five European Cups. That contrasts with the figures showing that overall in UEFA club competition, teams winning 3-1 at home in the first leg have prevailed 254 out of 329 times (77.2%).
We look back at the Merengues' past ties, bookended by two famous meetings with Manchester United.
Madrid won the 1957 European Cup ©AFP
1956/57 European Cup semi-finals:
Real Madrid 3-1 Manchester United
Manchester United 2-2 Real Madrid (agg: 3-5)
Defending the trophy they had lifted 12 months earlier in its first season, Madrid came up against Matt Busby's thrilling United 'Babes'. Alfredo Di Stéfano was among the first-leg scorers, before Madrid went 2-0 up in Manchester prior to a stirring United fightback which, while in vain, impressed the visitors' president Santiago Bernabéu so much he offered Busby the job as coach. While that invitation was turned down, the pair struck up a friendship that led to the Spanish club helping raise funds after the Munich air disaster.
1959/60 European Cup semi-finals:
Real Madrid 3-1 Barcelona
Barcelona 1-3 Real Madrid (agg: 2-6)
Di Stéfano struck twice in the first leg and Ferenc Puskás, after also netting in Madrid, added two in the return as Madrid moved on to Glasgow and the famous 7-3 defeat of Eintracht Frankfurt. Barcelona, under Heleno Herrera, had previously taken the Liga title from Madrid and indeed retained it on the eve of the semi-final first leg, but they were swept aside in Europe. Revenge came in the first round the next term when Barcelona finally ended Madrid's unblemished European Cup streak.
Log in for free to watch the highlights Great UEFA Champions League comebacks
1971/72 UEFA Cup second round:
Real Madrid 3-1 PSV Eindhoven
PSV Eindhoven 2-0 Real Madrid (agg: 3-3, PSV win on away goals)
Now began a run of losses for Madrid after 3-1 home first-leg victories. They had beaten PSV in the 1970/71 European Cup Winners' Cup semi-finals but efforts from Eef Mulders and Oeki Hoekema overturned their advantage on this occasion.
1978/79 European Cup second round:
Real Madrid 3-1 Grasshoppers
Grasshoppers 2-0 Real Madrid (agg: 3-3, Grasshoppers win on away goals)
The Zurich club had lost all previous ties against Spanish opposition but had reached the previous season's UEFA Cup semi-finals. Law student and future FIFA Disciplinary Committee chairman Claudio Sulser was Grasshoppers' hero with both second-leg strikes, and in all notched a competition-leading 11 in the European Cup that season.
1981/82 UEFA Cup quarter-final:
Real Madrid 3-1 Kaiserslautern
Kaiserslautern 5-0 Real Madrid (agg: 6-3)
A result that still stands as Madrid's joint-record biggest defeat in Europe. Hans-Peter Briegel was the fulcrum for Kaiserslautern's incredible second-leg triumph in which Friedhelm Funkel wiped out the home side's deficit with two goals in the first 17 minutes, though first-half red cards for San José and Laurie Cunningham, and another late on for Francisco Pineda, hardly helped the Merengues.
1982/83 European Cup Winners' Cup second round:
Real Madrid 3-1 Újpest
Újpest 0-1 Real Madrid (agg: 1-4)
Madrid were to lose the final to Aberdeen but they at least halted their habit of going out after 3-1 home first-leg wins. Santillana registered twice in the first leg and once in Hungary.
Log in for free to watch the highlights Ronaldo's Madrid hat-trick has Old Trafford applauding
1992/93 UEFA Cup quarter-finals:
Real Madrid 3-1 Paris Saint-Germain
Paris Saint-Germain 4-1 Real Madrid (agg: 5-4)
David Ginola scored in both legs of a contest that had a dramatic conclusion. Deep into added time in Paris, Iván Zamorano pulled Madrid back to 3-1, seemingly forcing extra time. However, Antoine Kombouaré had other ideas with a trademark header in the dying seconds, just as he had done against Anderlecht in the previous round.
2002/03 UEFA Champions League quarter-finals:
Real Madrid 3-1 Manchester United
Manchester United 4-3 Real Madrid (agg: 5-6)
The Old Trafford return is rightly remembered as one of the competition's great games, with Madrid keeping their title defence alive courtesy of a hat-trick that earned Ronaldo a standing ovation from the United faithful. The hosts won on the night thanks to a late double from David Beckham, who had been surprisingly left out of the starting line-up.Time Warner Cable took a mighty swing, and missed, in its ninth-inning effort to win additional distribution for its SportsNet LA, which offers the Los Angeles Dodgers, prior to baseball’s opening day.
The cable company offered regional providers including DirecTV and Cox a 30% price cut for this season, which it calls “historic” since it’s the last one with legendary announcer Vin Scully.
But TWC says this morning that “we don’t expect any other distributors to carry SNLA by Opening Day.” Those who want to watch the Dodgers on the regional sports network “need to switch to Time Warner Cable, Charter or Bright House Networks.”
Charter picked up SportsNet LA last year after it agreed to pay $67 billion for TWC and Bright House. Federal officials are close to approving the deals, with conditions.
Other distributors have balked at the estimated $5 per subscriber per month that TWC wants. The company’s CEO Rob Marcus told investors in December that this was “one of my 2015 surprises and disappointments.”
TWC has been on the hook since 2014 when it committed $8.35 billion for a 25-year hold on Dodgers rights. But “we’re not giving up,” Marcus said at year’s end. “We’ll undoubtedly try to get back to the table, and hopefully we’ll cut deals.”
AT&T, which owns DirecTV, declined to comment.
A Cox spokesman says that broadly speaking the company still hopes for a deal “that does not burden our customers with excessive price increases.” It will “continue to work with TWC SportsNet LA to fight on behalf of all our customers, not just sports/Dodgers fans, and protect the value of the products and services we provide.”READER COMMENTS ON
"BREAKING: Wexler Will Urge House Judiciary Committee to 'Schedule Impeachment Hearings Immediately'"
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... Brad Friedman said on 11/7/2007 @ 2:16 pm PT...
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... Ancient said on 11/7/2007 @ 2:24 pm PT...
All I want for Christmas is Dick Cheney's head!
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... Bluebear2 said on 11/7/2007 @ 2:32 pm PT...
Ooooh - getting juicy! Will this go somewhere after all?
COMMENT #4 [Permalink]
... Ellen Theisen said on 11/7/2007 @ 2:58 pm PT...
Yes, it looks promising, but I don't understand why it's only about Cheney and not Bush as well.
COMMENT #5 [Permalink]
... tony deacon said on 11/7/2007 @ 3:01 pm PT...
All I want for Christmas is to see these scoundrels frog marched in shackles along with every single one of their cohorts [even Dems].
confiscate their money and use it to repair the damage they have done. W can clear brush for the highway in an orange jumpsuit! [The whole Bush clan can have a family outing of it every day for the rest of their lives] Dick can spend the rest of his days [and dollars] working in animal shelters shoveling sh**. Condoleezer can leeze a condo with the money she gets selling her shoes to Imelda Marcos.. The rest of them and their supporters who prefer totalitarian lifestyles can find many other countries where they already enforce that lifestyle. Land of the free, therefore necessarily home of the brave. It takes courage to live free or die.
COMMENT #6 [Permalink]
... Steve said on 11/7/2007 @ 3:02 pm PT...
Wow, maybe this thing will create its own momentum and drag the reluctant dem(wit)s in Congress into the real world (and I truly belief, mainstream) thinking about this issue....Nah!
COMMENT #7 [Permalink]
... Steve said on 11/7/2007 @ 3:09 pm PT...
Brad- I just noticed that the time this article was posted, 2:43 PM PT on 11/7/07, has yet to occur. Either I'm in the Twilight Zone and seeing the future on my computer, or you have failed to set your Blog's time back with the end of daylight savings last week. Please let me know which is the case so I can place some sports bets if the former is true.
COMMENT #8 [Permalink]
... KestrelBrighteyes said on 11/7/2007 @ 3:14 pm PT...
Oh pleeeeeeeeeeease let this little Republican game come back and bite them on the ass oh please oh please oh pleeeeeeeeease! Karma's a bitch - and the Republicans who thought they were being clever by sending this back to the HJC just spit in her face.
COMMENT #9 [Permalink]
... Brad Friedman said on 11/7/2007 @ 3:14 pm PT...
:-) Looks like the server may still be set for Daylight Savings Time. Will let them know!
COMMENT #10 [Permalink]
... Vman said on 11/7/2007 @ 3:43 pm PT...
I share your belief that Vice President Cheney must answer for his deceptive actions in office, particularly with regard to the preparations for the Iraq war and the revelation of the identity of covert agent Valerie Plame Wilson as part of political retribution against her husband. Again the same old regurgitation of the Rovian spin. When will folks realize the true target of Cheney's treason was the intentional destruction of Brewster-Jennings Plames covert front company to pave the way for the Iran lies. The wilson smear story originated from the WH. The Bush/Cheny cabal needed Plame gone so they could lie at will (now) when the time came. wexler Cheney is guilty of Treason not just High Crimes and Misdemeanors. Perhaps now we can cut through the spin of the Wilson Smear and get to the heart of the matter TREASON. Intentional destruction of a vital intelligence asset. Wexler needs to wake up and get with the program and do his homework.
COMMENT #11 [Permalink]
... capt said on 11/7/2007 @ 3:55 pm PT...
Some of the very best news indeed. Funny thing, almost a MSM news blackout on impeachment - the local news is running a chupacabra sighting (ABC News Albuquerque) so they are addressing the important stuff. I wonder if any of the sheeple will even notice.
COMMENT #12 [Permalink]
... Jim said on 11/7/2007 @ 4:06 pm PT...
All I ask is that our elected officials do their job to uphold our Constitution, and that includes impeachment when it is called for. It is definitely called for in the case of Dick Cheney (and George Bush)! We must take our country back from these proven liars and thieves who are most certainly guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors.
COMMENT #13 [Permalink]
... Proud American Liberal said on 11/7/2007 @ 4:07 pm PT...
To help facilitate getting this resolution out of committee and into debate, you can email Congressman John Conyers from the Judiciarly Committee website:] http://judiciary.house.g...CommitteeMembership.aspx If you are ambitious, you could send one to each member of the committee from this website, but I think Conyers needs to feel some pressure.
COMMENT #14 [Permalink]
... Dennis said on 11/7/2007 @ 4:27 pm PT...
These criminals need brought to justice. E-mail the MSM. Where's Don Imus when you need him?
COMMENT #15 [Permalink]
... cobalt said on 11/7/2007 @ 5:07 pm PT...
"President Cheney" is the popular argument for why impeaching Bush is a bad idea. Impeach Cheney first. Problem solved. My only question is, with Bush and Cheney out of the way, who steps into the Presidential Role? Pelosi?
COMMENT #16 [Permalink]
... serena1313 said on 11/7/2007 @ 5:13 pm PT...
There is nothing I would like better than number 1: Cheney impeached and number 2: Bush, too. They empower corporations at the expense of humankind, the environment, our treasury and national security. Their actions are criminal. However I am not confident this will amount to anything with Reid and Pelosi doing their best to block it. Pelosi and Reid don't realize how angry Americans are about handing Bush a blank cheque to continue reeking havoc on the world. Polls show over 70% of Americans are very unhappy and want a drastic change. Mainly Pelosi and Reid are not willing to go forward on impeachment so the elections will be a referendum on Bush, but in the long run that strategy may backfire. Playing politics instead of doing the right thing does not go unnoticed. Do note impeachment is a remedy, not a political ploy (or shouldn't be despite the politically-driven impeachment hearings against President Clinton for an erroneous and inconsequential act that was none of the nation's business IMHO). In contrast charges brought against Bush & Cheney are grave and serious. Their unprecedented abuse of power goes far beyond that of previous presidents. They've acted well-outside and well-beyond the rule of law. When it becomes necessary to remove a president and/or a vice-president, the Founders understood the value of "impeachment," which is mentioned 6 times in the Constitution. Neither have upheld the Constitution; that is impeachable. "... George Mason, a primary author of the Constitution, said that impeachment was the single most important part of the entire document. "Shall any man be above Justice? Above all shall that man be above it who can commit the most extensive injustice?" Legislators in Washington abdicated their responsibility. They have forgotten they represent the people and their sworn duty is to protect the Constitution. Instead they protect, allow and even encourage Bush & Cheney whose actions clearly demonstrate they believe they are invincible, free to act above the law. Well unless something is done, even if the next president doesn't, you can rest assured future presidents will do likewise. An assault on our Constitution is an assault on all of us. Nancy Pelosi made a big mistake when she took impeachment off the table. She basically suspended the Constitution while giving Bush and Cheney the heads-up to literally do anything they want without restraint or accountability. Notwithstanding if impeachment is allowed to go forward democrats will have solid support. Cheney must go first because he is the mastermind behind most of the villainous policies. With Cheney gone Bush is basically toast... ineffective, isolated and impotent. Whereas Cheney has his loyal accolades planted in every department at every level which gives him leverage and clout and Bush's ear. Ultimately as long as Cheney is gone I do not care if Bush is impeached even though by all measures he should be. However Cheney's impeachment is imperative for the nation's sanity and security. Best case scenario: they are both impeached!
COMMENT #17 [Permalink]
... serena1313 said on 11/7/2007 @ 5:17 pm PT...
Go Wexler! At least he has the temerity and integrity to do the right thing!
COMMENT #18 [Permalink]
... Tenzing said on 11/7/2007 @ 5:53 pm PT...
Let's not expect too much. Rep. Conyers has said that he and his fellow demo-gogues have more important things to do this session than to listen to the 59 per cent of Americans who want Cheney impeached.
COMMENT #19 [Permalink]
... gtash said on 11/7/2007 @ 6:03 pm PT...
Kucinich's motion for impeachment is actually the second one. I read that an earlier one was filed and sat ignored in the same committee. I also read that his ability to make these motions is unlimited--meaning he can do it again and again and force the Congress to deal with them if only to kill them or, as in this case, "table" them. Conyers sits on the committee which reviews this stuff and the question now is whether he will actually act (as Wexler supports) or continue to pay homage to Pelosi and hope Dennis goes away. I think Kucinich has nerve and I would like to see him submit one of these motions a week --just grind down the opposition by inviting their criticism and, when they turn to him for comment,blast away.
COMMENT #20 [Permalink]
... Steve O said on 11/7/2007 @ 6:18 pm PT...
As good as this all sounds, Pelosi and Conyers will delay it until its time to run out the clock. If it were me, I'd call the GOP's bluff and have those hearings, call witnesses, and put the White House on the defensive. Let the headlines read "White House moves to supress another subpoena." Steve O
COMMENT #21 [Permalink]
... Michael Keenan said on 11/7/2007 @ 6:46 pm PT...
My basic legal and constitutional strategy that I proposed on Constitution Day was to have 87 members vote for the question of impeachment so it could at least end up on the Congressional Record. "Each house shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such Parts as may in their Judgment require Secrecy; and the Yeas and Nays of the Members of either House on any question shall, at the Desire of one fifth of those Present, be entered on the Journal." Dennis succeeded brilliantly in this regard. There are now at least 86 votes on the Houses historical record in calling for impeachment. Why am I not surprised that my socalled representative David Dreier was not on this record given he is from Nixon's old congressional district. Your rule and BLUFF is over David. You had no excuse given the history of your district. Let the record show that you were not there to protect neither my Liberty nor Republic. You could have been the 87th vote to cinch it but you chose otherwise. Well done Congressman Kucinich! The real top secret is the People have the Power! I am Citizen Michael John Keenan
COMMENT #22 [Permalink]
... GWN said on 11/7/2007 @ 7:08 pm PT...
Ok! Get ready Iran for the big one!! It will all fizzle out anyway just like the air in a balloon. Talk, blah, talk, blah...gotta get their Iran on.
COMMENT #23 [Permalink]
... GWN said on 11/7/2007 @ 7:18 pm PT...
Who, with the exception of Kucinich, progressive bloggers (this one being the best of course) and their followers, Keith Olberman, Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, Scott Ritter, is standing up for the US? Kucinich my hero.
COMMENT #24 [Permalink]
... Rick said on 11/7/2007 @ 7:19 pm PT...
Thank God, a Dem with a spine, so it appears? Don't mean to be pessimistic but I do intend to expect the same behavior from the same people, who have shown us nothing and constantly Told Us About Change before a hundred times over and over again. Their words have been very cheap for a long time now. I will believe it when I see results, for 8 months I have not seen any from the Party that stands for nothing. WOW I had just sent out letters and phone calls (yesterday when they handed the Golden Free Impeachment Ball back to the Republicans on the Republicans 1 yard line with 4 downs to go and then I get to read about Gonzales’s [spelling not important for criminals names, sorry] replacement, and those upstanding Dems Schumer and Feinstein) to the Dems letting them know I am now voting Republican because no difference=no difference. Lets hope this is a real deal and not more smoke and mirrors and career advancement effort from a member of the "I'm different I swear I am club"! Even though we have already started voting for Republicans out of disgust. We will see if this is a PR move, or a genuine effort of conscious on Mr. Wexler's part and if he can get his peers who I am not voting for into 2008 to smell the coffee. Maybe just maybe the Party will decide they Stand for Something and really Go Into Action like dare I say the Republicans, at least they believe and do Something about what they believe!!!! Just maybe if the Dems take us to lunch we might if it's a sunny day vote for them again, they are loosing voters by the thousands and still don't get it?
Bush and Cheney are really, really bad and Congress might even be worse. Repeat after me fire them all they are all responsible because without the Congress Cheney and Bush could not have pulled off the greatest crime and nightmare we have seen in 100+ years and continue their insane behavior. Where oh where is Osama now? Enough already. "Well we are paying Pakistan to find him?" Do what, wow they got allot of incentive considering they Need $$. "Gee I can not find him please send more $$." "No problem as soon as China gets that check over to U.S. we will forward it right to you." This nightmare needs too end real soon but I fear America must sink way lower before we really wake up, its heart breaking! It has been Congress's job to get some control over this insane behavior a long, long, time ago as soon as it became obvious to them. Say 2004 to give them some really, really Undeserved Slack. By the time the JC has finished doing the current Cheney work or what ever is more Important? than Impeaching, he will be retired and enjoying his endless $$ drinking in the islands on checks from well so many we can't count the corporations. Lets just start with lets say KBR (Halliburton) who serves our military daily in Irag and has billed our government (us) for meals soldiers have not even eaten yet though they were prepared what 2-3 yrs ago? A lot of good a slow moving process is doing us. Wake up people tell DC you got their number. Impeachment Front Row and Center in the House JC, Right Here Right Now! Does anybody in DC care? Mostly not but we can pray, don't hold your breath Sports Fans we all got excited last November election for nothing. Show us don't tell us and show us really soon or go look for a job! Start firing them again in 2008 and I mean the spineless Dems that did nothing. Pelosi's olive branch was a nice idea at first but it was rejected completely as we see, so please someone slap that woman into some integrity. I really think the Dems blew it already - maybe 2012 I will vote for them again we will see. Remember it does not hurt bad enough for the USA yet vote Republican teach those Spineless Dems we mean business we expect change NOW. So maybe they won't slap us in the face the next time we give them our trust, honor and votes. 1 voter gone Republican for 2008 see ya in 2012.
COMMENT #25 [Permalink]
... Don Perisho said on 11/7/2007 @ 7:19 pm PT...
Conyers and Pelosi are slaves to AIPAC just like almost all the lowlifes in our government, 98% of them should be shot! They don't want impeachment because then the fire will be under their feet even more than it is now, besides its better when they can blame the repugs. The war in Iraq was for Israel, the oil is flowing to Israel, we are threatening Iran for Israel, look it up, may I suggest whatreallyhappened.com. The Federal Reserve is a private bank owned by Zionists. Challenge them or even vote against their wars and you will be assassinated like Wellstone was. Impeach all the sonsofbitches.
COMMENT #26 [Permalink]
... Don Perisho said on 11/7/2007 @ 7:25 pm PT...
By the way Brad and other bloggers of his ink are my heros. The thought crime bill is aimed at bloggers and activists. Prepare for the coming waterboarding sessions. Prepare for a second 911 to be blamed on Iran and martial law in our country.
COMMENT #27 [Permalink]
... Laura said on 11/7/2007 @ 7:54 pm PT...
O T Hey Brad, Have you seen this? We the People Foundation... 50 States sued to block Computerized Vote counting. Frderal Court to be asked to Delay Primaries. Check it out. http://www.wethepeoplefo...ATE/Update2007-11-06.htm
COMMENT #28 [Permalink]
... Laura said on 11/7/2007 @ 7:55 pm PT...
My Bad Federal court that is
COMMENT #29 [Permalink]
... Rick said on 11/7/2007 @ 8:05 pm PT...
Yep guess America might wake up when they start putting our relatives on trains bound for unknown destinations. When we guestion we will know they are just going to take showers. Oh my so sorry to question authority what an irresponsible thing to do. Then they call you a terriorist, traitor, or tell us we don't support our troops? Then tossing the term WWIII around like they are discussing a football game. That's some really scary retoric coming from some very powerful scary people being given Carte Blanc by an even more terrifying Congress asleep at the wheel of a car full of bombs heading for the day care center of planet Earth. That is a real BIG RED LIGHT, hard to miss. Get it Done and get it done now, but they won't- dare em might hurt their Ego's about the only thing operating in their beings. What kind of Monsters are running this circus? Pass the koolaid Mr. Moon if you are out do you know if there are any comets coming close by I was thinking I might want to leave now. So Mr. Wexler, the HJC and the sleeping Dumbacrats do you get our drift. I did not think so- we are probably just over reacting. I wish that were true. OK, Wexler you put it out there we are going to see what you can get done. We need it done and fast before it's too late. Let us know seriously who you can get on your side to make a voice with. Get rid of Nancy is that possible can you people remove her? Its obvious she is more than incompitent, I think she might just be the biggest Traitor we have ever known.
Newt was better than this woman.
COMMENT #30 [Permalink]
... soladarity said on 11/8/2007 @ 12:29 am PT...
The Congress is now a protection rackett.
COMMENT #31 [Permalink]
... Dredd said on 11/8/2007 @ 2:53 am PT...
They can't even figure out that a foreign agent has infiltrated the US Government and is destroying the rule of law, the economy, and world respect for America from within. Cheney is a foreign operative whose mission is to destroy the US, and they all want to do about it invite him to tea and scold him like a puppy.
COMMENT #32 [Permalink]
... Nunyabiz said on 11/8/2007 @ 6:54 am PT...
Seems pretty clear that Pelosi & Conyers are COMPLICIT in at least the cover up if not the crimes. IMPEACH Pelosi & Conyers.
COMMENT #33 [Permalink]
... Ian Westbrook said on 11/8/2007 |
strategies and ways of looking at music we were only discovering while making this record. My hope is the next record will be more confident, a better version of the first record."
Which will hopefully include the classic rock touches the Bright Light Social Hour are so adept at infusing their music with, like the quirky, Devo-esque opening to the funky "Shanty."
"Who's Devo?" asks Vincent.Visualizations of Hurricane Sandy in 2012 (Mel Shapiro, NCAR)
The Trump administration has proposed a 17 percent cut to the budget of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, according to a four-page budget document obtained by The Washington Post and reported on Friday. Several leaders in the weather and climate community have expressed exasperation, saying such cuts would profoundly set back advances in weather prediction and climate science. Some said they could even cost lives.
NOAA, which is part of the Department of Commerce, houses the National Weather Service and the divisions responsible for weather satellites and atmospheric research.
Cuts could put critical weather satellites at ‘very high risk’
The weather satellite division, known as the National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service, would be hardest hit by the proposed cuts. The administration proposes slashing its budget by $513 million in the 2018 fiscal year, which starts Oct. 1.
Data from weather satellites are indispensable for models used to predict the weather. NOAA has conducted experiments that show that forecasts for costly and deadly storms would be far less accurate without such information.
[Without polar satellites, forecast for Sandy would have suffered, European analysis finds]
The administration’s proposed budget would only partially fund the “Polar Follow On” satellites, two polar-orbiting satellites planned for launch in 2024 and 2026. The budget proposal asks NOAA to instead “work with its partners and OMB [Office of Management and Budget] to develop options for re-phasing the program with later launch-readiness dates, with the goal of lowering annual costs.”
Delaying the launch of those satellites is the “exact opposite” of what is needed and could lead to gaps in coverage, said Jonathan Malay, a past president of the American Meteorological Society who worked in the satellite industry. “They need to be flown earlier not later to assure continuity in observations,” he said. “NOAA satellites save lives and protect our country. It’s time to stop apologizing that they cost a lot of money.”
As a cost-savings measure, the administration’s proposal said it would like to “revisit conversations” about using commercial or international satellites to supplement or replace NOAA’s satellite systems. That’s a “very high risk” strategy, said David Titley, a professor of meteorology at Pennsylvania State University who served as NOAA’s chief operating officer in the Obama administration. “It is like landing on a new island and burning your ships before you know if your new home can sustain life,” he said.
Cuts would ‘compromise’ critical atmospheric research
The administration’s proposal would slash NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) office by $126 million, including the proposed elimination of the Sea Grant program.
The office funds important research toward improving the nation’s weather models, which have fallen behind the Europeans in their prediction capabilities, said Cliff Mass, an atmospheric science researcher at the University of Washington. “Such a large cut would greatly undermine current activities to replace the problematic current generation of U.S. global [weather] models,” Mass wrote on his blog. “It would undermine the development of new approaches to data assimilation of observational data. And much more.”
[NOAA and the new administration: Will Trump make America’s weather model great again?]
In addition to funding weather research, the office houses NOAA’s Climate Program Office which manages the agency’s climate research programs and connects the research findings with stakeholders, such as state and local officials and resource managers. “I see this [funding cut] as the undeclared war on climate research,” Titley told Climate Central.
Broadly speaking, the cuts could set atmospheric research back years, said Marshall Shepherd, a past president of the American Meteorological Society and professor at the University of Georgia. “Research cuts compromise our ability to sustain and develop new capabilities in the future,” he wrote in a column at Forbes. “Even 1-4 year lags or reductions can cause long-term damage because of erosion of technical skills, scientific expertise, and industry contracts.”
The National Weather Service cut is small, but potentially ‘devastating’
Of NOAA’s various divisions, the administration proposes the smallest cuts, at around 5 percent, for the Weather Service, along with the National Marine Fisheries Service. But the Dan Sobien, president of the National Weather Service Employees Organization, a labor union, called the proposed $53 million cut for the Weather Service “devastating.”
“There’s not a whole lot of discretionary spending in the Weather Service budget,” Sobien said. “It would leave a huge hole in our ability to warn people and could even cost lives.”
Sobien noted that the weather touches all aspects of the economy, from the cost of a loaf of bread to insurance premiums. “The weather has such a huge impact on the economy, that the small savings [from the cuts] are a losing proposition for taxpayers,” he said. “This is penny-wise and pound-foolish.”
He added that the effects of cuts in other parts of NOAA would trickle down to the Weather Service. “We are part of NOAA. We all rely on each other, we’re all leveraged,” he said. “If satellite data are compromised, then the models aren’t as good, and that makes the forecaster’s job more difficult.”
The budget figures presented here are not final. They are part of the Office of Management and Budget’s passback document, a key part of the annual budget process in which the White House instructs agencies to draw up detailed budgets for submission to Congress. The numbers often change during the course of negotiations between the agency and the White House and between lawmakers and the administration later on.Update: while I wrote this blog post using Generics-Rep, the updated code in my repository uses first-class row type information for records, so no generics are needed at all. I'll try to write a post about this sooner or later.
This past weekend, I thought it might be fun to try embedding an old Elm app of mine into a Purescript-Halogen one. In this post, I'll go over some of the things I did to make this work, from the basic mounting work and hooking up the top level things in Halogen to some Generic Programming fun I did to validate that my types worked with Elm ports and generate the code I needed for these.
The base Elm stuff
On the Elm side, I mostly copy-pasted code from a previous 0.17 implementation, but ripped out the logic portions and made some adjustments:
my module needed to be declared port module Main
I added these ports:
port clearScreen : () -> Cmd msg
port modelUpdates : ( ElmModel -> msg ) -> Sub msg
clearScreen sends out requests back through the port to ask to clear the screen, and then moduleUpdates receives the entire model state through the port so it can update my view accordingly.
my Action/Event/Msg/whatnot are now updated accordingly:
type Msg
= UpdateModel ElmModel
| ClearScreen update : Msg -> ElmModel -> (ElmModel, Cmd Msg)
update msg model =
case msg of
UpdateModel newModel ->
( newModel, Cmd.none )
ClearScreen ->
( model, clearScreen () )
my Elm main should be set correctly
This just meant that I needed to hook up the subscription like so:
main : Program Never ElmModel Msg
main =
Html. program
{ init = ( init, Cmd. none )
, update = update
, view = view
, subscriptions = ( \ _ -> modelUpdates UpdateModel )
}
The Purescript FFI stuff for working with Elm
To work with Elm, we need to call into the global variable that Elm sets for us and start working with it, and then write some functions for the instances. Well, simple enough:
exports. getElmInstance = function ( element ) {
return function () {
return window. Elm. Main. embed ( element );
}
} exports.subscribeToClearScreen_ = function (instance) {
return function (push) {
return function () {
instance.ports.clearScreen.subscribe(function () {
push()()
})
}
}
} exports.sendModelUpdate = function (instance) {
return function (model) {
return function () {
instance.ports.modelUpdates.send(model);
}
}
}
foreign import data ElmInstance :: Type
foreign import getElmInstance :: forall eff.
HTMLElement
-> Eff ( dom :: DOM | eff ) ElmInstance
foreign import subscribeToClearScreen_ :: forall eff.
ElmInstance
-> ( Unit -> Eff eff Unit )
-> Eff eff Unit
foreign import sendModelUpdate :: forall eff.
ElmInstance
-> ElmModel
-> Eff eff Unit
I need to keep track of where my Elm instance is, so I made an opaque foreign data type for it. the rest is just normal stuff, but I chose not to try to track every effect, though, in larger projects you might end up being interested in tracking some kind of ELM/REACT/whatever effect.
The Halogen stuff
I ended up making a simple single lifecycle component, kind of like the one described in my Full-Stack Purescript post. Not very much new here, as I don't have any inputs or outputs to deal with, and I set my other parts accordingly:
H. lifecycleComponent
{ initialState : const initialState
, render
, eval
, receiver : const Nothing
, initializer : Just ( H. action Init )
, finalizer : Nothing
}
where
initialState :: State
initialState =
{ elmInstance : Nothing
, etchSketch :
{ cursor : Coords { x : 0, y : 0 }
, points : mempty
, width : 800
, height : 600
, increment : 10
}
} render :: State -> H.ComponentHTML Query
render state =
HH.div
[ HP.class_ $ HH.ClassName "ui-root"
, HP.ref rootLabel
]
[] rootLabel = H.RefLabel "root"
For my state, I need to keep track of the Elm instance that I'm working with, and I need a convenient way to separate out the actual Etch-Sketch state that I'll be passing into elm. Working with nested records is quite easy in Purescript, so this wasn't too much of a concern.
The rendering portion is about what you'd expect from any component-based solution: I render a blank div and use a ref to keep track of it. This is later used for querying for it in my eval functions.
The queries look something like this:
data Query a
= Init a
| MoveCursor Direction a
| ClearScreen Unit ( H. SubscribeStatus -> a )
| UpdateElm a
Init for initializing, MoveCursor for moving the cursor in one of four directions, ClearScreen being used for the callback from Elm ports for requests to clear my screen, and UpdateElm for the query that is used to then send updates of the state back through the Elm port. The ClearScreen constructor looks weird just because it needs to handle the callback value and notify the component whether or not the subscription should stay alive, but let's look at that with the actual eval logic of Init :
eval ( Init next ) = do
root <- H. getHTMLElementRef rootLabel
case root of
Just element -> do
elmInstance <- H. liftEff $ getElmInstance element
H. subscribe $ ES. eventSource ( subscribeToClearScreen_ elmInstance )
( Just <<< H. request <<< ClearScreen )
H. modify _ { elmInstance = Just elmInstance }
Nothing -> do
error' "Couldn't get root instance"
Here we handle the initialization from the lifecycle. I grab the root element using the ref I defined, and from there actually run the effect to get the elm instance after it has mounted to the appropriate container.
Here we see our use of subscriptions to event sources in Halogen, where we can attach a handler that will then product actions to be send into our component. The handler for ClearScreen looks like this:
eval ( ClearScreen _ reply ) = do
H. modify _ { etchSketch { points = mempty :: Array Coords }}
_ <- eval ( UpdateElm reply )
pure ( reply H. Listening )
So it clears the points that have been drawn, makes a UpdateElm call, and then returns the condition to continue listening to our component, with the UpdateElm handler:
eval ( UpdateElm next ) = do
state <- H. get
case state. elmInstance of
Just elmInstance -> do
pure unit
H. liftEff $ sendModelUpdate elmInstance
( toElmModel $ ElmModel state. etchSketch )
Nothing ->
pure unit
pure next
So whenever we do an UpdateElm, it takes our state and uses the instance to then send the model update, wrapping our record type with the newtype having the correct instances to do the "model conversion", which is just a trick. This is where things start to get really fun.
Certified Safe-For-Elm-Ports data types
One of the reasons why you'd prefer to use ports when dealing with an embedded Elm application if you already have a static, validated way to make data to send is that you don't have to write the decoding code manually for port types. This also means that there's less indirection in having to handle the success/failure cases.
The other reason was that for my Etch-Sketch to not be too sluggish, I needed a way to represent data that Elm could handle through its ports and work with directly, because I would have to deal with the cost of constantly having to serialize my data into Elm-friendly versions.
Smells like a Generics problem to me
The Elm docs on Javascript interop describe what types are allowed in ports. Basically, everything that is not first-class in Javascript won't work, so how do we model this? Well, my solution for this is to inspect the Generic representation of my data types and use a type class for constraints:
class IsElmPortSafe rep toElmModel :: forall a rep
. Generic a rep
=> IsElmPortSafe rep
=> a
-> a
toElmModel = id
In this case, I use the constraints to check the types being passed in, and the polymorphic a -> a function ensures that I can only define this method with id.
If you're not familiar with Datatype Generics or Generic Programming, you might be interested in my post here.
Now for the actual instances, I'll provide instances for things I know will work, like newtypes ("naked" in runtime), Arrays, etc.:
-- handles "Apple arg" in "newtype Apple = Apple String"
instance isElmPortSafeConstructor :: IsElmPortSafe arg => IsElmPortSafe ( Constructor name arg ) -- handles arguments to type representations
instance isElmPortSafeArgument :: IsElmPortSafe inner => IsElmPortSafe (Argument inner) -- handles records, where it ensures the fields contained work
instance isElmPortSafeRec :: IsElmPortSafe fields => IsElmPortSafe (Rec fields) -- for a list (inner : fields), makes sure the inner field is safe and then checks the rest
-- normal products are not port-safe, so Field acts as an extra constraint
instance isElmPortSafeProductFields ::
( IsElmPortSafe inner
, IsElmPortSafe fields
) => IsElmPortSafe (Product (Field name inner) fields) -- checks that a field of a record is safe
instance isElmPortSafeField :: IsElmPortSafe inner => IsElmPortSafe (Field name inner) -- handles arrays and ensures the inner rep is safe
instance isElmPortSafeArray :: IsElmPortSafe inner => IsElmPortSafe (Array inner) -- the Int type is supported through ports
instance isElmPortSafeInt :: IsElmPortSafe Int
Working with the types
Now I can define types using the type class accordingly:
newtype Coords = Coords
{ x :: Int
, y :: Int
}
derive instance genericCoords :: Generic Coords _
instance isElmPortSafeCoords ::
( Generic Coords rep
, IsElmPortSafe rep
) => IsElmPortSafe Coords newtype ElmModel = ElmModel EtchSketch
derive instance genericEtchSketch :: Generic ElmModel _ type EtchSketch =
{ cursor :: Coords
, points :: Array Coords
, height :: Int
, width :: Int
, increment :: Int
}
With this, I'm ready to handle UpdateElm queries:
eval ( UpdateElm next ) = do
state <- H. get
case state. elmInstance of
Just elmInstance -> do
pure unit
H. liftEff $ sendModelUpdate elmInstance
( toElmModel $ ElmModel state. etchSketch )
Nothing ->
pure unit
pure next
So while our toElmModel function does nothing, it still does all the checks to make sure our type is safe!
Codegen for correctness and coolness
So even though we have port-safe types to send through, we still would end up two separate type definitions that need to be in sync for this to work. Anything that humans have to do manually has a high probability of going wrong, so I like to minimize this as much as possible -- the answer being code generation! And of course, we'll use Generics here also.
To do this, I do something similar to the above, but with a real purpose this time: I want to take a Proxy (a container for the type I'm working with) and produce a String for the code I want to write.
getElmRep :: forall a rep
. Generic a rep
=> IsElmPortSafe rep
=> HasElmRep rep
=> Proxy a
-> String
getElmRep _ = toElmRep ( Proxy :: Proxy rep ) class HasElmRep f where
toElmRep :: Proxy f -> String
So here also, I take the Generic rep and check that it's port safe, and then introduce a new constraint to check that the rep is representable as Elm and comes with a getElmRep method.
-- instance for Constructor
instance herConstructor ::
( IsSymbol name -- use the symbol name of the type for the type alias name
, HasElmRep inner -- use the ElmRep of the inner values
) => HasElmRep ( Constructor name inner ) where
toElmRep _ = "type alias " <> name <> " =" <> contents
where
name = reflectSymbol ( SProxy :: SProxy name )
contents = toElmRep ( Proxy :: Proxy inner ) -- records will be on a new line and use brackets and this formatting
instance herRec ::
( HasElmRep inner
) => HasElmRep (Rec inner) where
toElmRep _ = "
{ " <> contents <> "
}
"
where
contents = toElmRep (Proxy :: Proxy inner) -- the only products really supported are record fields, but this is fine
instance herProduct ::
( HasElmRep a -- check the left side
, HasElmRep b -- check the right side
) => HasElmRep (Product a b) where
toElmRep _ = first <> "
, " <> second
where
first = toElmRep (Proxy :: Proxy a)
second = toElmRep (Proxy :: Proxy b)
For the actual fields, I need to bail early and get either the literal type name to be used in Elm or the constructor name of the data type. I introduce another type class for extracting the name here.
class ExtractName f where
extractName :: Proxy f -> String instance epInt :: ExtractName Int where
extractName _ = "Int" -- use Lists for Arrays, since Elm will have to parse Arrays also anyway
instance epArray :: ExtractName a => ExtractName (Array a) where
extractName _ = "List " <> extractName (Proxy :: Proxy a) -- use an Overlapping instance in lieu of Instance Chains not yet being available
-- alternative available below
instance epZZZ :: -- overlapping instance because i am a madman
( Generic a rep
, TypeEquals rep (Constructor name b)
, IsSymbol name
) => ExtractName a where
extractName _ = reflectSymbol (SProxy :: SProxy name) -- this would work fine too, but it's less fun:
instance epCoords :: ExtractName Coords where
extractName _ = genericExtractConstructorName (Proxy :: Proxy Coords) genericExtractConstructorName :: forall a rep name b
. Generic a rep
=> TypeEquals rep (Constructor name b)
=> IsSymbol name
=> Proxy a
-> String
genericExtractConstructorName _ = reflectSymbol (SProxy :: SProxy name)
With this done, all that is left is to generate this and write to a file:
prepareContents :: String -> String
prepareContents contents = "module EtchSketch.Types exposing (..)
" <> contents main = launchAff do
writeTextFile UTF8 "./src/EtchSketch/Types.elm" contents
log "done"
where
contents = prepareContents $
getElmRep (Proxy :: Proxy Coords) <>
getElmRep (Proxy :: Proxy ElmModel)
Now when we run this Codegen module, it writes to Types.elm and that can be used by the Elm compiler! The output for our types looks like this:
module EtchSketch.Types exposing (.. ) type alias Coords =
{ x : Int
, y : Int
}
type alias ElmModel =
{ cursor : Coords
, height : Int
, increment : Int
, points : List Coords
, width : Int
}
And now every time we run our whole build, our Elm types will be generated again and used for compiling in Elm!
完成
This is about what all was involved in embedding an Elm app in a Halogen one in a type-safe manner with codegen. We used Generic programming to solve two problems that would have required a lot of error-prone manual work to get a better integration than otherwise possible.
I hope this gives you some ideas on how to approach embedding different kinds of projects like Typescript+React/RN front-ends and other things to Purescript applications. Let me know on Twitter what you think, or if you have an integration story involving codegen and other approaches.
LinksThe busiest abortion clinic in the state of Virginia has closed after a part-time Fairfax City councilmember and full-time staffer for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor pushed for a last-minute ordinance to place additional restrictions on women’s health clinics just as it was relocating to a new space.
Court records obtained by The Washington Post indicated that NOVA Women’s Healthcare had agreed to move out of its space on Eaton Place by mid-June after it had been sued twice by its landlord and the state passed new laws requiring clinics to have hospital-grade facilities.
NOVA located a possible new space, but the Fairfax City Council became aware of the move last week and pushed through a new zoning ordinance that reclassified clinics into the same category as medical care facilities. They had had previously been regulated had doctor’s offices. The new ordinance meant that NOVA’s new office would not have adequate parking.
NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia spokesperson Alena Yarmosky told the Post that “fact they were forced to move, that’s a testament to the barriers these providers face.”
“NOVA Women’s Healthcare provided medical services to thousands of women,” Yarmosky explained. It was the largest abortion provider, but thousands of women also relied on them for birth control and other health care, and they went to NOVA because they could not afford care otherwise. Now they are left without their trusted health-care provider, in part due to politicians. It’s definitely a loss.”
The Fairfax City ordinance that’s now standing in the way of NOVA opening its doors was supported by Councilman Steven Stombres, who has a full-time job as chief of staff to U.S. Rep. Eric Cantor. He told the Post last week that the new rules had nothing to do with closing abortion clinics.
City staff are allowed to make decisions about doctor’s offices, but Stombres believes that politicians should decide have a say about how and where medical facilities operate.
“I ran because I want to be the one that makes those decisions,” he said. “I know people feel there’s another agenda here. It’s not my agenda.”
At a city council meeting last week, zoning administrator Michelle Coleman was asked why doctor’s offices could provide services like Lasik eye surgery, but still be exempt from the rules that were being forced upon women’s health clinics.
“That’s a complementary service provided by a doctor’s office,” Coleman said.
Councilmember Jeff Greenfield wanted to know if a doctor’s office would need a permit to do a colonoscopy.
“I think that’s outpatient,” Coleman pointed out to explain why that service was exempt.
Planned Parenthood lawyer Noah Mamber warned that “local ordinances such as these will effectively ban them from their towns, meaning these providers will be stuck and have to close and a Virginia woman needing to terminate a pregnancy will have nowhere to go.”
Watch the Fairfax City Council debate the new ordinance on clinics starting at about 20:48 in the following video, uploaded on July 10, 2013.Sky Keep (空の塔, Sora no Tō?, Sky Tower) is the final dungeon of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.
Contents show]
Story
Spoiler warning : Plot or ending details follow.
The Sky Keep is located directly under the Statue of the Goddess on Skyloft, but remains hidden until very late in the game. The entrance to the dungeon is revealed by inserting the Stone of Trials in the giant bird shaped stone. The spiral exterior of Sky Keep fits perfectly with the spiral grounds of the Sealed Grounds. This piece of land was raised from the surface, along with Skyloft, and is hidden from view, specifically because the Goddess Hylia was preventing Demise from obtaining the ultimate power the temple houses. Once the Sky Keep is completed, Link cannot access it since it has returned to its original state. Strangely, it contains Bokoblins, Moblins, and other monsters which have only been known to serve Ghirahim, despite the fact that Ghirahim's forces would have no way to access the keep.
Dungeon
The dungeon consists of eight square-shaped rooms that can be moved around like a sliding puzzle by using control panels found in certain rooms. When operating a control panel, Link cannot move whichever room he is currently occupying. Three of the themed rooms contain a piece of the Triforce, shown by a small colored triangle on the control panel. Link needs to obtain all three pieces of the Triforce to complete the dungeon. The rooms containing the Triforce pieces are accessed via portals denoted by the Marks of the Goddesses. Due to the nature of the Sky Keep, however, there are many possible ways to do this. The order in which Link collects the pieces does not matter.
Most of the rooms are themed around previously visited locations, aside from the unthemed antechamber. There are rooms themed after Faron Woods and the upper portion of the Ancient Cistern, the Earth Temple, various locations in the Lanayru Desert, the underground portion of the Ancient Cistern, the Lanayru Mining Facility, and the Fire Sanctuary. LD-003K Dreadfuse can be found guarding a Small Key in the room with the narrow walkway identical to the one on the Sandship, though with a background similar to the flora in the Skyview Temple. A Stalmaster guards the way to the Triforce of Courage in the room themed after the bottom of the Ancient Cistern. The Triforces of Wisdom and Power are found in the Lanayru Desert and Fire Sanctuary rooms, respectively. This dungeon is one of the few in the Legend of Zelda series that lack a boss, although the game's final bosses are battled shortly after the dungeon's completion.
Spoiler warning: Spoilers end here.
Items
EnemiesSweat-slicked and decked out in 1980s-styled suits, a five-piece band of middle-aged men marched out of a bus and into the streets Thursday afternoon. Blasting their prominent 1986 anthem, “Spadina Bus,” the Shuffle Demons were back on the streets of Toronto, performing on a retired TTC bus down and then up Spadina Ave.
The Shuffle Demons get on board the Spadina bus to promote their new CD and the TTC's shutdown of the Spadina streetcar service until November. It's back to the bus on the busy route as the TTC does track and platform repairs. The Shuffle Demons scored a 1986 hit with their song "Spadina Bus." ( CARLOS OSORIO / TORONTO STAR )
The event was jointly put on by the jazz-funk-fusion band and the TTC. Passengers were invited onto the bus with no fare required. Most looked confused when they boarded, but many danced in their seats or sang along, if they were old enough to know the lyrics. Some of the songs played were from their new album, Cluster Funk, released earlier this week. But, the event wasn’t simply a promotional ploy. A major construction project on Spadina Ave. that began in June has halted the road’s street cars for the next few months in order to build new passenger platforms, replace tracks along the route and modernize the overhead power system.
Article Continued Below
At peak hours, 34 buses are running to replace the 21 streetcars that normally operate along the route. Brad Ross, TTC spokesperson, said this has meant some inconveniences for passengers. The Shuffle Demons event, which was proposed by the band’s publicist two weeks ago, was meant to give back to these passengers. In 2013, the new low-floor, air-conditioned street cars are slated to come into operation, and the construction is a requirement to accommodate them. “It’s a necessary inconvenience,” Ross said. Construction is on track to finish in November, when the street cars will return to Spadina Ave.
Transit ditties The Shuffle Demons aren’t the only musicians to pay homage to the TTC. Here are three well-loved tracks:
Article Continued Below
1950: “The Toronto Subway Song” by Mel Hamill 1969: “TTC Skidaddler” by Stompin’ Tom Connors 2008: “I get on (The TTC)” by Randal Paul and SyruslifeJul 29, 2017 Altcoins • Editor's Picks • ICO • News • 1
According to Celebrity Net Worth, Flloyd “Money” Mayweather has made a total of $730 million USD boxing. He is known to spend his money on fleets of luxury cars, a private jet and making insane seven figure bets!
Now, it looks like he’s involving himself with a new ICO (Initial Coin Offering) called Stox.com. Mayweather recently posted a picture of him in a private jet, with stacks of fiat currency and part of the caption stating,
“I’m gonna make a $hit t$n of money on August 2nd on the Stox.com ICO”.
Publicity from a celebrity in cryptocurrency is a great thing for the community and probably the greatest case scenario for Stox. Currently, Stox Prediction Market (STX) is standing out from, what seems like, 100 ICO’s coming out daily and could possibly beat their competitors to the punch in attaining investors to back up their project. Regardless of the outcome of Stox’s ICO, one thing you can be sure of is that Floyd “Money” Mayweather and “The Notorious” Conor McGregor will make over $600 Million USD combined in Las Vegas on August 26, 2017.
Speaking of Vegas, people from all over the world will be gambling on this hyped up fight. What better way to place your bets on a gambling platform like Wagerr. For many, this will be the first interaction they’ll have using the Wagerr platform to place a bet. If you own Wagerr coins and would like further instructions on how to place your bet, follow these instructions. So who will you burn your first Wagerr on? Floyd “Money” Mayweather or “The Notorious” Conor McGregor?
Let us know in the comments section below!
Get pumped up and excited! Watch the fight promotion video here
You may also like to read: Wagerr Altcoin Review
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Disclaimer: CryptoCanucks.com is not intended to provide tax, legal or investment advice, and nothing on CryptoCanucks.com should be construed as an offer to sell, a solicitation of an offer to buy, or a recommendation for any asset by CryptoCanucks.com or any third party. You alone are solely responsible for determining whether any investment, asset or strategy, or any other product or service, is appropriate or suitable for you based on your investment objectives and personal and financial situation. You should consult an attorney or tax professional regarding your specific legal or tax situation.To the public, the Toronto actor’s role as Derek Wheeler on the hit Degrassi TV series thrust him into the realm of celebrity, but in real life he died anonymously.
For millions, Neil Hope was “Wheels” — the lovable, troubled onscreen teen with that feathered blond hair and huge glasses.
To former castmates, producers, friends and relatives of the Degrassi celebrity, he was just Neil, quiet and bright-eyed.
Police have confirmed to the Star that Hope was found dead on Nov. 25, 2007 in a Hamilton rooming house. That shocking revelation was made known to friends and family only this January — and became public Thursday.
But Hope met a very different end in that Hamilton rooming house, where local police found him dead, according to former fiancée Christina Boulard, 37.
Many former actors, who were mobbed in malls for their Degrassi fame, went on to successful careers, including Aubrey Graham, better known now as award-winning recording artist Drake.
From its original iteration as The Kids of Degrassi Street in 1979 to the still-running Degrassi: The Next Generation, the series is one of Canada’s prime television success stories. It developed a cult following, was picked up in the U.S. and is now watched the world over.
“His life was not an easy one, but the time he spent with us was a shining example of determination, hard work and hopeful optimism and he is sorely missed.”
“Neil made an important contribution to our lives, to the lives of our television team, who are like a family to us, and indeed to the live of many Canadians and others around the world who were influenced by Neil and the roles he played,” said statement from executive producers Linda Schuyler and Stephen Stohn. (Schuyler was involved in the original series.)
She and Hope dated between 1998 and 2001 and were engaged until the relationship ended amicably. “I was devastated (by his death). I still am.”
“I was shocked,” said Boulard, fighting back tears as she talked to the Star.
Little is known about how the intensely private Hope came to a sudden end, alone and unnoticed. “Everybody falls on hard times,” Boulard said. “Neil had a hard life.”
The star’s struggles with his parents’ alcoholism — his father eventually died of cirrhosis of the liver — were well documented in interviews.
Boulard said Hope’s brother Danny and his wife, Tracy, began hearing rumours of his death two or three years ago but they brushed it off. But two years went by and no one had heard from him. “That’s when we started to worry,” she said.
Boulard said she lost touch with Hope in 2002, but remained in contact with his family through Facebook. When they hadn’t heard from Hope, they called her. Finally they contacted the police in Hamilton.
Boulard said the police told Hope’s family they had a record of someone who had died but the names and birth date didn’t match up. She said the family clung to that, hoping it wasn’t him.
But finally, this January, police confirmed that it was indeed Hope who had died of “natural causes” in November 2007. (The coroner’s office was not immediately available to confirm the details.)
Hope was buried in March 2008. The location of the grave is being kept private, Boulard said.
Boulard said she is organizing a private ceremony, with help from Amanda Stepto, who played Christine “Spike” Nelson on Degrassi, for friends to remember Hope. Hope’s family is planning their own memorial.
As his character was being eased out of the show in 1991 — “Wheels” pleads guilty to a drunk-driving death late in the series — Hope faded into the background too.
“He was the one that stayed as far away from the public eye afterwards as possible,” Boulard said.
Dan Woods, who played Mr. Raditch, a teacher and later principal on the show, remembered meeting Hope when he was a teen on the set of Degrassi Junior High.
“He was a quiet guy when we were off set, but full of energy, very bright-eyed,” Woods told the Star from California.
He was always friendly with the cast behind the scenes, Woods recalled. In a way, they became his family and the set his home. Schuyler, the early Degrassi producer, became like a second mother to him on the set, many said.
Though he made a few guest appearances on episodes of Degrassi: The Next Generation, Hope went back to being a nobody. He missed his cast family, even though he wasn’t great at keeping in touch, Boulard said.
“He didn’t know any other life,” she said. “That’s why he latched on to his Degrassi family so hard … They were his brothers and sisters.”
Former Degrassi castmates began sharing the news of Hope’s death a couple of weeks ago, Woods said.
“We’re all pretty shocked about the news. We’re saddened by it. Neil was a great guy and a great light,” he said.
Boulard met Hope when they were both working at a Money Mart in Hamilton. “I’ve gotta work,” she said he told her. “I’ve gotta make a living.”
He moved on to blue-collar jobs, including one at United Furniture Warehouse. But Boulard said he always talked about becoming a director, but never reached out to Degrassi’s producers or former castmates.
“Wheels” made his last guest appearance on Degrassi in 2003 with former castmates Pat Mastroianni and Stefan Brogren, who play Joey Jeremiah and Archibald “Snake” Simpson — the original Degrassi trio who formed the fictional rock band the Zit Remedy.
His last moment on camera shows |
part in the offensive to drive an estimated 4,000 to 8,000 Islamic State militants from Mosul, a city of 1.5 million people.
“I announce today the start of the heroic operations to free you from the terror and the oppression of Daesh,” Prime Minister Haider Abadi said in a speech on state TV, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State.
“We will meet soon on the ground of Mosul to celebrate liberation and your salvation,” he said, surrounded by the armed forces’ top commanders.
Iraqi troops celebrating. Flashing victory sign as they tighten noose around mosul pic.twitter.com/tIxBqK4eU2 — Richard Engel (@RichardEngel) October 17, 2016
Qatar-based al-Jazeera television aired video of what it said was a bombardment of Mosul that started after Abadi’s speech, showing rockets and bursts of tracer bullets across the night sky and loud sounds of gunfire.
“This operation to regain control of Iraq’s second-largest city will likely continue for weeks, possibly longer,” said the commander of the coalition, U.S. Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend, in a statement.
The Mosul offensive is one of the biggest military operations in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.
“This is a decisive moment in the campaign to deliver ISIL a lasting defeat,” U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said in a statement, using an acronym for Islamic State.
“We are confident our Iraqi partners will prevail against our common enemy and free Mosul and the rest of Iraq from ISIL’s hatred and brutality.”
In 2014, Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed from Mosul’s Grand Mosque a “caliphate” in Iraq and neighbouring Syria.
If Mosul falls, Raqqa in Syria will be Islamic State’s last city stronghold.
.@CENTCOM says Mosul operation "will likely continue for weeks, possibly longer... may prove a long and tough battle." — Erin Cunningham (@erinmcunningham) October 17, 2016
KURDISH FIGHTERS
Islamic State has been retreating since the end of last year in Iraq, where it is battling U.S-backed government and Kurdish forces as well as Iranian-backed Iraqi Shi’ite militias.
The Iraqi Kurdish military command said 4,000 Peshmerga were taking part in an operation to clear several villages held by Islamic State to the east of Mosul, in an attack coordinated with a push by Iraqi army units from the southern front.
In its first statement on the Mosul operations, the Iraqi army media office said the advancing troops destroyed a number of Islamic State defence lines.
Strikes carried out by the Iraqi and coalition jets hit an unspecified number of the militants positions, it said.
A column of black smoke was rising from one of the insurgents’ positions on the eastern front, the Reuters correspondent said, and seemed to be from burning oil being used to block the path of the Kurds and obstruct the jets’ view.
“We are the real Muslims, Daesh are not Muslims, no religion does what they did,” said a young Kurdish fighter in battle dress as he scanned the plain east of Mosul from his position on the heights of Mount Zertik.
As he spoke a Humvee drove by with the word Rojava, or Syria’s Kurdistan, painted on the protection plate of the machine gun turret.
“This is all Kurdistan,” Major Shiban Saleh, one of the fighters onboard, said. “When we’re done here, we will chase them to Raqqa or wherever they go,” he said.
He said about 450 Syrian Peshmerga fighters were involved in the offensive east of Mosul, which aims to take back nine villages during the day.
Anadolu Agency via Getty Images About 30,000 troops from the Iraqi army, Kurdish Peshmerga militia and Sunni tribal fighters are expected to take part in the offensive. U.S. Army armored vehicles will also participate in the operation.
HUMANITARIAN CRISIS FEARED
Early on Monday, Abadi sought to allay fears that the operation would provoke sectarian bloodletting, saying that only the Iraqi army and police would be allowed to enter the mainly Sunni city. He asked Mosul’s residents to cooperate with them.
Local Sunni politicians and regional Sunni-majority states including Turkey and Saudi Arabia warned that letting Shi’ite militias take part in assault could spark sectarian violence.
The Iraqi army had dropped tens of thousands of leaflets over Mosul before dawn on Sunday, warning residents that the offensive was imminent. The leaflets carried several messages, one of them assuring the population that advancing army units and air strikes “will not target civilians” and another telling them to avoid known locations of Islamic State militants.
As #Mosul_Offensive begins, protecting civilians must be essential part of military strategies. This is crucial for the future of #Iraq. pic.twitter.com/xgNtvO7QnL — Filippo Grandi (@RefugeesChief) October 17, 2016
Reflecting authorities’ concerns over a mass exodus that would complicate the offensive and worsen the humanitarian situation, the leaflets told residents “to stay at home and not to believe rumours spread by Daesh” that could cause panic.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday he hoped the United States and its allies would do their best to avoid civilian casualties in an attack on Mosul.
The United Nations last week said it was bracing for the world’s biggest and most complex humanitarian effort in the battle for the city, which could make up to 1 million people homeless and see civilians used as human shields or even gassed.I guess Derpy got a little bit excited and overshot her mark!This was created entirely in Illustrator CS6, I came up with the idea over a month ago but silly life got in my way and I just managed to finish it off. This is really my first attempt at a wallpaper which is 100% vectored in all respects. I hope you enjoy this wallpaper as much as I enjoyed making it. If you all prefer wallpapers over raw vectored characters please do let me know and I will focus on them more.This is a 16:10 scaled wallpaper, which is suitable for:2560x16001440x9001280x800Click [link] for the 16:9 which is suitable for:1080/780 HD (TV)2560x14401600x9001360x768..etcNo Background Version!:(I admit the background is not the best, for those of you who can do better or would like to use other backgrounds, this will easily allow you to do so. Enjoy!)As always, MLP:FiM is copyright Hasbro and Lauren Faust; shower them in riches and respect for their magical work.For the last two years, Wisconsin has been unable to tap into more than $2.1 million in unspent federal grants dating back to 2011 for juvenile justice programs.
Federal justice officials froze grant funding during its most recent audit, which concluded the state didn't have an adequate system for monitoring facilities where juveniles are held. The state is still waiting to hear whether that funding will be restored.
In December, Wisconsin Deputy Attorney General Paul Connell issued a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice requesting frozen grant funds from 2011 to 2015 be restored.
Federal officials informed the state in 2014 it would be conducting an audit of whether the Wisconsin Department of Justice was complying with requirements to receive federal funds under a Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act program. A 2015 audit concluded the state’s oversight of jails, juvenile detention centers, mental health centers, police departments and other facilities was lacking. Part of meeting federal compliance included defining which facilities should be monitored and inspected.
"Specifically with respect to detention facilities at police departments (lock ups), Wisconsin did not believe those type facilities were required to be included in the monitoring universe, and as such did not inspect them as required," the audit states.
The state has been addressing compliance issues with the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention since they were notified of the audit in 2014, said Jim Moeser, deputy director with the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families and chair of the Governor’s Juvenile Justice Commission.
"Was there some responsibility on the part of the state that we probably didn’t monitor things as adequately as we should? Yes. But, is it as bad as suggesting that we’re way out of compliance or not doing good work? I wouldn’t say that," Moeser said.
In an August 2016 letter, the U.S. DOJ said the state didn’t have an adequate system for identifying and classifying facilities for inspections from 2009 to 2015.
"To address the concerns noted and improve the state’s current compliance monitoring system, OJJDP made 13 recommendations to the state … Based on OJJDP’s review of documentation submitted by the state, OJJDP considers all recommendations closed," the letter reads.
Rebecca Ballweg with the Wisconsin DOJ responded in an email to Wisconsin Public Radio and said the state is now in compliance with the program’s federal requirements and eligible to receive future funding.
Ballweg also cited failures on behalf of prior employees and the federal government to administer the program.
"Prior to 2009, a Wisconsin state employee who helped administer the JJDPA program in Wisconsin provided false information to the federal government," Ballweg wrote. "Also, from 2001 to 2014, the federal OJJDP office tasked with administering the JJDPA program nationwide failed to meet their own standards for administering the program, which was brought to light by several federal whistleblowers."
The federal OJJDP office has faced scrutiny and congressional hearings after federal employees alleged the program awarded grants to states that violated federal requirements. Those requirements include ensuring juveniles don’t have contact with incarcerated adults.
The now-defunct state Office of Justice Assistance oversaw the state's JJDPA program from 2001 to 2013, Ballweg said. Moeser noted the state Office of Justice Assistance was transitioning to the state DOJ around the time of the audit.
"There were some things missed in that time period that probably would have been helpful," Moeser said. "There was lack of staff that were actually transferred over when the Office of Justice Assistance was closed. There was not sufficient staffing to do the compliance work that was needed."
Communication between Wisconsin and federal officials has been strained by different interpretations of federal requirements and lacking responses to questions surrounding the program, Moeser said. Such confusion dates back to at least January 2012, according to Connell's letter to the U.S. DOJ.
Moeser said the state hasn't received any of the unspent seed money since 2014 that's been awarded for innovative programs to help kids despite meeting the federal thresholds.
"We don’t have any money to give out in grants around juvenile justice to do the kind of creative stuff that counties were doing, and that’ll be a problem," he said.
Wisconsin has used JJDPA grants to reduce disparities for youth of color in the justice system, provide officer training and address truancy issues.
"Even though the amount of dollars overall has been relatively small, the ability to change practice and move systems to do more effective work has been pretty significant and has been some of the only flexible money the counties have been able to use creatively to do different things that have turned out to be really successful," Moeser said. "The dollar amount is small, but the impact has been pretty significant."
James Goodwin, public affairs specialist within the Office of Justice Programs at the U.S. DOJ, said in an emailed statement that the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention carries out routine reviews of the states’ compliance with the program to receive federal grants.
"The matter of eligibility for and release of prior year funding has been under review by the Department following close-out of the audit, and discussions are ongoing with the Wisconsin Department of Justice," Goodwin wrote.May 15, 2014; Washington, DC, USA; Indiana Pacers center Roy Hibbert (55) and Pacers forward David West (21) stand on the court against the Washington Wizards in game six of the second round of the 2014 NBA Playoffs at Verizon Center. Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports
With the Indiana Pacers being for from competitive, trading away pieces of core only makes sense for their future.
The Indiana Pacers were expected to struggle coming into this season. When you lose your best player (Paul George) to a season-ending injury and your second-best player and main ball-handler (Lance Stephenson) to free agency, it can be hard to keep up. Even in the East, there was no way the Pacers would return to what they were before, competing to represent their conference in the NBA Finals and all. At 15-27 and 11th in the East, building for the future only makes sense.
Indiana isn’t only 12 games under.500 for the first time since 2009-10, they are perhaps at their lowest point since Frank Vogel took the reigns back in 2011. They started off their current four-game losing streak with a one-point loss to the tanking Philadelphia 76ers (currently 8-32), only to follow that up with an embarrassing 110-101 defeat at the hands of the now 7-32 Minnesota Timberwolves on their home court. Oh, Mo Williams also dropped a career-high 52 points to help snap Minnesota’s 15-game losing streak. It can’t get worse, can it?
It can.
After an acceptable two-point loss to the surging Detroit Pistons, the Pacers traveled to Charlotte to face Stephenson and the Hornets. Charlotte has played better as of late like the Pistons, but on this night, they were without Al Jefferson and Kemba Walker–their two best players. Indiana walked into Time Warner Cable Arena knowing they had to win that game in order to get back on track, and they knew they could. With Jefferson and Walker out, they had no excuse. And still, Indiana fell 80-71 in overtime (yes, that was an overtime score in an NBA game).
To make matters worst, Indiana has a tough stretch coming up where they will travel to play the Rockets, Hawks, Heat, and Magic before returning home to host the Raptors.
While Indiana is a much better team with George Hill healthy and playing, his return to the court–whenever that will be–might not be enough to salvage this season. The Pacers are now fighting with emerging teams in Detroit and Charlotte for the bottom two playoff seeds, and that’s only if the Nets and Heat fall apart and lose their spots. For the Pistons and Hornets, the play of Brandon Jennings and Kemba Walker has made them tough teams to beat after being laughable to begin the season.
We are still a month away from the trade deadline, and while it’s probably unlikely with Larry Bird’s history as a GM, making trades to move on from this core just might be necessary for the sake of Indiana’s future. With their recent play, there really is no reason not to start making moves.
The Pacers don’t have to tear apart their whole team, but trading away the frontcourt is the most attractive move at the moment. Here’s why.
David West
West isn’t what he used to be, but for a contender needing depth at power forward or just an upgrade overall, he is a very good option. West might not be worth his $12 million contract anymore, but his experience and will to win makes him hard to pass up if available.
For the Pacers, they haven’t had athleticism in their frontcourt in quite a while and dealing West gives them the opportunity to fix that problem, as well as clear his contract off the books for the summer.
Roy Hibbert
Hibbert has been in trade rumors for what seems forever, and now is the time to end those rumors and actually make a move. For teams looking to upgrade at center, Hibbert–even with his huge contract at about $15 million–is a great rim protector and has shown more willingness to be an offensive presence this season, and has been especially good in January. Hibbert may not be what he used to be, but he is certainly an upgrade at center for any team looking.
For the Pacers, similar to West, it’s just time to get more athletic at center and wipe his contract off the books. As said in the past, a fresh start could be the best thing for both parties.
As far as other pieces, the Pacers could trade Luis Scola as he adds the same veteran leadership and experience as West, but they really don’t need to move anyone else. Adding a ball-handling facilitator wouldn’t hurt and is probably necessary after losing Stephenson, but they don’t have to lose George Hill in that. He did play at shooting guard in the past, and moving him there could help him focus on scoring rather than distributing.
In making the moves suggested above, Indiana has the opportunity to build a team around Paul George that would more fit his development, and with a better Paul George, the whole team in turn is better. To make George better, as mentioned in the paragraph above, trading for/signing a ball-handler in the summer makes the most sense. Indiana did show interest in Goran Dragic last summer, and as perfect a move that would be for the Pacers, Phoenix might not be interested after adding frontcourt help in Brandan Wright. If Indiana is still interested but can’t get him in a trade, he is set to be a free agent this summer (if he opts-out, which he has said he will).
Unless Indiana is planning on going “all in” with this core one last time next season, retaining it makes no sense. Hibbert and West both have player options this summer, and seeing they would get less money anywhere else they went, they should probably take the option. Indiana could deal them next year, but that would leave them a year behind in a small rebuilding process. They surely don’t want to lose them for nothing.
As I said above, this would only be small rebuilding process. There is no guarantee with draft picks, but the Pacers could grab one of the many good big man in the lottery and from there, all they would have to do is add the ball-handler. And for all we know, that happens in a trade. Boom, rebuild over.
However, Larry Bird wants to win. Even though his team is clearly losing, he probably won’t make any trades–if he does at all–until the trade deadline. Still, Indiana would be well on their way to a rebuilding process that won’t even set them back too far.
And hey, in the East, even a rebuilding project can turn into a playoff seed.NEW YORK (CNN) -- It's been a year since the parents of a severely disabled child made public their decision to submit their daughter to a hysterectomy, breast surgery and drugs to keep the girl forever small. Today, the couple tell CNN, they believe they made the right decision -- one that could have a profound impact on the care of disabled children worldwide.
The profoundly disabled girl known as Ashley, now 10, has achieved her full height, 4 feet 5 inches.
"The 'Ashley treatment' has been successful in every expected way," Ashley's parents told CNN exclusively in a lengthy e-mail interview. "It has potential to help many others like it helped our precious daughter."
While unwavering in their belief in the treatment, Ashley's parents continue to insist on anonymity. In the year since Ashley's parents went public, not only did the hospital that sterilized Ashley admit it broke Washington state law, but also the doctor who treated Ashley committed suicide.
As scrutiny of the case deepens, so too does the chasm in the medical community: Is it mutilation, with doctors "playing God" -- or, is stunting growth a liberating option for caregivers and the disabled children who will need constant care for the rest of their lives?
Ashley is now 10 years old and, at 4 feet 5 inches tall, has achieved her full height and weight, 63 pounds. The treatment permanently closed her growth plates and took more than a foot off her anticipated height.
"Ashley did not grow in height or weight in the last year, she will always be flat-chested, and she will never suffer any menstrual pain, cramps or bleeding," say her parents, who felt it important to publicly address their decision after repeated interview requests, in the hopes of sharing their experience with other families.
They responded by e-mail only, to protect the family's identity. (Read the complete interview)
Ashley's current state -- to them -- is the definition of success.
She was born brain-damaged, with a condition described as static encephalopathy, or cerebral palsy. One of her doctors described her mental capacity as that of a 6-month-old, dependent upon her parents to meet every need. She does not walk or talk; she's fed through a tube and wears diapers. When Ashley was 6, her parents approached Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle, Washington, for the operations. They believed this would make it easier to cuddle and carry a child who can do little more than lie propped on a pillow.
Weight and height are the "worst enemy," they write, for children such as Ashley, for whom they've coined the term "pillow angels."
In 2004, Children's Hospital performed a hysterectomy, removed Ashley's breast buds and gave her high-dose estrogen to retard growth and sexual maturation -- a procedure that has risks, but to date has not harmed her, her parents say.
While the "Ashley treatment" was first published in the October 2006 issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, it wasn't until the family posted its blog last year that a firestorm erupted in the blogosphere, with responses from "inhumane" and "perverse" -- to "walk in our shoes."
"If parents of children like Ashley believe this treatment will improve their children's quality of life, then they should be diligent and tenacious in providing it for them," her parents write. "We have a sacred duty to do what we believe is right for our children."
But in Ashley's case, what her parents thought was right wasn't legal.
In May 2007, Children's Hospital admitted it broke state law by giving Ashley a hysterectomy without a proper court review. To perform any such treatment today would require a court order, as well as review by a panel of experts in medicine and ethics and people with disabilities, says Dr. Douglas Diekema of Treuman Katz Center for Pediatric Bioethics, the consulting ethicist on Ashley's case.
So, will doctors stop the growth of more children like Ashley?
Right now, no growth-attenuation therapy is being administered by other doctors anywhere in the nation, according to pediatric experts. Supporters wonder whether another factor, the suicide in September of Ashley's endocrinologist, Dr. Daniel Gunther, may have slowed wider adoption of the treatment.
"We know from reliable sources his treatment of our daughter was a source of energy and motivation for him," Ashley's parents write. "He was frustrated about being blocked from providing this treatment to other children in need. He strongly believed this treatment should be available to them."
The family appears to be the lone voice with that opinion; CNN shared the family's comment with Children's Hospital, but did not get a response. In media reports, colleagues and family members were said to believe Gunther's suicide was not related to the treatment of the girl.
Another complicating factor -- some doctors remain adamant the treatment shouldn't be available.
"Adults can consent. But for a child, we're making decisions for them and hoping in our heart of hearts we are making the right decisions," says Dr. Nancy Murphy, chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Children with Disabilities.
Murphy will push for consensus among doctors at a pediatrics conference later this year, but acknowledges strong discord as critics continue to insist that keeping children small reduces them to a permanent infant-like condition, denying the basic human right to experience an adult body, adult feelings and adult relationships. But for Ashley, that may be moot.
"[This disability] shatters the reason we become parents: to watch kids grow, to be part of their lives and to launch into their own lives," says Murphy. "When you have a child with lifelong dependency, you don't get to launch your kid, and your caregiver options are limited."
But like many other people with disabilities, 43-year-old Anne Rader, who also has cerebral palsy but in a much less severe form than Ashley's, sees the treatment as dehumanizing -- and perhaps most significantly -- irrevocable.
"The parents are not seeing the potential of the child; they are seeing a baby," says Rader. "People with disabilities have to look at the potential of our lives: of available new technology, new equipment, medical advances. Things can change so quickly now."
Some ethicists, too, remain staunch in their assessment that the "Ashley treatment" is a violation of not only human dignity, but also of a physician's oath to do no harm.
Health Library MayoClinic.com: Cerebral Palsy
"I think mutilating surgery involving removal of breast buds is indefensible under any circumstances," says Arthur Caplan, the chairman of the Department of Medical Ethics and director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. "Growth retardation is not a substitute for adequate home aides and home assistance."
Ashley's parents remain convinced what they did for Ashley is the most loving choice they could have made for their daughter and want that for other disabled children.
"We feel that if our time and effort ended up helping a single pillow angel... then it is worthwhile." E-mail to a friendShare
While everything from cereal boxes to tuna fish cans seem to be shrinking and staying the same price, it looks like Internet access might actually be moving the other direction. On Thursday, the FCC released the second report in its Measuring Broadband America program, which found that ISPs are getting closer to providing consumers the advertised bandwidth they pay for, although America has a long way to go to meet national broadband goals.
The report is an assessment of the bandwidth provided to consumers by major ISPs, broken down by a number of factors including technology, time of day, and performance at different tier levels. A year ago, the FCC found that major U.S. ISPs were getting closer to actually providing the customers the advertised bandwidth for which they were paying. This year, the FCC finds that major ISPs are getting even closer to providing customers with the services they’re advertising — and some providers and technologies regularly exceed advertised performance in some tiers. However, the FCC finds there’s still considerable variation in broadband service, and the U.S. has a long way to go if it’s going to meet the National Broadband Plan goals of getting 50Mbps service to 100 million homes by 2015.
Where are ISPs measuring up and falling down, and how can you tell if your ISP is actually providing you the bandwidth it advertises?
Improvements in 2012
The FCC’s Measuring Broadband America program does not look at every provider and broadband reseller out there on the market, but it does incorporate real performance tests for thousands of subscribers to ISPs that represent about 80 percent of the residential Internet service market for the United States. Although some of the same providers offer commercial Internet services as well, the FCC report focuses purely on the residential broadband experience.
Back in 2011, the FCC generally found the ISPs were delivering about 80 percent of their advertised bandwidth to consumers. Although there was quite a bit of variation across the market (with some providers over-delivering and others under-delivering), on average someone purchasing a package advertising 5Mbps broadband was receiving about 4Mbps of actual service. Reasons for the discrepancies vary widely by technology, provider, and a number of external factors. For DSL, distance from a switch (or “central office”) is a big concern; for cable customers, the number of other subscribers on the same loop can have a major effect — particularly if they’re all putting strains on the system together. (Just think “Netflix prime time.”)
In 2012, the FCC found ISPs are generally more able to deliver their advertised bandwidth to consumers, and the amount of variation between the top and bottom performers shrunk. Where in 2011 there was a 14.4 percent variation between the best and worst performers (across all technologies), in 2012 that dropped to 12.2 percent. In other words, ISPs are about 15 percent better at delivering what they promise. ISPs are also getting better at accurately advertising what they can deliver, instead of promising everyone racing cars and delivering wheel barrows to many folks. They’ve also been significantly investing in their infrastructure to improve performance. As a result, consumers are upgrading, moving from lower broadband tiers to mid- and upper-range broadband where available. Not surprisingly, the upper tiers tend to do a better job of delivering what they promise.
Winners and losers
How did major providers stack up? Here’s the FCC’s year-to-year comparison of observed download speeds to advertised download speeds for fourteen major ISPs:
The numbers show a great deal of progress. The real standout is Cablevision: In 2011 the FCC found that it delivered about 50 percent of advertised bandwidth during peak usage periods. This year, the FCC found it is significantly over-delivering on advertised bandwidth during peak usage periods, offering on average 120 percent of advertised bandwidth. Those are numbers data-hungry Internet fiends like to hear. Verizon’s FiOS fiber service is similarly over-delivering: In 2011 it was offering 114 percent of advertised bandwidth, and this year that’s cranked up to 120 percent. Comcast is also continues to slightly over-deliver on bandwidth to its customers: Last year it was pushing 101 percent of what it was advertising; this year (on average), it’s 103 percent. Mediacom also had a big jump, moving from 75 percent in 2011 to 100 percent in 2012.
Several other companies delivered significant year-to-year improvements on their bandwidth promises, even if they aren’t up to 100 percent. AT&T jumped from 81 to 87 percent, Time Warner moved from 91 to 96 percent, Qwest went from 77 to 83 percent (with new parent company CenturyLink climbing from 87 to 89 percent). Insight, Charter, and Verizon’s DSL services also delivered small improvements.
However, a handful of ISPs slipped from year to year. Frontier actually dropped from delivering 81 percent of advertised bandwidth in 2011 to 79 percent in 2012; Windstream also dropped a point from 85 to 84 percent. And Cox held even, albeit at a pretty respectable 95 percent.
Variations by technology
The FCC notes that broadband providers are generally making major efforts to upgrade their technology and offer both higher tiers and more-reliable service to consumers. But there are some interesting variations in performance based on the type of residential broadband connection in use.
In terms of cumulative sustained download speed, fiber-to-the-home (as typically represented by services like AT&T U-verse and Verizon FiOS) is the clear winner, rarely lower than advertised speeds and frequently offering more bandwidth than providers advertise. Cable comes in second, able to match or exceed advertised bandwidth most of the time. The real loser is DSL, with only about 10 percent of connections able to meet of exceed advertised bandwidth on sustained downloads.
Uploads are a little bit different:
DSL still trails fiber and cable broadband connections for sustained uploads… most of the time. However, about 40 percent of DSL connections meet or exceed advertised upload bandwidth, and at the very high end more DSL connection over-deliver on upload bandwidth than fiber or cable — although the numbers are small.
Another important measure is latency: how long it takes data (on average) to reach its destination so it can be processed. After all, your connection may be able to deliver 40Mbps, but if each packet takes five seconds to get through, it’s still going to feel slow. Again, the FCC finds fiber is the winner on latency, with averages around 20ms across all bandwidth tiers. Cable comes in second, with average latency between 20ms and about 35ms (with better performance generally on higher tiers). While some DSL latency is competitive with cable, the technology generally fares the worst, especially on low-bandwidth connections (512Kbps to about 6Mbps) where the FCC found on average it runs between about 35ms and 55ms.
Bandwidth and congestion
It’s simple to conclude that simply having more bandwidth makes the Web perform faster, and to a certain extent that’s true. Although there are significant variations amongst providers (Cox and Time Warner win basic Web performance in the 1Mbps to 3Mbps broadband tier), subscribers with broadband packages of 10Mbps or greater don’t really see proportionate increases in basic Web performance. This threshold really has nothing to do with ISPs and more to do with the performance of Web browser, the design of typical Web pages, the nature of the HTTP protocol, and the transaction-intensive nature of modern HTML5 and Ajax technologies. Past a certain point, more bandwidth doesn’t translate to a better Web experience, but it does translate to faster downloads and more-reliable bandwidth-intensive services like streaming movies and video chat.
The FCC’s study also found that essentially all broadband technologies experience dips in performance during peak usage hours: Typically, the worse lands between about 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. local time. Although DSL technology is, on average, not likely to deliver full advertised bandwidth, the dip it experiences during peak hours isn’t really much worse than that experienced by cable broadband. Cable (on average) tends to over-deliver during non-peak hours and drop below 100 percent advertised bandwidth during peak usage. Fiber also experiences a peak usage dip in bandwidth, but still consistently over-delivers on advertised capacity.
How to test your own bandwidth
So what does this mean for you?
First and foremost, it means that ISPs are improving on delivering the bandwidth they advertise. High-end fiber-to-the-home services continue to be ahead of the curve, cable is doing well, and DSL still has some catching up to do, but the situation is improving. Of course, every broadband technology has its advantages and drawbacks: Fiber providers typically have no competition in an area and steep bundling requirements, cable means sharing a circuit not just with your local neighbors, and DSL service varies widely with the quality of copper telephone wiring and distance from switches — sometimes it’s great, sometimes not so much.
Want to see how your broadband stacks up? Third-party bandwidth tests are available from sites like DSLReports and Speedtest.net — they can offer some data on how your connection is performing and how it compares to other folks from the same provider and in your area. Be aware the results at any given moment may not be indicative of the average behavior of your connection over time — the tests just take a quick snapshot. Also, some tests perform better than others. For instance, trying a Flash-based bandwidth test on an older machine (say, a PowerPC-based Mac) is going to be a recipe for disappointment: Flash just can’t keep up with high-bandwidth connections. Also remember that simply testing from one machine doesn’t necessarily represent all the devices on your network. If you test your bandwidth on a notebook upstairs while someone is streaming high-definition video using an Xbox downstairs, you may think you’re being ripped off.
Going forward
The FCC’s Measuring Broadband America reports are one of the only efforts to quantitatively measure how ISPs are measuring up to the promises they make consumers. While the report is only in its second year, it seems to be having a positive impact. After all, the variation amongst ISPs is shrinking, most ISPs improved year to year, and Cablevision in particular seems to have been shamed not just into compliance, but into an outstanding service — at least in terms of delivering advertised bandwidth.
However, the future of Measuring Broadband America report looks a little hazy. Right now, the FCC is collecting some of its data using things like Sam Knows and M-Lab to gather real-world data on residential broadband performance. Telecommunications companies seem to be increasingly keen to shift real-world testing to servers located on their internal networks — a move that has drawn the ire of none other than the “Father of the Internet” Vint Cerf. This could have the effect of both reducing the transparency of the tests (who’s to say the companies won’t fudge things in their favor?) but can also make the tests less indicative of real-world performance, since they’re less likely to have to exchange data with other networks and services. After all, folks who have a “speed test” built into their broadband router know that it almost always passes with flying colors, even when the Internet seems to be moving at a crawl — often because the router’s test is only checking the first link or two in the connectivity chain.
Perhaps more importantly, the ability of ISPs to deliver on bandwidth promises to consumers is only one of many hurdles consumer broadband in America has to overcome. Many Americans are still stuck in areas where there is limited broadband competition (or none at all) thanks to local monopolies and sweetheart deals with local regulators. The FCC’s Measuring Broadband America plan also pretty much only covers wireline access. The goal of using wireless broadband to bring high-speed Internet to rural and under-served areas seems to be on the back burner with the demise of efforts like LightSquared, which means millions of Americans still have little or no choice for broadband Internet…and no hope for that changing anytime soon.“There’s no nice way to kill someone,” a man facing execution once told me, raising heavy eyes.
From my work as a licensed death penalty investigator, I know this too, which is why Utah’s decision to reinstate the firing squad for executions doesn’t trouble me the way it might trouble others.
Attorneys hire me to find out the truth. I’m the one who ferrets out long-lost witnesses, digs into dusty basements to unearth ancient records, and finds the evidence that exonerates, or – more often – explains.
I love my job, because I am the one person who gets to understand why.
Why do people do such terrible things to each other? Why is our country so enthralled with murder that we bookend one death with another?
For many years, lethal injections were the popular way to execute people in the US.
Lethal injections seemed humane, whereas gas chambers were too grotesquely evocative of the Holocaust, and guillotines just too French for a country that prides itself on provincialism.
But there have been problems with lethal injections, as several recent botched executions of writhing, convulsing men demonstrated. In 2014 a man being executed in Oklahoma spent his final moments writhing and thrashing in a scene that witnesses said was like a horror movie.
Medical companies began refusing to supply the drugs, unwilling to be manufacturers of death.
Enter Utah, which on 23 March returned to the firing squad as an alternative, if no such drugs are available.
For some, the firing squad has a certain second-amendment, bloody finality about it, with the punch of bullets on a backboard, and no end to the men who volunteer for the honour.
But for others, it causes qualms.
There is nakedness to the firing squad; it is an unequivocal act. Someone gets shot, obviously, and other people, most likely inmates, have |
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JaxmaNus wrote at 7/6/2013 8:00:49 AM:Good article i actually like it. Keep it up. thank you for nice postAt GDC this year, Dale North, Nick Chester and I giggled like school girls when we were shown a super secret and surprisingly intergalactic sequel to the addictive Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords.
Honestly, this first trailer for Puzzle Quest: Galactrix doesn’t reveal much at all. It shows enough, though, to give you a quick taste of the all new gravity mechanic. As you play each stage, the traditional colored tiles will actually fall in different directions depending on where your “puzzle ship” is in space. It is a tricky (but cool) feature and is sure to add an enormous amount of challenge to an already stressful game.
It is also nice to see that the ridiculously overdramatic music is making a grand return. I always loved that about the original Puzzle Quest.
Puzzle Quest: Galactrix is set to hit the Nintendo DS, XBLA, and PC in early 2009 (sorry PSP owners), but we are sure to see more of the game at next week’s E3.
[Thanks TrailerParkJesus!]
You are logged out. Login | Sign upFrank Zappa spent most of his career fighting for respect. Built from archival footage, Eat That Question recounts many of his battles while showcasing the highpoints of his work. Even rock neophytes will be drawn to this boisterous look at a prodigiously talented musician and composer.
Zappa has fallen off the cultural map since his death in 1993, but in his prime he was exhibit number one whenever anyone spoke out against "hippie" music. (Time magazine described him as "bearded, gross and filthy.") Watching him toy with journalists and TV hosts like Mike Douglas, you can sense the blazing intelligence that drove his music.
With his group The Mothers of Invention and later in a wide-ranging solo career, he married composers like Edgard Varèse and Anton Webern to doo-wop and blues, framing his performances in Bertolt Brecht-styled agitprop that mocked the pop artifacts his audience craved. Largely banned from radio and discarded by major record companies, Zappa created his own musical conglomerate, recording himself and other artists for his own label and mounting large-scale, international tours. He composed for the Los Angeles Philharmonic and jazz groups, and in 200 Motels wrote and directed (with Tony Palmer) the first feature film shot on videotape.
Using home movies, TV interviews and performance clips, director Thorsten Schütte focuses more on Zappa's public persona than on his music. He speaks out against drugs, appears before Congress to complain about censorship, and reacts with poise and striking wit to setbacks like a cancelled appearance at Albert Hall or a riot during a concert in Berlin.
Showing Frank Zappa's career solely through archival footage cuts away a lot of the fat and clutter usually found in documentaries about musicians. But it also gives a curiously one-sided impression of a provocateur who loved playing court jester while insisting on keeping his personal life private.
This isn’t Zappa as a celebrity hippie or rock star so much as a fully engaged political activist, a tactician who mastered the ins and outs of the recording industry. Newcomers may be understandably confused about what he actually accomplished as a musician.
Admittedly, many of his works are too long and complex to include in their entirety. Still, Schütte includes snippets from compositions like "Plastic People," "This Town Is a Sealed Tuna Sandwich," "Cosmik Debris" and "Let's Make the Water Turn Black," featuring musicians Lowell George, Aynsley Dunbar, Ian Underwood, George Duke, Jean-Luc Ponty, and former Turtles singers Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan, among many others.
Zappa and his music can be challenging. At one concert he announced, "We're going to butcher two of your favorite songs," before launching into "Sunshine of Your Love" and "Gloria" simultaneously. But there isn't a moment in Eat That Question where his talent, humor and curiosity don't shine.
Click here for cast and crew information.All of us have read in horror of the recent wave of self-immolations by young people in Tibet as they protest the heavy hand of Chinese rule there. These acts of conscience and desperation implore Western leaders to intervene and halt China’s brutal efforts to erase its opposition by systemically eliminating Tibetan culture and language.
Whether it is self-immolations in Tibet or suicides at Foxconn, these events are daily reminders that China, for all its words to the contrary, is still reluctant to take on the mantle of global leadership. While it demands a greater role internationally in economic and security deliberations, its current policies often reflect those of a developing nation, more concerned with imposing its top-down worldview than respecting the individual rights of its citizens.
Most developed nations have blood on their hands; they have histories that are replete with atrocities of one kind or another against their own citizens or those of other states. Yet as these nations sought a role on the international stage, they were forced to adopt policies that allowed for dissent and the respect of civil liberties.
This is where China finds itself today. It must decide whether it will continue to cleave to the narrow policies of a developing nation, too weak and fearful to claim the higher ideals of human rights, or will it evolve to be a global leader that respects civil liberties and disavows the thuggish tactics of a less advanced nation.
As a citizen of the world, I am deeply troubled by China’s record on human rights and reject the notion that a 21st century nation of its power and influence must still employ such oppressive policies to govern. I believe in the rule of law, and that individuals have a right to expect their government to protect not debase their civil liberties. I believe we can and must expect this from China. However, as a China scholar, I also believe we need to be careful to observe the complexities of the situation in China and, more importantly, we need to be accurate about how we report on and understand the process of change there.
A complex process
The building of a democratic society that respects civil liberties and the sanctity of human rights is a very complex process. It is one that advanced democracies still struggle with today, as they weigh controversial public policies on government-sponsored torture, capital punishment and restrictions on immigrants. (It is a tension that should weigh heavily on American minds today, as we wish to maintain the position of the defender of human rights even while we have chipped away at these rights for suspects of terrorism.)
While there is enormous pressure for China to democratize, such a transformation cannot be rushed. In an evolving system like China’s, with such size and scope, simply proclaiming yourself a democracy with full civil liberties and legal protections for every citizen poses risks and challenges, and, ultimately, does not respect the process or the reality of China.
China is simply too big, too complex and too diverse to find a one-size-fits-all, nationwide approach for all its economic and government reforms. China is also the globe’s second-largest economy with strong ties to the nations that rally to the side of dissidents and the exiled Dalai Lama, the symbol of Tibet’s oppression for those in the West. A road map to democracy cannot fit every situation or country.
Even so, China will not be coerced into democracy or respecting civil liberties. It will not respond to boycotts and declarations. Calls for embargoes against China fail to see that they would be ineffectual, as ineffective as those against Iran and Cuba. China is too big to bend to the will of foreign powers, so democratization will not happen without the consent of the Chinese people and their leaders.
What I believe is the key to China’s evolution on human rights is the development of a more open and vibrant relationship with the West, one where market forces both encourage and compel a change in policies that threaten civil liberties. Opening up a country to the values of other nations is part of the process of change, and it is a remarkably efficient tool to improve human rights. Barring collective action on the scale initiated in the 1980s against South Africa, what is the better choice in China?
I am not someone who believes human rights violations are less important than economic stability and vitality. I am pragmatic, confined by reality and deeply in tune to the history of China. Western nations cannot impose their values from the outside, arm-twisting China into compliance, but they can speed democracy through robust trade and economic expansion.
A decisive history
As I’ve outlined in recent columns, history must be accorded a critical role in any discussion about human rights in contemporary China—the history of both China and the United States. Critics of China may see a geopolitical history lesson as discursive and irrelevant, ignoring the essential facts of documented human rights violations that cannot and should not be countenanced. Demonizing China is far more simple and easy, even though it is an unproductive policy for individuals, organizations and nations seeking a dramatic change in China’s internal policies.
China today is still very much shaped by its past experiences with the West, as illustrated by its enduring opinion about the Opium War (1839-1842). The Chinese historical memory of colonialism and atrocities committed against its people by Western nations is present today in its strategic thinking on civil liberties and global engagement.
The crimes committed against China between the first Opium War and the end of World War II do not invalidate criticism of China’s current human rights record, although a deeper understanding of these crimes illuminates the country’s reluctance to accept criticism from so-called imperialist powers.
At the same time, China is haunted by its own recent history. In the 1960s, Mao framed the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution as a “progressive” attack on the “old” traditions, but really it was the last grab for power by a power-hungry cult figure whose errant economic policies cost the lives of millions. More recently, progressive Chinese leaders learned a powerful lesson from the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, forcing them to go underground and apply a more nuanced approach to reform that has gradually resulted in a more open and democratic society than in the past.
When you look at what China has done between 1979 and today, it is clear that the foundation of a legal infrastructure that singles out and protects the individual civil liberties exists. There has been a battery of laws passed in the last 20 years, especially in the 1990s under Zhu Rongji. These laws are pregnant with protections for individual civil liberties: the National Compensation Law, which allows Chinese citizens to sue the government for past wrongs; the Prison Reform Law, which has significantly reformed treatment of prisoners; and the Labor Law and the Labor Arbitration Commissions, which provided workers rights in the workplace.
The reality is that China has evolved significantly since Deng Xiaoping opened up China to the West. The change has been dramatic and profound. Unfortunately, it is not often discussed publicly by Chinese leaders due to political concerns (placating reluctant conservative forces) or reported by the western media (discontented with the slow pace).
Beyond China’s distant and recent history, beyond the misguided view of the West about China’s motivations, and beyond even the legitimate calls for change in China’s antiquated and often reactionary human rights policy is one critical fact: China will not respond to threats or even cajoling. It will move forward when it is ready, and, more importantly, when it sees the value of embracing a more humane policy without threatening the security of the state and the nation. Our role in the West is to be vigilant of abuses, vocal in our opposition and poised for action when the opportunity for change arises.
A market-driven reform
Market reforms are no guarantee of civil liberties, yet economic prosperity has resulted in the transition from authoritarian rule to liberalization to democratization in both South Korea and Taiwan. While there are varying degrees of success in each phase of these transitions, economic reforms have transitioned into political and social reforms.
In my thinking, the critical comparative case for China and its road to democracy is the distinct route that Russia has appeared to take toward civil liberties. China has approached this as an element of its gradualist reform agenda. Localization of the economic and political infrastructures, trusting provincial leaders to press forward on many human rights protections, has resulted in a patchwork of geographic democracy based on where you live.
Obviously some Chinese leaders have been recalcitrant about open government and personal freedoms, preferring the route of authoritarian oligarchy. Yet there has been a vibrant reform movement that has worked behind the scenes to secure rights, release political prisoners and cultivate a more open society.
Russia took a different course. President Yeltsin stood on a tank in 1991 and declared Russia a fledgling democracy, yet Russia’s leaders made these declarations without the legal infrastructure in place to protect their citizens. While you might argue that you no longer have authoritarian control of the Russian government, and there would be many dissenters, it remains whether Russia has effectively protected human rights. After all, much of the government’s influence and power has fallen victim to organized crime syndicates, leaving citizens leaving exposed and afraid.
A state-led process
China may, ultimately, have more success in adopting protections for civil liberties. They likely will bubble up from the provinces where much of the power in modern day China is held, thanks to its process of localization and gradualism.
In fact, China is so decentralized that talking about China in a framework of countrywide democratic reforms is ridiculous. Decentralization has provided enormous opportunities for outside investment, but it makes it hard to apply across-the-board policies on civil liberties and human rights.
Today in China, local governments are more powerful than the central government. This process has allowed for the creation of pockets of more institutionally stable systems, many of which are capable of drawing direct foreign investment and are known for more progressive human rights and legal protections, such the city of Suzhou.
Many localities have recognized that some level of fast and loose behavior will get you foreign direct investment, but it won’t secure permanent commitments from Fortune 500 companies that are looking for a level playing field. Others have hewed to the more traditional authoritarian trail and been left behind in the economic race. Tier 2 cities have drawn much foreign attention, but their unique personalities and approaches to civil liberties are instructive. Competition for FDI has opened cities up to new investments and new thinking about democracy, transparency and civil liberties.
While not the ideal method for instituting widespread human rights protections, localization is the process that is in place today in China. For Western critics of this process, they look particularly self-serving in praising local reforms when it benefits economic interests and rejecting it when Chinese leaders do not force human rights policies from the top.
A policy of conciliation
For the last four decades, U.S. presidents have chosen a pragmatic and tolerant approach to China, especially as its economic importance and regional influence have grown. In tandem with international corporations, they have used international trade and foreign investment to encourage and pressure Beijing and its provincial leaders to act more responsibly on human rights, environmental protection and corruption.
This policy might be called constructive engagement, albeit with a new, more muscular definition. President Ronald Reagan's policy of constructive engagement with the South African regime in the 1980s failed, many argue, because it favored quiet, behind-the-scenes negotiations over public pressure in ending apartheid.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s statements about China reflect this pragmatic approach. She condemned China’s “deplorable” human rights violations and its government crackdowns, while defending U.S. policies seeking cooperation with China. “We live in a real world,” Clinton told The Atlantic magazine.
“We do business with a lot of countries whose economic systems or political systems are not ones we would design or choose to live under,” she continued. “And we have encouraged consistently, both publicly and privately, reform and recognition and protection of human rights. But we don't walk away from dealing with China because we think they have a deplorable human rights record.”
Chinese leaders are “trying to stop history, which is a fool's errand. They cannot do it. But they're going to hold it off as long as possible.”
If the Obama administration has avoided an even more direct confrontation, it is because the president and his advisers recognize that ratcheting up verbal altercations could result in major setbacks in economic and political relations. It also could roll back hard-fought civil liberties victories of the last two decades.
Chinese leaders obviously bristle at unrelenting Western criticism, especially the developed world’s failure to recognize the dramatic changes in China’s approach to civil liberties and human rights, even if they have not brought China in line with the best of western democracies. Those advances have been dramatic and deep, and they often go under-reported or are misunderstood.
It is not lost on the Chinese that the nations demanding reforms are the same ones that have their own shameful histories of human rights abuses, corruption and environmental degradation. This hypocrisy is appropriately galling, and explains why the Chinese have been reluctant to give full credence to complaints from former colonial powers about Tibet and Taiwan.
“No country including the United States is perfect on the human rights issue. It is only natural for China and the United States to see human rights differently in some aspects," Executive Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Zhijuntold told reporters in Washington in May 2011. “So we call for a dialogue and consultation on the basis of equality, mutual respect and non-interference in each other's internal affairs.”
A body of work
There is a legitimate question that we often are reluctant to ask ourselves: Are we in a position to judge how China goes about creating a democratic society and at what pace? From our own declaration of freedom to the emancipation of American slaves in 1863, the democratic United States took 87 years to abolish the atrocity of slavery from our shores. We benefit today from hindsight yet we have a record of colonialism (the Philippines and Hawaii) and rights violations of our own citizens (the Japanese American internment during World War II).
China’s wealth may be growing, but its population remains poor. It has opened its doors to foreign investment, but it remains a secretive nation where political organizations, religion, speech and the media are constrained. In a country of 1.3 billion people, maintaining order becomes a first among top priorities and democratization can be seen as a threat to security and balance. This will never be a process that we can manage from afar. It will have to come from the people on the ground.
Tough rhetoric and aggressive posturing have been the traditional response from Beijing to human rights criticisms, but it has a record of compromise when faced with an economic imperative or opportunity that requires cooperation. Even more so, provincial leaders have recognized that adopting more democratic practices can attract additional foreign investment.
As Chinese leaders have reached for a more determinative role in international politics and the global economy, they have successfully embraced a dynamic state-governed brand of capitalism. Next, they must recognize the virtue of adopting social and legal policies to reflect a more expansive view of individual rights. A developing nation is hamstrung by its past and dominated by its fears; a developed nation acknowledges its history and strives for a profound respect for human rights, freely allowing everyone within its borders to live without fear.Top Trending shared a video from Dying Light: The Following that shows us the different kinds of zombies pop culture has seen over the years. The video begins with the “voodoo zombie” of 1932 (Béla Lugosi’s Murder Legendre) and the “Living Dead” of 1968, and moves forward to the bloodier Biters and “Z zombies” or recent years. The final zombie type is the volatile type from the Dying Light game.
The make-up team did a fantastic job, especially on last few zombies! It’s interesting to see how the zombie’s body and face became more distorted over time (obviously with some exceptions). Do you have a favorite zombie? I’m partial the the Living Dead-type myself.
(via Buzzfeed)
—Please make note of The Mary Sue’s general comment policy.—
Do you follow The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google +?Does anyone else find it ridiculous that the crew is getting rightfully slammed by the legal system while the ferry boat company who is just as much to blame for the Sewol tragedy was fined under $10,000?:
Prosecutors demanded capital punishment for the captain of the Sewol ferry, which sank in South Korean waters leaving more than 300 people killed or missing a year ago, during an appeals trial on Tuesday.
The captain, Lee Jun-seok, and 14 other crew members of the ferry were accused of abandoning the ferry and the 476 people on board in the early hours of the ship sinking off South Korea’s southwest coast on April 16.
Prosecutors had sought a death penalty for the captain and life imprisonment for three crew members in charge of steering the ship and jail terms ranging from 15 to 30 years for 11 other crew members.
But a district court sentenced Lee to 36 years in jail, clearing him of manslaughter and other major charges in November.
The 14 others were given jail terms ranging from five to 30 years, while the ferry’s operator Chonghaejin Corp. was fined 10 million won ($9,161). They all appealed the rulings. [Korea Herald]Calgary's housing market is showing signs of fracturing amid a fresh wave of layoffs announced by major energy companies in the city.
Home sales plunged 27 per cent in August from a year earlier, while the benchmark and average resale prices both fell, the Calgary real estate board said Tuesday.
The benchmark price slipped 0.09 per cent to $456,300. The average resale price in the city tumbled nearly 2 per cent to $466,570. On a year-to-date basis, average prices fell roughly 1.7 per cent while benchmark prices rose about 2.4 per cent as the number of new listings eased.
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But overall inventories are swollen at 44 per cent above the same period in 2014 so far this year, pointing to more weakness ahead as job losses in the oil and gas sector mount. Total sales so far this year are down 25 per cent.
"While we've managed to come through the spring market with not a lot of change, because there is further expectations of softness in the employment market, these things will start weighing on the housing market as we move into the end of the year," said Ann-Marie Lurie, chief economist with the board.
The weakening housing market is another symptom of oil's collapse to under $50 a barrel from more than $100 (U.S.) last year – a sharp drop that has forced the city's energy industry into survival mode.
U.S.-based ConocoPhillips Co. and Calgary-based Penn West Petroleum Ltd. on Tuesday shed a combined 900 positions, adding to thousands of job losses that have piled up as companies dial back spending and halt drilling projects.
Alberta's oil-dependent economy is now expected to contract by 0.6 per cent this year and its deficit could top $6.5-billion (Canadian) as the downturn intensifies, the province's NDP government said this week.
However, the deteriorating outlook has yet to fully register across the city's residential real estate market. For example, detached houses priced between $400,000 and $500,000 are still changing hands at a brisk pace, Ms. Lurie said. That contrasts with sluggish sales and falling prices for apartments.
Still, houses are languishing on the market for longer periods – a situation that could worsen as layoffs spread from field operations to head offices in the city's downtown.
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"If people have lost their jobs and they can't replace them over a period of time, and or can't replace them at a similar salary, that's when it starts to have that trickledown effect into the housing market," she said.2014-15 Pro Circuit – Pro Points & Regions
Regions
1. The North America, South America, Europe, and Southeast Asia Regions will each have their own Pro Points Leaderboard within the 2014-15 MLG Pro Circuit.
2. Players will be enrolled in a Region upon earning Pro Points in their first 2014-15 MLG Pro Circuit competition whether that is an Online Ladder Match, Online Pro Points Tournament, Offline Pro Points Tournament, or Pro League Match.
3. Players may only compete in their own Region’s Online Ladders, Online Pro Points Tournaments, and Pro League.
4. If an Offline Tournament has preferential bracket treatment, like Teams starting in Pool Play, only Players from the Offline Tournament Region will be eligible to receive that benefit.
5. If a Player’s first 2014-15 MLG Pro Circuit competition is an Offline Tournament, the Player must declare their Region at Check-In.
6. In order to seed Teams from separate Regions against each other at an Offline Pro Points Tournament, an Exchange Rate will be used to convert all Player’s Pro Points into Pro Points of the Offline Tournament Region. The Exchange Rate for each Region will be based upon the number and value of Pro Points Tournaments that have occurred in each Region at the time of seeding.
November Pro Points Schedule – North America
Saturday, November 8th – UMG 2000 Series Tournament
Saturday, November 8th – Pro Points per Ladder Match win begins
Sunday, November 9th – MLG 5000 Series Tournament
Monday, November 10th – Two MLG 250 Series Tournaments
Tuesday, November 11th – Two MLG 250 Series Tournaments
Wednesday, November 12th – Two MLG 250 Series Tournaments
Thursday, November 13th – Two MLG 250 Series Tournaments
Friday, November 14th – Two MLG 250 Series Tournaments
Saturday, November 15th – UMG 2000 Series & MLG 250 Series Tournaments
Sunday, November 16th – MLG 5000 Series & MLG 250 Series
Monday, November 17th – Two MLG 250 Series Tournaments
Tuesday, November 18th – Two MLG 250 Series Tournaments
Wednesday, November 19th – Two MLG 250 Series Tournaments
Thursday, November 20th – Two MLG 250 Series Tournaments
Friday, November 21st – Two MLG 250 Series Tournaments
Saturday, November 22nd – UMG 2000 Series & MLG 250 Series Tournaments
Sunday, November 23rd – MLG 10,000 Series & MLG 250 Series
Monday, November 24th – Two MLG 250 Series Tournaments
Tuesday, November 25th – Two MLG 250 Series Tournaments
Wednesday, November 26th – Two MLG 250 Series Tournaments
Thursday, November 27th – Two MLG 250 Series Tournaments
Friday, November 28th – Two MLG 250 Series Tournaments
Saturday, November 29th – MLG 250 Series & UMG 250 Series Tournaments
Sunday, November 30th – Two MLG 250 Series Tournaments
November 28th – 30th – MLG 25,000 Columbus Open Tournament
November Pro Points Schedule – Europe
Saturday, November 8th – MLG 2000 Series Tournament
Saturday, November 8th – Pro Points per Ladder Match win begins
Sunday, November 9th – MLG 5000 Series Tournament
Monday, November 10th – Two MLG 250 Series Tournaments
Tuesday, November 11th – Two MLG 250 Series Tournaments
Wednesday, November 12th – Two MLG 250 Series Tournaments
Thursday, November 13th – Two MLG 250 Series Tournaments
Friday, November 14th – Two MLG 250 Series Tournaments
Saturday, November 15th – MLG 2000 Series & MLG 250 Series Tournaments
Sunday, November 16th – MLG 5000 Series & MLG 250 Series
Monday, November 17th – Two MLG 250 Series Tournaments
Tuesday, November 18th – Two MLG 250 Series Tournaments
Wednesday, November 19th – Two MLG 250 Series Tournaments
Thursday, November 20th – Two MLG 250 Series Tournaments
Friday, November 21st – Two MLG 250 Series Tournaments
Saturday, November 22nd – MLG 2000 Series & MLG 250 Series Tournaments
Sunday, November 23rd – MLG 10,000 Series & MLG 250 Series
Monday, November 24th – Two MLG 250 Series Tournaments
Tuesday, November 25th – Two MLG 250 Series Tournaments
Wednesday, November 26th – Two MLG 250 Series Tournaments
Thursday, November 27th – Two MLG 250 Series Tournaments
Friday, November 28th – Two MLG 250 Series Tournaments
Saturday, November 29th – Two MLG 250 Series Tournaments
Sunday, November 30th – Two MLG 250 Series Tournaments
November 28th – 30th – MLG 25,000 Columbus Open Tournament
November Pro Points Schedule – South America & South East Asia
Sunday, November 23rd – MLG 5000 Series – Both Regions
Pro Points Breakdown
GAMEBATTLES LADDERS Eligible Ladders Points Per Win 5
100 SERIES SINGLE ELIM 100 SERIES DOUBLE ELIM Rank Points Rank Points 1st 100 1st 100 2nd 60 2nd 60 3rd – 4th 40 3rd 44 5th – 8th 30 4th 36 9th – 16th 20 5th – 6th 32 7th – 8th 28 9th – 12th 22 13th – 16th 18 250 SERIES SINGLE ELIM 250 SERIES DOUBLE ELIM Rank Points Rank Points 1st 250 1st 250 2nd 150 2nd 150 3rd – 4th 100 3rd 110 5th – 8th 75 4th 90 9th – 16th 50 5th – 6th 80 7th – 8th 70 9th – 12th 55 13th – 16th 45 1000 SERIES SINGLE ELIM 1000 SERIES DOUBLE ELIM Rank Points Rank Points 1st 1000 1st 1000 2nd 600 2nd 600 3rd – 4th 400 3rd 440 5th – 8th 300 4th 360 9th – 16th 200 5th – 6th 320 17th – 32nd 100 7th – 8th 280 9th – 12th 220 13th – 16th 180 17th – 24th 120 25th – 32nd 80 2000 SERIES SINGLE ELIM 2000 SERIES DOUBLE ELIM Rank Points Rank Points 1st 2000 1st 2000 2nd 1200 2nd 1200 3rd – 4th 800 3rd 880 5th – 8th 600 4th 720 9th – 16th 400 5th – 6th 640 17th – 32nd 200 7th – 8th 560 9th – 12th 440 13th – 16th 360 17th – 24th 240 25th – 32nd 160 5000 SERIES SINGLE ELIM 5000 SERIES DOUBLE ELIM Rank Points Rank Points 1st 5000 1st 5000 2nd 3000 2nd 3000 3rd – 4th 2000 3rd 2200 5th – 8th 1500 4th 1800 9th – 16th 1000 5th – 6th 1600 17th – 32nd 500 7th – 8th 1400 33rd – 64th 250 9th – 12th 1100 13th – 16th 900 17th – 24th 600 25th – 32nd 400 33rd – 48th 300 49th – 64th 200 10000 SERIES SINGLE ELIM 10000 SERIES DOUBLE ELIM Rank Points Rank Points 1st 10000 1st 10000 2nd 6000 2nd 6000 3rd – 4th 4000 3rd 4400 5th – 8th 3000 4th 3600 9th – 16th 2000 5th – 6th 3200 17th – 32nd 1000 7th – 8th 2800 33rd – 64th 500 9th – 12th 2200 13th – 16th 1800 17th – 24th 1200 25th – 32nd 800 33rd – 48th 600 49th – 64th 400 PRO LEAGUE 25000 SERIES DOUBLE ELIM Regular Season Points Rank Points Per Win 250 1st 25000 2nd 15000 Playoffs Points 3rd 11000 1st 25000 4th 9000 2nd 15000 5th – 6th 8000 3rd 11000 7th – 8th 7000 4th 9000 9th – 12th 5500 5th – 6th 8000 13th – 16th 4500 7th – 8th 7000 17th-20th 3500 21st-24th 2500 25th-28th 2200 29th-32nd 1800 33rd-40th 1600 41st-48th 1400 49th-64th 1000
MLG Pro Status! Major League Gaming Pro Points Rankings Beta Update
Thank you for all of your feedback during the Pro Points Beta Period. We are continuing to evaluate the system and have made some updates based on initial key learnings. Please note changes we are making as of August 15, 2013 to the Pro Points Breakdown:
9/3 Pro Points Update
Gears of War: Judgment has been removed from the Pro Points system.
8/15 Pro Points Update
Significant reduction in points awarded for Tier 1 and Tier 2 Ladders.
Several Ladders have been switched from Tier 1 to Tier 2.
Zombies Ladders and Team Blacktop Ladder removed from the NA Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 Arenas and NA NBA 2K13 Arena.
Ladder points awarded in the NA Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 (Xbox 360) Arena August 13th rankings will be adjusted in the August 27th rankings.
Starting with the MLG Pro Points Rankings released for NA Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 (Xbox 360) on Tuesday, August 27, players will only receive MLG Pro Points for their Team’s Ladder Ranking if they played and won at least two Matches during the two-week period.
Please continue to share your thoughts by emailing kc@mlg.tv
About Major League Gaming Pro Points Rankings:
Major League Gaming (MLG) players can now see how they stack up against the competition with the MLG Pro Points Rankings (currently in beta). For the first time, players who compete via MLG: Play and at MLG tournaments will automatically earn points to achieve Pro Status and will be able to access their ranking at any time.
Players will now be awarded MLG Pro Points based on their performance in MLG competitions including Pro Circuit Events, Online Tournaments, and Online Ladders. See the complete Pro Points breakdown here.
Titles featured in the MLG Pro Points Rankings beta stage include Call of Duty: Black Ops II, Gears of War: Judgment, NBA 2k13, FIFA Soccer 13, and Madden NFL 25 with plans to introduce additional titles moving forward – see Arena list below.
Players who are already signed up with an MLG profile on MLG: Play will automatically begin earning MLG Pro Points when competing in the designated Online Tournaments, Online Ladders, and Pro Circuit Events. MLG Pro Points Rankings will be accessible via the standings and profile pages. Each Arena’s MLG Pro Points Rankings will be updated every two weeks with Ladder Rankings pulled on the morning of the day that rankings are released. See the complete schedule below.
To celebrate the launch, all Ladders for MLG Pro Points Arenas will have Double XP from now until their first MLG Pro Points Rankings are released.
MLG Pro Points Rankings FAQ
What are MLG Pro Points?
For the first time, MLG will be awarding Pro Points to players who compete in Pro Circuit Events, Online Tournaments, and Online Ladders. The Pro Points system will determine a player’s ranking for select MLG: Play Arenas and will enable players to earn Pro status.
What are the benefits of earning MLG Pro Points?
There are many benefits to earning MLG Pro Points.
Players who receive MLG Pro Status will be considered MLG Pro Players. The top 2% of players (not to exceed 100 players) for each Arena will be considered Pros.
MLG Pro Points will be used to seed major brackets, including any titles that are featured at the next Pro Circuit Championship event in Columbus, Ohio from November 22-24.
In the future, all MLG competitions including Online Tournaments will be seeded by MLG Pro Points.
MLG invite-only online and offline competitions will primarily invite the top players and teams based off the MLG Pro Points Rankings.
How do players get MLG Pro Points?
MLG Pro Points are awarded to the top placing players/teams in all MLG competitions. Since all competitions are not valued equally, players can access the MLG Pro Points Rankings page to see the number of MLG Pro Points awarded based on the competition and other valuable information.
What MLG: Play Arenas will have MLG Pro Points?
During the beta stage, the following Arenas will include MLG Pro Points Rankings, with additional Arenas added moving forward:
NA Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 (Xbox 360)
NA Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 (PlayStation 3)
EU Call of |
attended rival high schools in Philadelphia. "We started talking about the local sports teams and things like that," Carter said.Afro Samurai 2 has been pulled from digital store fronts as the publisher apologises for the state it was released in and offers refunds.
Afro Samurai 2 came out in September to very negative reviews. The game wasn’t a hit among users either, with plenty of reports of technical problems, not to mention design issues many, including reviewers, had trouble with.
Since then, the game has completely disappeared from Steam, PlayStation Store, and Xbox Store. Anyone who owned it was offered a refund, as reported by CGM.
Steve Escalante, general manager of publisher Versus Evil, has since apologised for the state the game launched in. “The game was a failure. We could not do, in good conscience, volume 2 and volume 3,” he candidly told CGM.
“So we’ve begun the process, it’s been a long process to figure it out because Sony has never really had to do this in this way, but we’re returning all the money. So across the board we’re putting out an apology saying ‘sorry about this.’”
Escalante added that pulling the game down and refunding consumers was the best course of action from a consumer perspective.
While it’s certainly laudable Versus Evil removed it and did right by customers, the game should not have been released in that state.Originally authored by Paul Gross and cross-posted on Braintree's blog
The NoSQL movement has brought us a wave of new data stores beyond the traditional relational databases. These data stores come with their own tradeoffs, but they provide some incredible benefits. At Braintree, we are moving in the direction of using Riak as our next generation data store. We love its focus on scalability and availability. Servers can fail without causing any downtime, and we can add more capacity by simply adding more servers to the cluster.
One great feature of relational databases, however, is the consistency in the shape of the data. You know if you have a people table, every row has the same columns. Some fields might be null, but there won’t be any surprises. Furthermore, if you want to rename or modify a column, it’s a simple operation. In the case of PostgreSQL and other databases, a rename is nearly instantaneous. We lose this ability with Riak and most NoSQL databases. We can easily add attributes (columns), but we cannot easily rename them or change the data within each document (row).
Since our apps are always evolving at Braintree, we needed a way for our data to keep up with our code. Our solution is something we’re calling lazy data migrations, and we’ve built it into our repository and model framework, curator. You can read more about curator on our blog at Untangle Domain and Persistence Logic with Curator.
The problem
Say we have a collection of people in Riak. This is analogous to a people table in a relational database. When we first built the app, we added fields for first_name and last_name:
person = Person.new(:first_name => "Joe", :last_name => "Smith")
Some time has passed, our app has data, and we now realize that names are a pain. What do we do with middle names? What about people with multiple first or last names? We want to just simplify the system and collect only a name. We no longer care about a separate first and last name. The problem is we have a ton of data in the old format. How do we handle that old records have a first_name and last_name, but going forward, we want just name?
In a relational database, we would simply write a database migration that looks like:
ALTER TABLE people ADD COLUMN name VARCHAR; UPDATE people SET name = first_name ||'' || last_name; ALTER TABLE people DROP COLUMN first_name, DROP COLUMN last_name;
This migration might take a while to run, but once it’s done, we know that all data has been migrated. We can then change all of our code to only deal with name, knowing we no longer have first_name or last_name.
In a NoSQL database like Riak, we cannot simply change the schema. We have to come up with a different solution. Here are the steps we went through in trying to come up with the solution that made its way into curator:
Solution attempt 1: Scattered conditionals
The first solution is to make the Person class smart enough to handle both cases.
class Person attr_accessor :first_name, :last_name, :name end
We can populate whatever fields we get back from the data store. Then, when we want to do something with the name, we have to use code like:
if person.name puts "Name is #{person.name}" else puts "Name is #{person.first_name} #{person.last_name}" end
The problem with this approach is that we have to use branching code like this whenever we want to use the name. It quickly gets messy.
Solution attempt 2: Gathered conditionals
The second solution is to move this logic to the place where we read the Person out of the data store:
attributes = fetch_from_riak if attributes[:name] person = Person.new(:name => attributes[:name]) else person = Person.new(:name => "#{attributes[:first_name]} #{attributes[:last_name]}") end
Now, we only have to do it once and we can change our Person class to only know about name.
This solution works well, but what happens a year down the road when we’ve made lots of data changes to many different models? We don’t want a bunch of conditionals all over our persistence code.
Our solution: Lazy data migrations
We pulled the idea from solution 2 into the idea of a migration (similar to ActiveRecord migrations). Migrations target a given collection at a given version. They look like this:
class ConsolidateName < Curator::Migration def migrate(attributes) first_name = attributes.delete(:first_name) last_name = attributes.delete(:last_name) attributes.merge(:name => "#{first_name} #{last_name}") end end
This migration is stored in db/migrate/people/0001_consolidate_name.rb. We’ve also added the concept of a version to each Model. By default, models start at version 0. When they are read from the Repository, the attributes are run through any migrations that are a greater version (based on the version in the filename):
person = PersonRepository.find_by_key("person_id") person.version #=> 1
Now, the migration logic is isolated from the rest of the application. The rest of the app can safely assume that all Person objects have only a name:
class Person current_version 1 attr_accessor :name end
We mark the Person class with current_version 1 to signify that new instances start at version 1, since they have a name attribute rather than first_name/last_name.
These migrations run when models are read, so they are lazy. Data will migrate as it’s used, and update when saved. This means that, unlike with relational databases, the website can be up and serving requests while the data is migrated.
If you want to force the data to migrate (and not wait for all data to be used), you can simply find models who haven’t been migrated and save them. The version attribute is indexed by default:
PersonRepository.find_by_version(0).each do |person| PersonRepository.save(person) end
Testing
Unlike ActiveRecord migrations, curator migrations have no side effects. They simply accept a hash and return a new hash. This makes them easy to call from a unit test:
require'spec_helper' require 'db/migrate/people/0001_consolidate_name' describe ConsolidateName do describe "migrate" do it "concatenates first_name and last_name" do attributes = {:first_name => "Joe", :last_name => "Smith"} ConsolidateName.new(1).migrate(attributes)[:name].should == "Joe Smith" end end end
Limitations
Curator migrations are lazy, so at any given time you might have documents with different versions in the data store. This is not normally a problem since the migrations will run as soon as the objects are read. However, if you add a migration that changes an indexed field, you cannot rely on that index to return all of the correct values until you migrate them all. In this case, you might want to force migration by reading and saving all of the documents.
Next Steps
You can see these migrations in action in the curator_rails_example.
Let us know what you think about lazy data migrations in curator. Feel free to open issues on GitHub, submit pull requests, and help us make it better.Like anything else in life, I’m sure there are exceptions to this topic. I’m sure there are great reasons for homeschooling. But, to be honest — even though I’m trying really hard, I can’t really think of one. I can’t help but envision a child with their nose pressed to the window, watching other kids get on a school bus.
I was going to start this post off with this whole super descriptive story about a girl I used to work with when I was around the age of 19…who was sooo socially awkward that it drove me crazy — until I found out she was homeschooled. Why? Just because her parents wanted her to be. Then, her lack of social skills clicked — and I felt terrible for her as I thought of all of the fun — and important — things she missed out on over the years. That’s basically the story in a nutshell.
Since then, I’ve met a couple people who were also homeschooled. And, they were also socially awkward. They didn’t really carry themselves with confidence, they’d have this look of uncertainty and slight fear in their eyes during social situations and they’d always laugh at the strangest times during conversations. But, who could blame them for this? They didn’t attend school with other children their age — so they’ve never experienced the littlest of things that really shape someone into who they are.
However, one woman, Penelope, was homeschooled her whole life, and she was the biggest gossipmonger I’ve ever met. She would talk to anyone about anyone — and anything having to do with anyone. She seemed completely clueless about friendships/relationships, as if she never really valued them. I often wondered if she’d be this way had she attended school with her peers as opposed to her mother/teacher every.single.day…all.day.long.
I know bullying is a huge no-no and it can have devastating effects — but I think there’s also something gained by being put in your place by a peer — especially when you’re growing up, learning about who you are and who you want to be. For example, I remember the first time I said something not-so-nice about a girl in my class. I was angry about something or other, and really didn’t like this girl. And, I apparently wanted people to know it. Well, it got back to her, obviously, and she confronted me on it…rather ominously. Like, in a stairwell. She told me what she thought of my actions, and me — but I can’t remember her exact words because she stood right so close to my face, I could count her freckles and smell her Pop Tart breakfast. Nevertheless, I got her point.
I’m not saying that after that confrontation that I never said anything less-than-complimentary about anyone, but I definitely thought deeply about my words, and I believe that experience nipped something in the bud. I mean, I could have become a Penelope.
Like I said, I’m sure there are great reasons for homeschooling, but when it comes to parents who think they could provide better education than a “real” teacher…I just don’t get it.
And to think, I was just giving my mom a hard time about not letting me go on a field trip back in the day.VICTORIA B.C. – Andrew Weaver, Leader of the B.C. Green Party, unveiled the party’s platform on electoral reform today. Weaver will be available for media interviews on the platform today in Victoria:
WHEN: 2:00PM today, April 17, 2017
WHERE: Redfern Park, 1700 Leighton Road, Victoria.
“After decades of broken promises, British Columbians have lost trust in their government – and rightfully so,” said Weaver. “Career politicians have put their own interests ahead of the interests of British Columbians, allowing corporations and lobbyists to gain undue influence. We have a duty to regain that trust and to demonstrate through action that the government is there to serve British Columbians – not politicians.”
The democratic reform platform consists of four planks: Political Finance Reform, Lobbying Reform, Electoral Reform and Transparency and Accountability. It includes commitments to:
Establish a public watchdog to oversee government advertising and communications;
Prohibit cabinet ministers from engaging in partisan fundraising activities;
Impose a multi-year prohibition on lobbying for former senior public office holders;
Introduce proportional representation;
Ban corporate, union and out-of-province donations and place limits on individual contributions that are in-line with current federal limits;
Establish a Provincial Budget Officer to provide independent and objective analysis to the Legislative Assembly on the state of the province’s finances, the government’s estimates and economic trends.
The B.C. Green Party’s democratic reform plank comes as both the B.C. Liberals and the B.C. NDP have been heavily criticised for holding cash-for-access fundraisers and accepting millions of dollars in donations from corporations and unions. The RCMP is currently investigating a series of potentially illegal political contributions made by lobbyists that were uncovered by a recent Globe and Mail investigation.
“We need to restore people’s faith in government,” says Weaver. “Both of the other parties have allowed the integrity of BC politics to wear so thin that it’s no wonder people don’t trust politicians. We believe trust is earned through actions. That’s why we banned corporate and union donations when no one else would. We will take that same approach if British Columbians entrust us to form government.”
The B.C. Green Party is the only major B.C. political party to have banned corporate and union donations, opting to fund the election campaign on individual contributions alone. Since the ban was introduced in September, the party’s fundraising as grown exponentially.
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Attached:
Media contact
Jillian Oliver, Press Secretary
+1 778-650-0597 | jillian.oliver@bcgreens.caTKC Transformed Poll and IC
The Transformers means a lot to me (and Jason I know for sure based on our countless discussions involving all things Transformers) because of many reasons. When I was 5 my dad bought me my first Transformer, a Takara diecast Hound. I remember it being so different from my other toys, and played that thing into the ground. Then came Prowl, Mirage, Soundwave, and many others, with the complete set of Predacons to Ultra Magnus soon to follow. To this day nearly 34 years later when I visit my parent's house I'll bust out the battered remnants of whatever I didn't lose (or accidentally swallow) and feel like a kid again.
Regardless of how you feel about the current state of Transformers, from Michael Bay's interpretations to the countless Netflix versions, I'm glad that the Transformers are being presented to a whole new generation, and I'd like to think most people still think they are pretty badass. With that said, we simply had to design two keysets inspired by both sides of the never-ending battle between robots in disguise.
Transformed A & D were designed with the respective Autobot & Decepticon logos as inspiration. We hope you like them as much as we do, and have a short poll we'd love for you to fill out. We learned a lot from GMK >Terminal_ and want to make layout choices and other important decisions by being community-driven and wise. Custom keysets happen because of you, the community. Get on that poll and sound off. Thanks for visiting TKC and we look forward to hearing from you.
renders courtesy of /u/thesiscamper & /u/oblotzky
Side note, GMK >Terminal GB and Preorder participants, please stay tuned for important updates (don't worry, it's all good news) about your order and >Terminal_'s progress. Additionally, more information about the TKC1800 in-stock product line will be posted soon. Thanks again.
Transformers, Autobot, and Decepticon are trademark Takara-Tomy, Hasbro, and hopefully not Michael Bay.
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WASHINGTON – Talk-show host Sean Hannity, a vocal opponent of Barack Obama’s policies, said today he would not rule out a bid for the presidency in 2012.
Egged on by radio colleague Bill Cunningham, Hannity said he would consider entering the front lines of the political fray if God directs him.
“I’ve never made a decision in my life without – whatever destiny God has you’ve got to fulfill it,” he said. “I’m not sure that’s my destiny.”
Hannity would make a formidable candidate, with the likability of Reagan, good looks and strong convictions. He’s also a polished communicator and knows the issues inside out.
And he can debate.
Hannity hosts the second-largest radio program in America, after Rush Limbaugh, and a highly rated nightly TV show on the Fox News Channel.
While Obama’s approval ratings have been plummeting in his first year in office, no clear Republican frontrunner has emerged. The candidates most often considered viable include Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin and Hannity’s Fox News colleague Mike Huckabee.
Cunningham, one of Hannity’s guests during a visit to Cincinnati today, said the nation and the Republican Party need Hannity.
When WND asked Hannity to repeat what he said on the air about a run, he said, “I ducked.”
Later in the program, a member of the audience asked what the host thought of a Hannity-Palin ticket.
The studio audience erupted in applause.
Hannity asked: “Would any of you really want me to run?”
Loud applause followed.
Hannity then asked, “How about I just stay on the radio?”
No applause.
If you would like to sound off on this issue, participate in today’s WND Poll.Grape industry perishes in western NSW as Broken Hill resists pipeline plan
Updated
There's growing resistance from communities in western NSW to the Government's half-billion-dollar pipeline plan to connect the mining town of Broken Hill to the Murray River.
Many believe it will seal the fate of the once iconic Darling River, which they say has been drained to feed wealthy cotton farms upstream.
"I was shocked when the announcement was made about the pipeline. I couldn't imagine why you would go to another river system when we have the Darling?" Broken Hill Mayor Darriea Turley told Lateline.
She said emerging evidence of Murray Darling policy failures and alleged upstream water theft meant the huge project should be suspended.
"Broken Hill has asked for a moratorium on the pipeline until we understand the business case and we understand the science," she said.
"Whether it's a man-made drought or whether it's climate change, as the Irrigator Council would like us to believe."
The Mayor said NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian had not responded to any of her approaches.
For more than half a century Broken Hill has received piped water from nearby Menindee Lakes.
The new project will pipe water a staggering 270 kilometres from the Murray River system.
One of the strongest supporters of the proposed new pipeline is the cotton industry, with its peak body Cotton Australia taking credit for a successful lobbying campaign to secure government funding.
Cotton Australia said the push to secure an "alternative" water supply for Broken Hill was "driven by a joint effort" from cotton grower associations across the northern basin.
Mark McKenzie, from the NSW Irrigator's Council, said the planned new pipeline would mean water would no longer be kept in the "high evaporative environment" of the Menindee lakes.
"Irrigators don't want more pressure on them not to pump water," he said.
Cotton industry blamed for destroying local business
But other farmers in far west NSW blame the cotton industry and its extraordinary thirst for the destruction of many local businesses in the lower Darling.
For decades, Menindee's grape growers produced up to a million boxes a year, a post-World War II Italian success story.
Now, dead vines stretch across the landscape, skeletal remains of a once-thriving industry.
Paul D'Ettorre grew up in Menindee, working on his parent's grape farm.
"My parents started building this up in the early 50s," he told Lateline.
"Menindee was a good area to grow in. We didn't need chemicals, there are no insect problems.
"It was good here and now it's not and only because of the water. And it's not a natural thing, rules have been changed, decisions have been made."
By 2013, Menindee's table grape industry was all over.
"With no continuing flows coming into the system, the salinity of the water was building up," Mr D'Ettorre said.
"We were pumping water that was six times saltier than what it should have been."
'Climate Change doesn't dry a river like this'
The 49 year-old has adjusted to a new life in Broken Hill, working as an assistant at two local schools.
But he is left wondering how different things might have been.
"I'm getting angry again. It's hard to deal with," he said.
"You go home and you see all the dead vines and you think: What if? What would have happened if we'd been treated fairly and given the same opportunities as everyone upstream? What would have happened?"
Mr Turley said Menindee's grape industry was sacrificed to upstream irrigation interests.
"We believed at the time it was an extension of the millennium drought. Now we're concerned it's actually a man-made drought. Climate Change doesn't dry a river like this," she said.
Maryanne Slattery, a former senior officer of the Murray Darling Basin Authority (MDBA), left the organisation last month.
She said she became increasingly horrified by the way $13 billion worth of taxpayers' money was being perverted to benefit big irrigation.
"The Basin Plan should put more water back into the system but it's failing on many fronts," she said.
Among those failings is the wasted $3 billion worth of water purchased by the taxpayer for environmental flows.
"The water is taken out of production and it's supposed to flow through the river system. But it can legally be taken by irrigators," she said.
"The MDBA talk about wanting to put policies in place to protect environmental water but I have low hopes that will happen."
"The irrigation industry has access to that $3 billion dollars of water and it's not going to give that up lightly."
Changes to the NSW Water Sharing Plan in 2012 was the final straw, according to Menindee's grape growers.
"They allowed irrigators to take water out of the river as soon as it moved," Mr D'Ettorre said.
"These were the small flows that always used to come through and replenish our water supply, then after 2012 they were extracted off."
According to Ms Slattery, the rule changes had no scientific backing.
"We know the Water Sharing Plan was changed after the lobbying by irrigation interests," she said.
Topics: rural, agricultural-crops, government-and-politics, federal-government, broken-hill-2880
First postedSource: wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock
When you’re in the presence of a genuinely nice person, you know it. They seem easy to please, make you feel good about yourself, and always have a positive spin on any situation.
But people who just aren’t all that warm and fuzzy create tension and limit our ability to enjoy ourselves when we interact with them.
Imagine that you’ve got an appointment with a new physician to discuss your recent bout of allergies. You’re escorted into an exam room where you wait, hopefully, for this individual to show a sincere desire to help you overcome your persistent cough and sniffles. The door opens, and a stern-looking woman in a white coat enters, a slight scowl on her face. Although she makes eye contact with you, her general demeanor makes you feel that there’s something wrong with you for having come in with this problem. She records your symptoms, pauses to reflect, and issues the pronouncement that a simple over-the-counter remedy should clear things up. A cursory goodbye, and she’s out the door.
You wonder: Is there something wrong with me for having come to the physician with what now seems to be a minor and highly correctable problem? Perhaps if I’d been a little bit clearer or worded things differently, I’d have gotten a more sympathetic reaction from her.
The fact of the matter is that some people just aren’t all that nice. Your physician was one of those no-nonsense types who just doesn't offer much in the way of kindness. On the positive side, at least she tells it like it is without much fluff. Still, though, you’d perhaps prefer some cushioning to her sparsely-worded recommendation.
Let’s switch the scene: You’re working with a group on a project in which each of you is expected to provide input into a series of decisions. One member continuously makes disparaging comments about everyone else’s ideas—including your own. This individual appears to take pride in being as grumpy as possible, but no one besides you seems bothered. One night, you receive an email from this person that truly irritates you so much that you’re ready to shoot back a reply in which you express your outrage. Before hitting "send," though, you have second thoughts and decide to hold off.
Not responding to an annoying email from someone who consistently bugs you is actually a good idea. It’s all too easy to deal harshly with people who aren’t nice and who behave in negative ways. But if you consider yourself a nice person, this route carries with it the risk, ironically, that you will be perceived negatively as well.
The dilemma of how to handle a not-so-nice person without seeming not nice yourself is a common one. Fortunately, psychology offers some perspective from the vantage point of trait theory. The quality of is the dimension that comes closest to "niceness,” in that it includes the tendency to be kind, sympathetic, straightforward,, compliant, tender, and modest.
People who are nice might get nicer when they have nice experiences with other people. You’re bound to be friendlier to someone who smiles, shows sympathy, and goes along with the group. That grumpy member, on the other hand, is someone you’ll avoid as much as possible should you happen to bump into each other on the street or get to your meeting before anyone else arrives. This will only antagonize that person more: Niceness can feed on itself but so can nastiness.
It seems quite possible, then, that niceness breeds niceness and in fact, there’s evidence that nice people have a sunnier way of viewing the world. University of Illinois psychologist Konrad Bresin teamed up with North Dakota State University’s Michael Robinson (2015) to investigate how undergraduates varying in levels of agreeableness choose to expose themselves to pleasant or unpleasant experiences.
Across a series of three studies, Bresin and Robinson varied the positivity of pictures and recorded the length of time that participants high and low in agreeableness spent observing these images. The individuals low in agreeableness—that is, those who weren’t especially nice—spent more time looking at the negative pictures. Those high in agreeableness viewed positive and negative images almost equally.
Varying the method somewhat, Bresin and Robinson next asked participants to choose between a series of optional activities in which one was positive (such as a seeing a romantic movie or listening to an upbeat song) and the other negative (watching a horror film or listening to a sad song). Here again, agreeableness played a strong role in predicting a person’s choice of positive vs. negative experiences. People high in agreeableness clearly made choices that would give them uplifting experiences and those low in agreeableness showed a stronger preference for the options on the negative end of the scale.
Correlation may not be causation, but the findings of this study support the idea that personality influences behavior (and more than vice versa). Nice people tend to assure that they’ll stay upbeat and positive through their choice of experiences while the opposite is true of those who aren’t so nice.
Now let’s get to the question of how you can improve your with people who fall on the low end of the agreeableness continuum. Follow these four tips and you’ll be able to face the not-so-nice people you know without becoming discouraged:
Don’t meet grumpiness with grumpiness.
It’s easy to respond in kind and harder to respond with kindness, but if you take it down a notch, you might allow the other person’s inner niceness to shine through.
Ask whether you’re projecting your own negativity onto others.
In other words, are you the one in a bad mood or who is inclined toward low agreeableness? If so, maybe you should give the other person a little more benefit of the doubt.
Don’t go overboard in your effort to cheer the person up.
You probably won’t succeed and may actually cause the opposite reaction, or at least engender suspicion of what your real motives are.
Accept the inevitable if in fact it’s inevitable.
You might not be able to change your adversary’s personality but you can change your reactions. If you, so to speak, “let it go,” you won’t allow yourself to be brought down or distressed by this person’s negative demeanor.
It would be wonderful if we could live in a world in which everyone was nice to each other all he time. However, there are those who seem to have low agreeableness burned into their personalities. how to deal with them may not change them, but it can keep you focused on your own for personal fulfillment.
Follow me on Twitter @swhitbo for daily updates on psychology,, and. Feel free to join my group, "Fulfillment at Any Age," to discuss today's blog, or to ask further questions about this posting.
Reference
Bresin, K., & Robinson, M. D. (2015). You are what you see and choose: Agreeableness and situation selection. Journal Of Personality, 83(4), 452-463. doi:10.1111/jopy.12121
Copyright Susan Krauss Whitbourne 2015Some of the most beloved films and television shows of the last 20 years are leaving Netflix in 10 days, including James Cameron’s blockbuster Titantic and every season of 30 Rock.
The Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet film, which was released 20 years ago this December and won best picture at the 1998 Oscars, will depart Netflix on Oct. 1 — just months after arriving on the streaming service. Also leaving Netflix next month: Richard Curtis’ holiday favorite Love Actually, Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, and the Coen brothers’ Barton Fink.
Tina Fey’s 30 Rock will also leave the streaming platform on Oct. 1, along with fellow NBC Universal fave Friday Night Lights plus Prison Break and The Wonder Years. Later in October, seasons 9 through 14 of Family Guy will vanish from Netflix too.
Fortunately, a few cool titles will be made available in October as well. But, until then, make sure to catch these shows and films before they’re gone.
Leaving Oct. 1
30 Rock: Seasons 1 – 7
A Love in Times of Selfies
Across the Universe
Barton Fink
Bella
Big Daddy
Carousel
Cradle 2 the Grave
Crafting a Nation
Curious George: A Halloween Boo Fest
Daddy’s Little Girls
Dark Was the Night
David Attenborough’s Rise of the Animals: Triumph of the Vertebrates: Season 1
Day of the Kamikaze
Death Beach
Dowry Law
Dr. Dolittle: Tail to the Chief
Friday Night Lights: Seasons 1 – 5
Happy Feet
Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison
Hellboy
Kagemusha
Laura
Love Actually
Malcolm in the Middle: Seasons 1 – 7
Max Dugan Returns
Millennium
Million Dollar Baby
Mortal Kombat
Mr. 3000
Mulholland Dr.
My Father the Hero
My Name Is Earl: Seasons 1 – 4
One Tree Hill: Seasons 1 – 9
Patton
Picture This
Prison Break: Seasons 1 – 4
The Bernie Mac Show: Seasons 1 – 5
The Shining
The Wonder Years: Seasons 1 – 6
Titanic
Leaving October 19
The Cleveland Show: Seasons 1 – 4
Leaving Oct. 21
Bones: Seasons 5 – 11
Leaving Oct. 27
Lie to Me: Seasons 2 – 3
Louie: Seasons 1 – 5
Hotel Transylvania 2
Leaving Oct. 29
Family Guy: Seasons 9 – 14This article is about an emotion. For the album, see Oceanic Feeling (album)
In a 1927 letter to Sigmund Freud, Romain Rolland coined the phrase "oceanic feeling" to refer to the sensation of being one with the universe.[1] According to Rolland, this feeling is the source of all the religious energy that permeates in various religious systems, and one may justifiably call oneself religious on the basis of this oceanic feeling alone, even if one renounces every belief and every illusion.[2] Freud discusses the feeling in his Future of an Illusion (1927) and Civilization and Its Discontents (1929). There he deems it a fragmentary vestige of a kind of consciousness possessed by an infant who has not yet differentiated himself or herself from other people and things.[3]
History [ edit ]
On December 5, 1927, Rolland coined the phrase in a letter to Freud:
Mais j'aurais aimé à vous voir faire l'analyse du sentiment religieux spontané ou, plus exactement, de la sensation religieuse qui est...le fait simple et direct de la sensation de l'Eternel (qui peut très bien n'être pas éternel, mais simplement sans bornes perceptibles, et comme océanique).[4]
In strict translation:
But I would have liked to see you doing an analysis of spontaneous religious sentiment or, more exactly, of religious feeling, which is...the simple and direct fact of the feeling of the ‘eternal’ (which can very well not be eternal, but simply without perceptible limits, and like oceanic, as it were).[5]
Freud ends The Future of an Illusion with a discussion of the concept, and picks up the discussion at the beginning of Civilization and Its Discontents, answering Rolland's request. There he credits the concept to an anonymous friend.
Freud's explanation [ edit ]
Freud argues that the "oceanic feeling", if it exists, is the preserved "primitive ego-feeling" from infancy. The primitive ego-feeling precedes the creation of the ego and exists up until the mother ceases breastfeeding. Prior to this, the infant is regularly breastfed in response to its crying and has no concept that the breast does not belong to it. Therefore, the infant has no concept of a "self" or, rather, considers the breast to be part of itself. Freud argues that those experiencing an oceanic feeling as an adult are actually experiencing a preserved primitive ego-feeling. The ego, in contrast, comes into existence when the breast is taken away, and involves the infant's recognition that it is separate from the mother's breast, and therefore, that other people exist. Freud argues that it would not necessarily contradict psychoanalytical theory for this primary ego-feeling to coexist along with the ego in some people. The main argument for this is that psychoanalytical theory holds that all thoughts are preserved in a conservation of psychic energy. Therefore, the "oceanic feeling" described as a oneness with the world or a limitlessness is simply a description of the feeling the infant has before it learns there are other persons in the world.
Neuroscientific explanation [ edit ]
"Neurotheology" is a neologism that describes the scientific study of the neural correlates of religious or spiritual beliefs and practices. Other researchers have rejected the term, preferring to use terms like "spiritual neuroscience" or "neuroscience of religion". Researchers in the field attempt to explain the neurological basis for religious experiences, such as:[6] the perception that time, fear or self-consciousness have dissolved; spiritual awe; oneness with the universe; ecstatic trance; sudden enlightenment; and altered states of consciousness.
What Andrew B. Newberg and others "discovered is that intensely focused spiritual contemplation triggers an alteration in the activity of the brain that leads one to perceive transcendent religious experiences as solid, tangible reality. In other words, the sensation that Buddhists call oneness with the universe."[7]
See also [ edit ]Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The BBC's Julia Carneiro watched as the mosquitoes were released
Brazilian researchers in Rio de Janeiro have released thousands of mosquitoes infected with bacteria that suppress dengue fever.
The hope is they will multiply, breed and become the majority of mosquitoes, thus reducing cases of the disease.
The initiative is part of a programme also taking place in Australia, Vietnam and Indonesia.
The intracellular bacteria, Wolbachia, being introduced cannot be transmitted to humans.
The programme started in 2012 says Luciano Moreira of the Brazilian research institute Fiocruz, who is leading the project in Brazil.
"Our teams performed weekly visits to the four neighbourhoods in Rio being targeted. Mosquitoes were analysed after collection in special traps.
"Transparency and proper information for the households is a priority. "
Ten thousand mosquitoes will be released each month for four months with the first release in Tubiacanga, in the north of Rio.
'Good' bacteria
The bacterium Wolbachia is found in 60% of insects. It acts like a vaccine for the mosquito which carries dengue, Aedes aegypti, stopping the dengue virus multiplying in its body.
Wolbachia also has an effect on reproduction. If a contaminated male fertilises the eggs of a female without the bacteria, these eggs do not turn into larvae.
If the male and female are contaminated or if only a female has the bacteria, all future generations of mosquito will carry Wolbachia.
As a result, Aedes mosquitoes with Wolbachia become predominant without researchers having to constantly release more contaminated insects.
In Australia this happened within 10 weeks on average.
The research on Wolbachia began at the University of Monash in Australia in 2008. The researchers allowed the mosquitoes to feed on their own arms for five years because of concerns at the time Wolbachia could infect humans and domestic animals.
Three more neighbourhoods will be targeted next, and large scale studies to evaluate the effect of |
this year shows the 3km bridge abruptly ending in a North Korean field, with no roads connecting the bridge to the nearest town.Donald Trump signs autographs after speaking at a rally in San Diego on May 27, 2016. Spencer Platt/Getty Images
You know what’s presidential? Using 12 minutes of a campaign rally to criticize a judge who is overseeing civil litigation against your failed “education” venture. And that’s exactly what Donald Trump did in San Diego when he seemingly bored his audience with details about the ongoing case, specifically attacking U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel for being a “hater” and even speculating about what his ethnicity might be.
“The trial is going to take place sometime in November. There should be no trial. This should have been dismissed on summary judgment easily,” Trump said. “Everybody says it, but I have a judge who is a hater of Donald Trump, a hater. He’s a hater. His name is Gonzalo Curiel.”
Curiel “is not doing the right thing. And I figure, what the hell? Why not talk about it for two minutes?” What followed was “one of his most personal attacks against an apolitical figure since becoming the presumptive Republican presidential nominee,” notes the Wall Street Journal. As part of his attack, Trump told his audience, which just moments earlier had chanted about the need to “build that wall,” that Curiel is “Mexican.”
“The judge, who happens to be, we believe, Mexican, which is great, I think that’s fine,” Trump said. “You know what? I think the Mexicans are going to end up loving Donald Trump when I give all these jobs, OK?” Curiel was born in East Chicago.*
“I think Judge Curiel should be ashamed of himself,” Trump said. “I’m telling you, this court system, judges in this court system, federal court, they ought to look into Judge Curiel. Because what Judge Curiel is doing is a total disgrace, OK? But we’ll come back in November. Wouldn’t that be wild if I’m president and I come back to do a civil case? Where everybody likes it. OK. This is called life, folks.”
Anti-Trump protesters and supporters argue in San Diego, California on May 27, 2016. MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images
Outside the rally, San Diego Police arrested 35 people after a crowd of around 1,000 people did not disperse as ordered. Although the protests were peaceful throughout most of the day, small fights broke out after Trump left. “Even as there was no room to move, police officers continued to push protesters and reporters, with some toppling over in the fray,” reports CNN. “Police pepper-sprayed several protesters.” Trump took to Twitter later that night to praise the actions of the police.
.@SanDiegoPD- Fantastic job on handling the thugs who tried to disrupt our very peaceful and well attended rally. Greatly appreciated! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 28, 2016
*Correction at 4:45 p.m.: This post originally misstated Judge Gonzalo Curiel’s birthplace as Chicago. He was born in East Chicago, Indiana.CME Group’s executive director and digitization lead has called the increasing number of planned bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) a sign that the market for blockchain-based digital assets is maturing.
At the Tech Talk 5.0 conference in London this week, CME’s Sandra Ro spoke broadly about the progress being made by the derivatives marketplace provider in exploring the blockchain industry, reviewing the company’s new bitcoin benchmark and speaking in-depth how the group looks at the future of blockchain more broadly.
In response to audience questions, Ro notably said she believes the two ETF filings currently pending in the US are a sign more filings for regulated products may be on the way. Further, she said existing products and filings prove that there is enough demand for additional regulated products in the digital assets space.
Ro told the audience:
“In fact, some of the most exciting areas to explore are at the intersection of digital assets and tokenized fiat and tokenized commodities.”
Elsewhere, Ro voiced an argument as to why her firm believes the public blockchain space could be as valuable for financial institutions to understand as private alternatives, stating that CME maintains a dual focus on digital assets and blockchain and distributed ledger technology.
Even though Ro sees bitcoin as the most mature digital asset, she is quick to note that there are many others that may or may not succeed, even referencing how the social network-based digital currency Steemit has risen sharply in total market capitalization in recent days.
An audience poll at the event suggested that those in attendance are perhaps now more familiar with bitcoin, as well. When asked if attendees had ever held any bitcoin, 23% of the audience voted ‘Yes’, while 77% reported ‘No’.
A total of 79 votes were cast.
PoC strategy
Overall, Ro discussed four primary mandates that CME has put in place for its digitization group.
Firstly, she said, the group is looking at projects as part of a long-term strategy, on a timescale of three to five years. Previous work by the group was more short-term focused, but going forward, the group is looking into ideas that take time to mature.
“We want to make smart bets on where we need to be in the next three-to-five years,” Ro said.
Ro spoke to a focus on both projects and proofs-of-concept, distinguishing between the two categories in terms of time and money invested.
CME undertakes a project, she said, when the idea is more concrete and the company is willing to spend up to a few million dollars getting the concept to fruition.
On the other hand, proofs-of-concept are worked on with little funding and a lesser time commitment, while experiencing a higher failure rate, she said.
Ro stressed that the company’s motto with proofs-of-concept is to experiment and fail fast.
FinTech engagement
Later, Ro discussed how CME is working with both new and established players to chart its future course for FinTech.
For example, she said CME is looking into possible changes to how intellectual property should be handled by the group so it can better work with new players.
Ro believes that the traditional approach of patenting technologies developed by CME may not work well with the evolving FinTech community.
In terms of external engagement on blockchain specifically, Ro mentioned the group’s involvement with the Linux Foundation-led Hyperledger project, and other consortiums like Post-Trade Distributed Ledger Group (PTDL).
Disclosure: CME Group is an investor in Digital Currency Group, of which CoinDesk is a subsidiary.
CME Group image via Sid KallaAMC | ABC
When millions of viewers tune into the hit drama "Mad Men" each week, one of the first faces they see in the show's iconic, award-winning title sequence is of a top fashion model of the 1950s and 1960s - only for years, she didn't know it was her image.
Gita Hall, 79, says she had no idea she was part of the iconic title sequence for one of TV's most popular and lauded shows, which has aired on AMC since 2007.
"I wished they had had the courtesy to get in touch with me," she told ABC News.
The former model has just filed a law suit with the Los Angeles Superior Court against Lionsgate Entertainment, which distributes the show, claiming her image was ripped off.
"I was surprised because nobody had checked with me about it- they must have thought I was dead," she said.
Hall's attorney Kevin Leichter says that the suit has merit because the company would feel the same way about their product. "If two minutes of 'Mad Men' had been taken for commercial purposes, Lionsgate would be throwing thermonuclear bombs," he said.
Hall, a native of Sweden who appeared in films such as "Wolf Larsen" and the Ernest Hemingway adaptation "The Gun Runners," says she never gave consent for Lionsgate to use her image.
The lawsuit estimates "Mad Men" has earned more than a billion dollars to date, and calls her image the "center piece" of the show's opening - the same opening credits that won an Emmy in 2008 for outstanding title design.
The suit also suggests Hall should be compensated for the value of using her image to "evoke recollections of this now distant time."
"She actually may have a case here, you cannot use someone's likeness without their permission," ABC News Legal Analyst Dana Cole said.
Lionsgate told ABC News it has no comment on the lawsuit.
ABC News' Patrick Doherty contributed to this report.WE ARE BACK. I hope it’s not too early to announce that.
Well, December was… well, not too amazing for me. That’s not to say it was bad—I had a good time, but productivity screeched to a halt, if you somehow didn’t notice. I don’t know if it’s the chemical balance of my mind, the stress from holiday retail hours, the time I spent with Jessica and friends home from college, Destiny grinding, or a combination of all of the above. Regardless of the cause, Waking Up Dead had to take a back seat, as life got in the way.
That’s not to say I haven’t been fine-tuning and scripting, but I haven’t had the patience or drive to actually sit down and pump out a page in a while.
It’s a new year according to the little copyright date on the above comic. That means, I have new goals and ambition for the next year.
Last year, I was able to successfully get my license and save up some money. Not that much since last year, but still.
Firstly, my plan for work: My goal is, by the end of the year to be working a full-time, non-retail job. Specifically something that pays decently enough so that I can support myself.
Second, my plan for life: Relying goal 1, my goal is to move out of my parent’s house and support myself. This is completely dependent on the first goal, however, because it’s a question of money.
Lastly, my plan for Waking Up Dead: Over a year ago, I was able to push the comic to updating two pages a week. I somewhat struggled since then, but ultimately it was a success. Having missed so many updates in the past two months, I am sick of it, as I’m stuck on a single issue of the story, and these issues take the bulk of a year to complete. As such, I hope, by December 31, to be updating 3 times a week regularly, with little to no missed updates. It’s going to take a while, and I may need to change up my process (switch to manga studio from Photoshop/Illustrator?), but I’m going to figure out how to cut time on any given page, and I’m going to force myself to sit down and work, at the expense of other activities.
These goals won’t be easy, but I’m confident I can at least complete some, if not all of them.
Anyway, I’ll let you go. I’ll see you all on Friday.Yahoo! Answers is a community-driven question-and-answer (Q&A) website or a knowledge market from Yahoo!, that allows users to both submit questions to be answered and answer questions asked by other users.
History [ edit ]
The website Yahoo! was officially incorporated on March 2, 1995, and was created by Jerry Yang and David Filo. The website began as a search directory for various websites, and soon grew into an established Internet resource that features the "Yahoo! Answers" platform.[1] Yahoo! Answers was launched on June 28, 2005, while in internal alpha testing by Director of Engineering, Ofer Shaked.[2][3] Yahoo! Answers was launched to the general public while in beta testing on December 8, 2005,[4][5] which lasted until May 14, 2006. Yahoo! Answers was finally incorporated for general availability on May 15, 2006.[6]
Yahoo! Answers was created to replace Ask Yahoo!, Yahoo!'s former Q&A platform which was discontinued in March 2006.[7] The site gives members the chance to earn points as a way to encourage participation and is based on Naver's Knowledge iN.[8][9] Yahoo! Answers is available in 12 languages, but several Asian sites operate a different platform which allows for non-Latin characters. The platform is known as Yahoo! Chiebukuro (Yahoo!知恵袋) in Japan[10] and as Yahoo! Knowledge in Korea, Taiwan, China, and Hong Kong.[citation needed] An Arabic language Q&A platform called Seen Jeem is available through the Yahoo! subsidiary Maktoob.
On December 8, 2016, Yahoo! released an app for the platform called Yahoo! Answers Now (formally known as Yahoo! Hive) for iOS and Android.[11][12][13][14][15]
The number of poorly formed questions and inaccurate answers has made the site a target of ridicule.[16][17]
Site operation [ edit ]
Yahoo! Answers allows any questions that do not violate Yahoo! Answers community guidelines.[18] To encourage good answers, helpful participants are occasionally featured on the Yahoo! Answers Blog. Though the service itself is free, the contents of the answers are owned by the respective users – while Yahoo! maintains a non-exclusive royalty-free worldwide right to publish the information.[19] Chat is explicitly forbidden in the Community Guidelines, although categories like Politics and Religion & Spirituality are mostly opinion.[20] Users may also choose to reveal their Yahoo! Messenger ID on their Answers profile page.
Misuse of Yahoo! Answers is handled by a user moderation system, where users report posts that are in breach of guidelines or the Terms of Service.[dubious – discuss] Posts are removed if they receive sufficient weight of trusted reports (reports from users with a reliable reporting history). Deletion may be appealed: an unsuccessful appeal receives a 10-point penalty; a successful one reinstates the post and reduces the 'trust rating' (reporting power) of the reporter. If a user receives a large number of violations in a relatively short amount of time or a very serious violation, it can cause the abuser's account to be suspended. In extreme, but rare cases (for a Terms of Service violation), the abuser's entire Yahoo! ID will be suddenly deactivated without warning.
To open an account, a user needs a Yahoo! ID but can use any name as identification on Yahoo! Answers. A user can be represented by a picture from various internet avatar sites or a user-made graphic uploaded to replace their default Yahoo graphic. Yahoo! Avatars was discontinued in 2012. When answering a question, a user can search Yahoo! or Wikipedia, or any source of information that the user wishes, as long as they mention their source.
Questions are initially open to answers for four days. However, the asker can choose to pick a best answer for the question after a minimum of one hour. However, comments and answers can still be posted after this time.[21] To ask a question, one has to have a Yahoo! account with a positive score balance of five points or more.
The points system is weighted to encourage users to answer questions and to limit spam questions. There are also levels (with point thresholds), which give more site access.[22] Points and levels have no real world value, cannot be traded, and serve only to indicate how active a user has been on the site. A notable downside to the points/level system is that it encourages people to answer questions even when they do not have a suitable answer to give to gain points. Users also receive ten points for contributing the "Best Answer" which is selected by the question's asker. The voting function, which allowed users to vote for the answer they considered best, was discontinued in April 2014.
In addition to points awarded for activity,[22] Yahoo! Answers staff may also award extra points if they are impressed with a user's contributions.[23] The Yahoo! Answers community manager has stated that "power users" who defend the company should be thanked and rewarded.[24]
Level table [ edit ]
Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 Level 5 Level 6 Level 7 Points 1–249 250–999 1,000–2,499 2,500–4,999 5,000–9,999 10,000–24,999 25,000+ Questions 5 10 15 20 20 20 20 Answers 20 80 120 160 160 160 160 Commentaries 10 20 30 40 40 40 40 Stars 10 100 100 100 100 100 100 Evaluation permission No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Note: All limitations are per day.
Users begin on level 1 and receive 100 free points. Prior to this, they began on level 0, could only answer one question, and then were promoted to level 1.
Before April 20, 2012, users levels 5 and above could give an unlimited number of questions, answers, and comments. Yahoo! Answers established an upper limit to curb spam and unproductive answers.[25] Before April 2014 users were also able to vote for a best answer if the asker did not choose one, but this was discontinued.
Badges [ edit ]
Top Contributor [ edit ]
The point system ostensibly encourages users to answer as many questions as they possibly can, up to their daily limit. Once a user achieves and maintains a certain minimum number of such contributions (See Note*, further...), they may receive an orange "badge" under the name of their avatar, naming the user a Top Contributor (TC). Users can lose this badge if they do not maintain their level of participation.[26] Once a user becomes a "Top Contributor" in any category, the badge appears in all answers, questions, and comments by the user, regardless of category. A user can be a Top Contributor in a maximum of 3 categories.[26] The list of Top contributors is updated every Monday.[26] Although Yahoo! Answers staff has kept secret the conditions of becoming a TC, many theories exist among users, for example:
Maintaining a weekly (mystery) "quota" of answers in the category.
User wanting to become a TC must have more than or equal to 12% Best answers.
User should be at least on level 2, although there have been claims [ citation needed ] that first-level users with TC Badge have been seen.
that first-level users with TC Badge have been seen. User should concentrate only on one particular category to become a Top Contributor for that category.
Out of these, none have an official status. This feature began March 8, 2007.
Staff [ edit ]
Badge is seen under the name staff members of Yahoo! Answers.[27]
Official [ edit ]
This type of badge is found on the name of celebrities (like mentioned above) and government departments like the health department.[27]
Knowledge Partners [ edit ]
These badges are found under the name of the companies or organizations who share their personal knowledge and experience with the members of Yahoo! Answers.[27]
Academic studies [ edit ]
A number of studies have looked at the structure of the community and the interaction between askers and responders. Studies of user typology on the site have revealed that some users answer from personal knowledge – "specialists" – while others use external sources to construct answers – "synthesists", with synthesists tending to accumulate more reward points.[28] Adamic et al. looked at the ego networks of users and showed that it is possible to distinguish "answer people" from "discussion people" with the former found in specialist categories for factual information, such as mathematics and the latter more common in general interest categories, such as marriage and wrestling. They also show that answer length is a good predictor of "best answer" choice.[29] Kim and Oh looked at the comments given by users on choosing best answers and showed that content completeness, solution feasibility and personal agreement/confirmation were the most significant criteria.[30]
Quality of answers [ edit ]
Researchers found that questions seeking factual information received few answers and that the knowledge on Yahoo! Answers is not very deep.[20]
This "Internet language" of incorrect spelling and improper grammar also contributes to Yahoo! Answers' reputation of being a source of entertainment rather than a fact based question and answer platform,[31][32] and for the reliability, validity, and relevance of its answers. A 2008 study found that Yahoo! Answers is suboptimal for questions requiring factual answers and that the quality decreases as the number of users increases.[33] One journalist observed that the structure Yahoo! Answers provides, particularly the persistence of inaccuracies, the inability to correct them, and a point structure that rewards participation more readily than accuracy, all indicate that the site is oriented towards encouraging use of the site, not offering accurate answers to questions.[34] The number of poorly formed questions and inaccurate answers has made the site a target of ridicule.[16][17] Likewise, posts on many Internet forums and Yahoo! Answers itself indicate that Yahoo! Answers attracts a large number of trolls.
The site does not have a system that filters the correct answers from the incorrect answers.[35] At one time, the community could vote for the best answer among the posted answers; but that option was disabled in March 2014.[36] For most of the life of Yahoo! Answers, once the "best answer" was chosen, there was no way to add more answers nor to improve or challenge the best answer chosen by the question asker; there is a display of thumbs down or thumbs up for each answer, but viewers cannot vote. In April 2014, this was changed to allow for additional answers after a best answer is chosen, but the best answer can never be changed. Also, while "best answers" can be briefly commented upon, the comment is not visible by default and is hence hardly read.[citation needed] (Even the user who posts the question isn't notified, before or after the best answer is picked, about a comment on the question or on the best answer.) If the best answer chosen is wrong or contains problematic information, the only chance to give a better (or correct) answer will be the next time the same question is asked. The older answer will likely get higher priority in search engines. Any new answer will most probably not be seen by any original questioner.[original research?]
Promotions and events [ edit ]
Yamster [ edit ]
The Yahoo! Answers green smiley.
The official Yahoo! Answers mascot is a cartoon hamster called Yamster. Yamster is a combination, or portmanteau, of the words "Yahoo" and "hamster". The mascot is also used as an avatar for Yahoo! Answers staff.[37]
During beta testing of Yahoo! Answers in 2005, the Director of Product Management would use a Gemmy Kung Fu Hamster to summon employees to meetings. The toy was a battery-operated, dancing, musical plush hamster clothed in a karate uniform. A Yahoo! Answers employee selected a photo of the toy as the staff avatar.[38] A user then questioned the potential trademark/copyright infringement of using such an avatar. At that time, the photo was replaced with the Yahoo! Answers green smiley face. At the beginning of 2006, the green smiley face was replaced by the cartoon Yamster clad in a karate uniform.[39] As of November 2009, the history of Yamster, complete with photos of the toy, was available on the Yahoo! Answers Team Vietnam blog.[40]
Special guests [ edit ]
Several celebrities and notables have appeared on Yahoo! Answers to ask questions. These users have an "official" badge below their avatar and on their profile page. During the 2008 U.S. Presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Barack Obama, and Mitt Romney posted questions on Yahoo! Answers, in addition to YouTube.[41] In an awareness campaign, "UNICEF Up Close 2007", nine UNICEF ambassadors asked questions.[42][43] The launch of Answers on Yahoo! India included a question from A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, the President of India at that time.[44] Other guests have included international leaders (Queen Rania of Jordan,[45] candidate for United Nations Secretary-General Shashi Tharoor[46]), Nobel Peace Prize laureates (Al Gore,[47][48] Muhammad Yunus[49]) and other international activists (Bono,[47] Jean-Michel Cousteau[50]), intellectuals (Stephen Hawking,[47] Marilyn vos Savant[48]), and numerous other celebrities.
Site statistics [ edit ]
Yahoo! used comScore statistics in December 2006 to proclaim Yahoo! Answers "the leading Q&A site on the web".[51] Currently[when?] Yahoo! Answers is ranked as the second most popular Q&A site on the web by comScore.[52][53] The slogan "The world's leading Q&A site" has since been adopted by Answers.com.
In 2009, Yahoo! Answers staff claimed 200 million users worldwide[54] and 15 million users visiting daily.[55] Google Trends has reported around 4 million unique visitors (Global) daily.[56] In January 2010, the web analytics website Quantcast reported 24 million active users (US) per month; in November 2015, that had fallen by 77% to 5.6 million.[57] Quantcast traffic statistics for Yahoo! Answers, January 2010:
24,201,619 people per month (US)
62,171,200 visits per month (US)
For January 1–30, 2015:
11,273,839 people per month (US)
For October 31 – November 29, 2015:
5,555,080 people per month (US)
For December 1 – December 30, 2015:
4,546,016 people per month (US)
Google Ad Planner traffic statistics for Yahoo! Answers, December 2009:[58]
26,000,000 unique visitors (users) (US)
110,000,000 total visits (US)
Compete Site Analytics traffic statistics for Yahoo! Answers, December 2009:[59]
33,090,163 unique visitors (US)
64,928,634 visits (US)
Yahoo! Answers represents between 1.03%[60] to 1.7%[61] of Yahoo! traffic.
In popular media [ edit ]
The comedy/advice podcast My Brother, My Brother and Me features a reoccurring segment in which co-host Griffin McElroy selects and reads a particularly humorous or outrageous question from Yahoo! Answers. The hosts then discuss and attempt to answer the question, to comedic effect.[62][63] The show received a 2016 TV adaptation.[64]
The Internet troll Ken M is a regular user on Yahoo! Answers, posting comments that confound and annoy other users. There are several communities on social media sites such as Reddit and Facebook dedicated to observing his antics, especially on Yahoo! Answers.[65][66] Ken was named as one of Time's most influential people online in 2016.[67]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]In a relatively distant place, approximately 1,480 light years away from Earth, sits one of the most controversial objects in our galaxy, KIC 8462852, as its dubbed, clearly becomes the primary subject of much ongoing research.
The star KIC 8462852 is apparently a completely-ordinary main sequence star, much like our sun, with no spectral peculiarities and no emission lines or anything unusual; Its located in the constellation Cygnus, appearing in the original field studied with the NASA’ Kepler spacecraft.
But this star catch our attention being in the news recently for unexplained and strange behavior, too odd even by the generous standards of cosmic phenomena.
The Planet Hunters project discovered in the Kepler light curve that KIC 8462852 displays a unique series of aperiodic dips in brightness, the star faded by 0.2%–20% with duration from a day to weeks — such fast variations of a single main sequence star are inexplicable.
In September 2015 astronomers and citizen scientists associated with the project uploaded a paper on arXiv describing the data and possible interpretations of KIC 8462852 behavior.
Since the paper was published, scientists have been speculating on what could be causing such irregular dips. Yale University researcher Tabetha Boyajian, who first spotted KIC 8462852 signals, published a study which describes various scenarios to explain the dipping events observed in the Kepler light curve. But lately, most of the proposed scenarios are ruled out due to the lack of evidence.
We’d never seen anything like this star,
said Boyajian.
It was really weird. We thought it might be bad data or movement on the spacecraft, but everything checked out.
Leading hypothesisBoyajian consider scenarios where the dust originated in a catastrophic collision in an asteroid belt, a giant impact between planets, and a family of comets. Most of the proposed scenarios are ruled out due to the lack of any infrared excess.
Bodman & Quillen investigate the idea of a comet family, but find that they need implausibly-large comets in large numbers, plus a contrived disruption history. Further, the comet hypothesis cannot explain many of the dip light curves.
The most intriguing hypothesis but still a possibility was that this star is home to a technologically sophisticated society that has constructed a so-called Dyson sphere that block light from the star. But the Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute, SETTI, trained its Allen Telescope Array on the star for more than two weeks, and ruled out an alien structure.
The history of astronomy tells us that every time we thought we had found a phenomenon due to the activities of extraterrestrials, we were wrong.
Institute astronomer Seth Shostak said then.
But although it’s quite likely that this star’s strange behaviour is due to nature, not aliens, it’s only prudent to check such things out.
But earlier this month, the world’s top alien-hunting astronomer refused to rule out the possibility of extraterrestrial megastructure orbiting KIC 8462852 star. Also at that time, SETTI’ researchers states that they were unable to disprove the theory that a massive artificial structure is causing the mysterious light patterns spotted around the distant star.
Something pretty amazing is going on around KIC 8462852 star
Astronomers Bradley E. Schaefer from Louisiana State University takes a different approach to find out more about this star. He looked over a collection of sky photographs in the archives at Harvard College Observatory, a collection which covers the entire sky from 1890 to 1989.
Then he measured 131 magnitudes of KIC 8462852 star from 1890–1989. Results? The star appears to be dimming slowly, over the course of the past century;
KIC 8462852 star displays a secular dimming at an average rate of 0.164 magnitudes per century. This century-long dimming is unprecedented for any main sequence star. Such stars should be very stable in brightness, with evolution making for changes only on time scales of many millions of years.
Previously, the only evidence that KIC 8462852 was unusual in any way was a few dips in magnitude as observed by one satellite, so inevitably we have to wonder whether the whole story is just some problem with Kepler
commented Schaefer.
Implication Within the various dust-occultation ideas, there is some quantity of dust required to create the one deepest dip of 20%: Boyajian and Thompson calculate that the comet family scenario requires 648,000 giant-comets (each with 200 km diameter) to create the century-long fading, all orchestrated to pass in front of the star within the last century — this can be compared to the entire mass of the Kuiper Belt in our own Solar System.
I do not see how it is possible for something like 648,000 giant-comets to exist around one star, nor to have their orbits orchestrated so as to all pass in front of the star within the last century.
said Schaefer.
So I take this century-long dimming as a strong argument against the comet-family hypothesis to explain the Kepler dips.
So what is going on with this star? We don’t know, we still scratching our heads, I think. It’s a mystery, but an amazing one.
The aliens idea may make this seem silly, but the data are real. Something is going on around KIC 8462852 star. I don’t know what it might be, but what I can guarantee is that when we do figure it out, it’ll be something pretty amazing.
said Phil Plait, Slate’s Bad Astronomy blogger.
Article by A. Ali Appeared first on ©CosmosUpTom Wheeler, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg)
The head of the Federal Communications Commission doesn't like that Republicans want to take away his agency's powers to police Internet providers. And on Thursday, he said as much in a lengthy speech to reporters.
"You know I'm a huge Lincoln buff, and he had a great expression: 'The struggle of today is not altogether for today; it's for the vast future also,' " said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, implying that if the GOP restricts the commission's legal powers, the future of the Internet could be harmed.
Congress is considering a bill, backed by Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) and Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), that would prevent Internet providers from speeding up or slowing down some Web sites over others — part of a bid to ensure the concept known as net neutrality. The legislation is being offered as a compromise with President Obama, who has asked for strong protections against Internet providers that want to prioritize some Web traffic.
But consumer advocates and Democrats are balking at the measure, because it contains controversial provisions that would curtail the FCC's power to redefine broadband as a service that can be regulated more heavily like traditional telephony. The bill also would make it impossible for the FCC to invoke another part of its charter, known as Section 706, which recognizes the agency's authority to promote the rollout of broadband.
Wheeler lashed out at those provisions Thursday.
"Obviously the Congress is the Congress," he said. "They can write whatever rules they want to write, and we respect that ability of theirs. But I think we're at a fork in the road. The question is: Whose Internet is it?
"It is important to deal with the long-term future of what the relationship of the American people will be with their broadband network that is so essential," Wheeler added. "We're not dealing with the kinds of issues [Lincoln] was dealing with, or the magnitude of issues he was dealing with at that point in time — but we are dealing with the vast future represented by broadband networks."
Wheeler punctuated his next remarks for dramatic effect.
"The. Most. Powerful. Network. In the history of mankind. Offering transformational opportunities we can't even imagine at this point in time. So the responsible question for an agency like us becomes: How are we going to make sure that in the broadband future, there are yardsticks in place to determine what is in the best interests of consumers, as opposed to what is in the best interest of gatekeepers?"Finally, the Verilog code for microcontroller:
// The microcontroller (similar to Microchip PIC12, simplified extensively, not compatible in // instruction set) in this project is a 3 cycle nonpipeline // 8 bit Harvard structure microcontroller, illustrated as the following block diagram Verilog project, VHDL project // fpga4student.com: FPGA project // Verilog project: Verilog code for microcontroller module MicroController( input clk,rst ); parameter LOAD = 2'b00, FETCH = 2'b01, DECODE = 2'b10, EXECUTE = 2'b11 ; reg [ 1 : 0 ] current_state,next_state; reg [ 11 : 0 ] program_mem[ 9 : 0 ]; reg load_done; reg [ 7 : 0 ] load_addr; wire [ 11 : 0 ] load_instr; reg [ 7 : 0 ] PC, DR, Acc; reg [ 11 : 0 ] IR ; reg [ 3 : 0 ] SR ; wire PC_E,Acc_E, SR_E, DR_E, IR_E ; reg PC_clr,Acc_clr,SR_clr,DR_clr,IR_clr; wire [ 7 : 0 ] PC_updated,DR_updated; wire [ 11 : 0 ] IR_updated; wire [ 3 : 0 ] SR_updated; wire PMem_E,DMem_E,DMem_WE, ALU_E,PMem_LE,MUX1_Sel,MUX2_Sel; wire [ 3 : 0 ] ALU_Mode; wire [ 7 : 0 ] Adder_Out; wire [ 7 : 0 ] ALU_Out,ALU_Oper2; // LOAD instruction memory initial begin $readmemb ( "program_mem.dat", program_mem, 0, 9 ); end // ALU ALU ALU_unit(.Operand1(Acc),.Operand2(ALU_Oper2),. E ( ALU_E ),.Mode(ALU_Mode),.CFlags( SR ),.Out(ALU_Out),.Flags(SR_updated) // the Z (zero), C (carry), S (sign),O (overflow) bits, from MSB to LSB, connected to status register ); // MUX2 MUX1 MUX2_unit(.In2( IR [ 7 : 0 ]),.In1( DR ),.Sel(MUX2_Sel),.Out(ALU_Oper2) ); // Data Memory DMem DMem_unit(.clk(clk),. E (DMem_E), // Enable port. WE (DMem_WE), // Write enable port.Addr( IR [ 3 : 0 ]), // Address port. DI (ALU_Out), // Data input port. DO (DR_updated) // Data output port ); // Program memory PMem PMem_unit(.clk(clk),. E (PMem_E), // Enable port.Addr( PC ), // Address port. I (IR_updated), // Instruction port // 3 special ports are used to load program to the memory. LE (PMem_LE), // Load enable port. LA (load_addr), // Load address port. LI (load_instr) //Load instruction port ); // PC ADder adder PC_Adder_unit(.In( PC ),.Out(Adder_Out) ); // fpga4student.com: FPGA project, Verilog project, VHDL project // MUX1 MUX1 MUX1_unit(.In2( IR [ 7 : 0 ]),.In1(Adder_Out),.Sel(MUX1_Sel),.Out(PC_updated) ); // Control logic Control_Logic Control_Logic_Unit(.stage(current_state),. IR ( |
App Store.
Update (2014-10-17): Drew McCormack offers a contrary take. I’ve never understood his aversion to trials, using words such as “ransom” and “blackmail”; why he is so concerned that upgrades couldn’t “inject” releases when that isn’t possible now, anyway; or why he thinks Apple is providing sandbox exceptions, when the abandoned and withdrawn apps tell a different story. Of course, it would be nice if Apple dropped its cut to 15%, but I doubt that would make most developer’s top five list of changes they want to see.
Update (2014-10-30): Michael Grothaus:
Eliminating a popular distribution channel seems like an odd move for any developer, but Realmac is just the latest Mac dev to hold off releasing their apps on the Mac App Store. Bare Bones Software recently decided not to release BBEdit 11 on the MAS and Panic Software has opted not to sell its popular Coda app on the MAS any longer. Just what is going on? Many major Mac developers say the Mac App Store is in need of changes to make it truly worthwhile for developers to sell their apps there. Here’s what three of them told me what Apple needs to do to fix things.
Update (2014-11-21): Jared Newman interviewed myself, Milen Dzhumerov, and James Thomson for an article in Fast Company.
Update (2014-11-24): Luc Vandal:
There are so many reliability and stability issues with both OSes that at some point we cannot trust them anymore and that’s a shame because these new features are truly great.
Update (2015-01-06): The video of Siegel’s talk is now available.
Stay up-to-date by subscribing to the Comments RSS Feed for this post.In fact, a rumor spread that The Wolverine trailer would actually be released online on February 12th before the premiere in front of A Good Day To Die Hard. Over the last week, director James Mangold has taken to Twitter to set the record straight. Mangold revealed that there was still more visual effects work to be done and that the rumors of the trailer being release between February 12th and 14th were false.
As comic book movie fans are anxious to get a better look at The Wolverine, the information that the trailer won’t be coming as early as expected has resulted in some criticism from fans. With Iron Man 3 and Man of Steel having already released trailer, fans are expressing that The Wolverine has a lot of ground to catch up, especially considering it has to overcome a somewhat poorly received X-Men Origins: Wolverine. In response to the criticism, director James Mangold took to Twitter earlier today to reassure fans. Mangold tweeted, “Tell me you think we're lame after you see the teaser. At least then you will be critiquing images from the film, not a marketing window.”The "Julius Randle Debut Tour: Volume 2," got off to a nice start in the Los Angeles Lakers' opening night loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves. Randle muscled his way to a team-high 11 rebounds, also chipping in 15 points for his first career double-double. What stood out more than any statistic was the edge to Randle's game, a barely controlled brashness that belies his relative lack of experience and stature in the league.
This was an ongoing theme throughout preseason, and it manifested itself on opening night in against 20-year NBA veteran Kevin Garnett, long one of the league's leading trash talkers and scuffle inciters as well as a former MVP and Defensive Player of the Year. Most 20-year olds would show some deference to such a player, but Randle gave precisely zero damns about Garnett's past achievements. He went right at KG from jump street, eventually inciting him into a technical foul. A rookie goading a vet into a technical isn't something we see everyday, but Randle's response after the game may have been the best part.
"It doesn't scare me. I'm not scared of anybody," Randle said of the exchange with Garnett. "I've been watching him all my life so I knew what to expect." These weren't just words either. After Garnett's technical, Julius gave KG just a liiitle extra stare after beating him for an And-1:
Then he gave Garnett an extra bump on their way back down the court:
Was that necessarily the smartest way to respond when the referees were looking to ice the situation? Of course not, but it was exactly the type of swagger and toughness the Lakers have been emphatically lacking the last few seasons. The icing on the cake had to be Randle clowning Garnett with the oldest inbounds trick in the book.
It's not just one of the former preeminent tough guys of the league Randle is ready to bully. Garnett's time has passed, but the current loudest mouth in the league is arguably Draymond Green. Green is also a far superior defender to Garnett at this point in their respective careers, but Randle didn't care about that either. "He can't guard me!" bellowed the ever-confident Julius in a display that so quickly went viral the Lakers' official Twitter account sent out this GIF of it:
Randle was also the one who initially annoyed Trevor Booker enough to get overly physical with him, leading to the intervention of Roy Hibbert, whom Booker was heated enough to take a swing at and earn himself a suspension.
We should have always known based on Randle's physical style of play that he would irk players around the league. It has to be frustrating to guard someone who best compares to a bowling ball knocking through helpless pins that can also beat you in a full court sprint. My chest hurts just watching people attempt to guard Julius down low as he plows his shoulder into their sternum, forever seeking out contact.
But it's in this new found chippiness we can see the fingerprints of Randle's apprenticeship with Metta World Peace. World Peace was anything but peaceful (I'm sorry for that pun) during his career, and while he is by all accounts one of the nicest, most friendly, and loyal people you will ever meet off the court, he loved getting under his opponent's skin.
"Julius doesn't have any fear," said Lakers head coach Byron Scott after Randle's exchange with Green in San Diego, and after a season cut so brutally short by a freak injury a calendar year ago, it was nice to see Randle back up those words on opening night. Randle could have had jitters during his second attempt at a regular season debut after the first one went so awry, but it's safe to say after he took it so directly and personally at a future Hall of Famer that there's no tentativeness to his game.
The Lakers' forward of the future with no fear is here.Everyone in America hoping to be certified as a Registered Nurse and find nursing jobs must first pass the National Council Licensure Examination-Registered Nurse (NCLEX RN) test. This NCLEX RN test is a comprehensive computer based test designed to measure your skills and knowledge in relation to the demands of the job. You should allow up to six hours to take the test, although it may not necessarily take that long.
The NCLEX RN test is given in computer adaptive format, which means that the next question you receive will depend on the answer you gave before. Correct answers will mean questions at a higher skill level, while wrong answers will mean going back to a lower level. Those doing well right off the bat will have to answer fewer question, as they’ve demonstrated by their answers a mastery of the basics. The software will keep providing new questions until satisfactory competency, or the lack of it, is demonstrated. So test takers will answer between 75 and 265 questions.
The subject matter is centered around nursing, and not general academic skills like math and literature. Subjects covered include Safe Effective Care Environment-coordinated care and safety and infection control; Health Promotion and Maintenance; Psychosocial Integrity; and Physiological Integrity-basic care and comfort, pharmacological therapies, reduction of risk potential, and physiological adaptation. The results of your NCLEX RN test are only reported as either pass or fail. It’s a difficult and challenging test, but if you’ve obtained an RN degree, there’s no reason that with solid preparation you can’t pass the NCLEX RN exam.
Click here to download StudyGuideZone.com’s free NCLEX RN Study Guide
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Registered Nurse Salary
If you are looking for a good-paying job with flexibility in scheduling and personal fulfillment, then the role of a registered nurse may be for you. The registered nurse treats patients, records medical histories and symptoms, and administers treatment and medications. He or she may perform diagnostic tests or operate medical machinery. The registered nurse develops a personal relationship with the patient by providing advice and emotional support, educating the patient about medical conditions, and assisting with rehabilitation and follow-up. A registered nurse may work in a variety of settings, which include outpatient and employment centers, nursing facilities, doctor’s offices, hospitals, and government or home health care agencies.
One area of registered nursing that has changed over the years is the stereotype against males in the job. The bias and prejudices that once existed toward men is fast disappearing. Nowadays, there are more male nurses in every aspect of nursing, which reflects the diversity of the patient population they serve. Although the current percentage of male nurses is still substantially low as compared to all registered nurses nationwide, programs and policies are being put in place to encourage people from diverse backgrounds to go into the field.
Although the lingering negative stereotype of males in nursing is started to fade, many men do report obstacles or challenges they still face in school and in the workplace. Many men say that it is still hard for them to work in an OB/GYN environment. At school, many men report being excluded from groups and being subject to stares or comments about their chosen profession. Some people question their sexuality. These challenges seem especially difficult for African-American males. Patients too appear to have a tough time getting used to men as nurses. It appears that society is still used to the tradition of males and doctors and females and nurses. The stereotype of white female nurses is lessening as more males and minorities enter nursing programs, schools and jobs. All in all, these perceptions are changing, and male nurses are entering this role and are being accepted faster. The general public has started to realize that nursing is a respected profession for anyone who has the skill and talent.
The American Assembly for Men in Nursing (AAMN, http://aamn.org/) is an organization dedicated to providing a framework for men to meet and discuss issues they face in the profession. The AAMN is accessible at the state, local, and national levels. The AAMN awards scholarships to men entering the nursing profession as well as gives annual awards for Best Workplace and Best Nursing School or College. The AAMN conducts conferences and mentoring programs. There are networking opportunities, a newsletter, and job and employment resources. Additional resource links provide featured stories, surveys, and articles that may be of interest. In addition, the AAMN has started a “20 by 20” initiative that is aimed at having at least 20 percent male enrollment in nursing programs throughout the world by the year 2020. There is a task force in place to encourage enrollment, recruitment efforts, and media campaigns. Research efforts, reports, and recommendations are being made to change the face of the nursing profession. The AAMN is confident that it will be successful at increasing the number of men in nursing.
According to Minoritynurse.com, only 5.8 percent of the total nursing population is men. The average age of a registered nurse is 46 years old, and male nurses tend to be younger than female nurses. The average registered nurse salary is $57,000 a year; however, the average nurse salary with a graduate degree is $74,000 with a master’s and $81,000 for a nurse with a doctorate.We have come a long way since the first Li-f-e live media based on openSUSE was created, the current release is based on openSUSE Leap 42.1. Deployments by Indonesia’s education system is a shining example of openSUSE Education project’s accomplishment.
The openSUSE project has stopped producing live medias for Leap and also live-installer is dropped from live medias created for the Tumbleweed distribution. As Li-f-e is primarily a live distribution we would not be able to create any more medias without live-installer. So unless this situation changes we may not have Li-f-e based on Leap 42.2.
In the meantime I’ve had a look at Ubuntu to create Li-f-e based on the latest LTS release of Ubuntu-Mate, check it out here. Software selection available is kept identical to the Li-f-e based on openSUSE, however there is always a room for improvement, suggestions to enhance it are always welcome.
Both comments and pings are currently closed.This time, the landscape has changed. More American fans are watching European soccer on television, stoking interest in seeing teams from England’s Premier League as well as clubs from France, Spain and elsewhere.
Teams in the I.C.C. are now contractually obligated to play some of their stars, not just their up-and-comers. (On Friday, though, Barcelona announced that it would not bring its two best players, Lionel Messi and Neymar, on its United States tour, most likely to rest them after the recent Copa América in Chile.)
“Every year, there are some fans who say it is not what they saw on TV and won’t go back,” said Steve Gans, a consultant to soccer teams. But, he added, the sport’s growing popularity in the United States means that many fans will continue to go to friendlies because they like the spectacle or are so devoted to their teams that they do not mind that the games are merely exhibitions.
There are also legions of fans outside the United States who want to watch the games, especially during the slow summer months. To reach them, the organizers made television deals with broadcasters in 169 countries, including an agreement with Fox Sports in the United States. Though they declined to disclose their rights fees, Tyler and Stillitano said that there was strong potential for more income from broadcast deals.
However, David Downs, a former executive at Univision who once led the North American Soccer League, said the I.C.C. schedules had not been released early enough to allow the networks to fully capitalize on selling ads for the games.
“The problem is the sales forces for the networks don’t know the schedule to deliver the ratings until the last moment,” he said, “so a lot of the ads are booked months in advance, often on an annual renewal basis.”
The real gold mine, he said, remains ticket sales. Indeed, attendance jumped to 642,000 last summer from 306,000 in 2013, when the tournament included several doubleheaders. So far, two games involving Barcelona have sold out. Some tickets for games in smaller M.L.S. stadiums like Red Bull Arena in New Jersey, where Paris St.-Germain will play Fiorentina of Italy and the Red Bulls will host Chelsea this week, cost several hundred dollars.Campus Published on February 2nd, 2016 | by Stephen Rowe 80
EXCLUSIVE: TCU Professor calls police on disabled student veteran over dissenting opinion
A professor from TCU recently called the police on a disabled student veteran over a dissenting blog post, labeling the student’s conservative opinion as “bullying”. The professor, Dr. Melita Garza, involved the police after calling the disabled veterans’s blog post “dark, offensive and inappropriate”.
The student was asked by the professor to create a blog post in reaction to the topic of feminism. And the student’s post offered a conservative dissent to the topic of feminism, citing women as, “the freest and most liberated in human history” utilizing research conducted by the American Enterprise Institute.
The professor gave the student an “F” on the blog post. Then the professor reported the disabled student veteran to the department chair stating, “the student’s degrading references to women and disturbing video elicited concerns for my safety,” the professor said. “I was concerned about the safety of other students in the course, most of whom were women.”
The professor then asked the department chair to have the student removed from the class and to provide police/security to protect the professor.
There is no official complaint from the professor or a conduct case against the student. However, the student has lost his military education benefits because of the professors’ actions.
As evidence, the professor cited their course syllabus’s “Note on Civility.” Which states, “It is understood that students will reflect a range of perspectives. Students are asked to listen carefully and express ‘ideas with reason, clarity, and compassion.'” In addition, ” student conduct that disrupts the learning process will not be tolerated and may lead to disciplinary action and/or removal from class.”
The Dean has since issued a no contact order to the student veteran. The student has been barred from the communications department and cannot talk to any other students in the department or in his class.
“My unjustified removal is evidence of her attitude towards disabled-veteran students with differing ‘insights,’ and aligns with the definition of teacher student abuse.” said the student in response to the professor’s actions. “This is evidence of her attitude towards disabled-veteran students, trying to succeed with limitations.”
TCU demonstration TCU firmly supports the rights of all members of the University community to express their views.” demonstration guidelines state “firmly supports the rights of all members of the University community to express their views.”
A number of students have complained about Dr. Garza online, via the popular website RateMyProfessor.com
Hypeline reached out to TCU, however they could not be reached for comment in time for publication.
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About the Author Stephen Rowe Stephen is a Staff Writer for TurningPoint USA. He grew up in Montana, "The Treasure State". An ardent coffee addict and political junkie. Wistful for History, Chess, and Broncos Football.Even to scientists, the question of where great discoveries come from is a bit of a mystery. Young biologists learn technique. They learn to sequence DNA, extract sediment cores or distinguish chemical compounds. But how to make a big breakthrough, well, that is equal parts chance and voodoo. Scientists who have a great insight one day (and implicitly, at least in that moment, understand discovery) are as likely to fade into anonymity the next as to make more big discoveries.
Among the classic examples of the unpredictable nature of discovery is that of the Scottish son of a pig farmer, Alexander Fleming. As you may have learned in school, Fleming kept a messy lab. He left petri dishes, microbes and nearly everything else higgledy-piggledy on his lab benches, untended. One day in September of 1928, Fleming returned from a trip and found a goop of some sort growing into a stack of abandoned bacterial cultures and killing them. The circle of goop was a fungus. In that chance moment, Fleming discovered the antibiotic properties of penicillin, properties that would change the world.
Because of Fleming and the scientists who elaborated on his discovery, millions of lives were saved. Some of you are alive to read this because of Fleming. Even if you were not saved by penicillin or some other antibiotic yourself, one of your ancestors likely was. That much about Fleming’s legacy is true. He was an ordinary man who had an extraordinary impact. What is wrong is the idea that his discoveries were simply happenstance. There is more to the story.
In addition to working as a scientist, and well before his discovery of antibiotics, Fleming painted. He was a member of the Chelsea Arts Club, where he created amateurish watercolors. Less well known is that he also painted in another medium, living organisms. Fleming painted ballerinas, houses, soldiers, mothers feeding children, stick figures fighting and other scenes using bacteria. He produced these paintings by growing microbes with different natural pigments in the places where he wanted different colors. He would fill a petri dish with agar, a gelatin-like substance, and then use a wire lab tool called a loop to inoculate sections of the plate with different species. The paintings were technically very difficult to make. Fleming had to find microbes with different pigments and then time his inoculations such that the different species all matured at the same time. These works existed only as long as it took one species to grow into the others. When that happened, the lines between, say, a hat and a face were blurred; so too were the lines between art and science.
It is not clear why Fleming started painting microbes; perhaps he picked up a brush one day and noticed that it felt like the loop he used for his bacteria. Or maybe it was due to the promiscuous sexual predilections of artists. Fleming worked at St. Mary’s hospital in London, where he treated syphilis cases. Many of his patients were painters, and those painters sometimes gave Fleming paintings and perhaps even lessons in return for treatment. Fleming's palette grew richer with time as he found bacteria with the colors he needed. He found joy in discovering a strange new strain of bacteria, in the way that a field biologist might feel the same in happening upon some new and wondrous bird. He collected unusual life forms in the hope that one of them might someday prove useful.
Fleming was a self-taught artist; he had no real artistic training and so he painted what occurred to him. The paintings had little in the way of dimension or nuance and yet still had a vigor, heightened by the reality that they in fact were alive. As one breathed on the paintings, they breathed back.
One could view these paintings as just another manifestation of the strange ways in which scientists become obsessed (biologists have more than a fair share of quirky hobbies—miniature trains, headstone photography, broken glass collections). But as scientists have begun to reconsider Fleming’s story, it has become clear that these little paintings were more than art.
On that fateful morning, what Fleming actually discovered was, in a way, a version of one of his paintings. Each of the colonies of Staphylococci bacteria that he had inoculated on the plate had grown into a small shape resembling a planet or a star in a night sky. But there among his wild planets was something else, a larger, lighter body at the top of the dish, the Penicillium fungus. Around it the sky was dark, where the bacteria were dying. It was his masterpiece, his “rising sun,” the painting that would save more lives than any other discovery.
Fleming’s discovery of the effects of penicillin, the compound produced by the fungus, was a function of his eye for the rare, an artist’s eye. Other scientists had undoubtedly seen Penicillium growing on their petri dishes before Fleming, but they had thrown those dishes away as failures (In fact, both Chinese and Greek medicine had used fungus topically to treat bacterial infections for several thousand years). Not so for Fleming, who spent his life searching for outliers and the situations that favored them. The outliers were not lucky accidents. They were instead, for Fleming, the living art of discovery.
Nor was his discovery of penicillin an exception. His other discoveries accumulated as he collected other odd observations. Fleming one day hung his nose over a petri dish so to allow his mucus to drip on to the plate. He wanted to see what would happen, what observation would grow out of that strange planting. A new color? A new life form? What he found instead was that his mucus killed bacteria. He had discovered, or he would go on to anyway, lysozyme, a common natural antibiotic that most bodies produce in great quantities. Fleming leapt on the unusual like a weasel on a vole and in doing so discovered what others had walked right past or even thrown, disgusted, into the trash.
Fleming’s bacteria paintings have many descendants. A group of modern painters is using bacteria to produce all sorts of images. Glowing bacteria are used as a scientific tool. The most important descendant of Fleming’s artistic methods, though, are the thousands of modern scientists who, like Fleming, make discoveries by looking for the unusual. You will find them with their messy labs and eyes for oddities. They are bored by experiments that work and prefer those that do not, those whose results make no sense at all. In those moments, they think sometimes that they have found something truly important. Usually they are wrong, but every so often they are right, and our understanding of the world leaps forward. In such moments, the prepared mind favors chance rather than the other way around.One thing nobody can deny about Cincinnati Bengals’ 2017 second round draft pick Joe Mixon is that he is very talented. A few years ago, the Bengals’ backfield was mentioned as one of the best in the NFL. Now it features more questions than answers. It even misses out on being a top five Bengals position group. Hopefully Mixon can be the answer to many of the questions in the backfield. But the biggest question as of now is, how early and often he will see the field.
With that in mind, here are five arguments for why Mixon should be the Week one starter at running back in 2017.
1) Jeremy Hill has been ineffective for the past two seasons.
Hill has been objectively bad since the end of his extremely impressive rookie campaign. Other than a few outlier games against teams like the Browns, Hill has averaged close to or below 3.0 yards per carry for the past two years. You can blame this on a variety of factors including the scheme changing, the blocking being less dominant, or Hill getting too fancy in the backfield. Whatever way in which you justify it, Hill is no longer fit to be a starter in Cincinnati.
2) Giovani Bernard is coming off a torn ACL.
Bernard is an excellent second back and can even take over starter duties for short periods of time. He has showed some wear and tear when asked to take over starting duties for long periods of time in the past, but, that’s not his job. His role as a change of pace back isn’t changing, the only problem with Bernard for 2017 has nothing to do with his talent and more to do with the fact that he tore his ACL in the second half of the 2016 season. Now, reports say his rehab is going great and he should be ready before the season, but that should be taken with a grain of salt. On top of that, players coming off ACL injuries are often not themselves at first and take some time to get back up to speed.
3) Mixon is a top 10 talent, if not for off-the-field issues.
Mixon is an extremely talented running back and purely based on talent, could be the top running back in this year’s draft class. Mixon tested very well athletically and has the ideal running back size unlike first round pick Christian McCaffrey, who is too small for many teams to consider him their feature back. Mixon has an ideal blend of size, speed and talent and if it weren’t for his off-field issues, he could have easily been the top running back off the board and gone before the Bengals’ Round 1 pick was made. Do you think Leonard Fournette and McCaffrey will be starting this year with the Jaguars and Panthers, respectively? If they’re starting, Mixon should be, too. The Bengals can’t afford to leave his talent on the bench.
4) If you're going to draft Mixon, you should use him right away to justify the baggage.
As soon as the Bengals picked Mixon, there was an immediate uproar against the team with many people insulting the Bengals and their locker room culture. That is generally not the kind of look you want brought upon your organization. It even has some fans saying they’re done with the team.
Whether it’s fair or not, the Bengals were singled out for drafting Mixon and the front office knew they were going to get significant negative attention for it. But, in selecting him regardless of that, they clearly imagined quickly receiving a good return on their investment. Let’s see that investment pay off sooner than later and leave NFL fans in awe of Mixon’s on-the-field ability.
5) The Bengals' offense needs a running back who can create plays on his own, despite bad offensive line play
The offensive line is easily the biggest concern for Bengals fan and will remain that way until the players prove to be at least an average unit. With that in mind, getting a guy like Mixon is a big help as he can create for himself better than a player like Hill. Additionally, Mixon has the ability to run out of the shotgun, which gives quarterback Andy Dalton a better view of the field and the ability to get the ball out more quickly. He will make the offense less predictable when on the field in the shotgun and is also extremely dangerous when going out for a pass. He will have to be respected in both regards, which is a great thing for offensive coordinator Ken Zampese, and this offense.
Are you convinced Mixon should be the starter for 2017? Will it need to wait until mid-season, as was the case with Hill? Or, will it come Week 1, as it should? The Bengals need to get off to a quick start this year, considering the tough division, and can’t allow themselves to fall behind due to starting Hill and seeing him continue to be ineffective.Who are computer hackers? What is free software? And what does the emergence of a community dedicated to the production of free and open source software--and to hacking as a technical, aesthetic, and moral project--reveal about the values of contemporary liberalism? Exploring the rise and political significance of the free and open source software (F/OSS) movement in the United States and Europe, Coding Freedom details the ethics behind hackers' devotion to F/OSS, the social codes that guide its production, and the political struggles through which hackers question the scope and direction of copyright and patent law. In telling the story of the F/OSS movement, the book unfolds a broader narrative involving computing, the politics of access, and intellectual property.E. Gabriella Coleman tracks the ways in which hackers collaborate and examines passionate manifestos, hacker humor, free software project governance, and festive hacker conferences. Looking at the ways that hackers sustain their productive freedom, Coleman shows that these activists, driven by a commitment to their work, reformulate key ideals including free speech, transparency, and meritocracy, and refuse restrictive intellectual protections. Coleman demonstrates how hacking, so often marginalized or misunderstood, sheds light on the continuing relevance of liberalism in online collaboration.Available for purchase at Princeton University PressA little over two weeks ago I announced my return to the Bodhi project and shared our 3.0.0 RC2 “Reloaded” discs. Today I would like to share a set of discs that is our third release candidate. All of the minor issues that were reported in the second release candidate have been corrected in this release and I consider these discs a very polished product.
Download Links:
You can learn which is the best ISO image for you here and you can find an installation tutorial here.
These discs are smaller than the RC2 discs by a sizable amount due to the implementation of XZ compression. The 64bit disc is also the first official Bodhi Linux release to have UEFI support built in by default. I had many Chromebook users note the absence of our Chromebook image with the RC2 release and I am happy to announce its return with this third release candidate.
It is important to remember there is more to Bodhi Linux than just what you download in ISO form. Since our second OS release the new website has been fleshed out and our QuickStart guide that users see when booting the ISO image has been updated to reflected the changes 3.0.0 brings.
Our AppCenter is now back with a new look and feel. You can find everything on here from the latest OpenOffice and WPS Office suites:
to new themes for your Enlightenment desktop:
The website also contains a brand new wiki that the community is in the process of populating in preparation of our 3.0.0 release. Other updated parts of the website include this brand new blog section as well as an update Donations page. If these discs prove to be as solid as I think they are we will have our stable release for Bodhi Linux 3.0.0 on February 20th, 2015.
As always existing 3.0.0 users do not need to reinstall to be using the latest release (unless they want to help us test the install media). Updating your current systems via eepDater will pull in all of the 3.0.0 RC3 changes and eventually the 3.0.0 stable release improvements when the time comes.
Finally, I would like to thank the Bodhi Linux community for being so receptive to my returning to the project. I announced that I was stepping back rather suddenly late last year, but a few months off was exactly what I needed. I am back now in full swing and very ready to get this release out the door.
Cheers,
Jeff HooglandI was so excited when I saw that I had a package from Amazon sitting on my front porch... and did my Santa deliver! I was pleasantly surprised to find three new books had been handpicked just for me and that all of them have been favourites of my Santa's! :)
Firstly, 'Man's Search For Meaning'. I was very happy to receive this title as I'm always looking for inspiration and meaning in everything, good and bad. I've already cracked this one open and am looking forward to diving into it!
Secondly, Santa chose 'Gardens of the Moon' and 'Deadhouse Gates' based on my love of Tolkien and LotR. Santa, I know I'm going to love this series! I honestly cannot wait to get completely lost in a beautiful new world of fantasy! My thirteen year old son saw them and has already asked to borrow them when I'm finished. :)
Thank you so much for your thoughtfulness towards this stranger, Santa! You've made me one happy girl!Last week a West Virginia woman who stood between her dog and a state trooper intent on killing him was acquitted of obstructing an officer by a jury in Wood County. It took jurors just half an hour to acquit 23-year-old Tiffanie Hupp after they watched the video of the incident that Hupp's husband, Ryan, shot with his cellphone.
Trooper Seth Cook came to the Hupps' house on May 9, 2015, in response to a dispute between a neighbor and Ryan's stepfather. There Cook encountered Buddy, a Labrador-husky mix who was chained outside the house. The dog, whom Hupp describes as "a big baby," ran toward Cook, barking, and Cook backed up. Even though the dog had reached the end of his chain and Cook was not in any danger, he drew his pistol. "I immediately thought, 'I don't want him to get shot,'" Hupp, who was in the yard with her 3-year-old son, told the Charleston Gazette-Mail. The video shows her stepping in front of Cook, at which point he grabs her, throws her to the ground, picks her up, leans her against his cruiser, and handcuffs her.
"The officer alleged in the complaint that she raised her arm," Hupp's lawyer, David Schles, told the Gazette-Mail, "but we did stop-frame [of the video] for the jury, and it showed she was stationary, her arms at her side....All she said was 'Don't do that,' and [Cook] grabbed her by the bicep and spun her around, and she ends up falling down."
After he heard about the case, Schles contacted Hupp and offered to represent her for free. "I thought it was outrageous, this girl is being charged for standing in her yard doing nothing but saying, 'Don’t shoot my dog,'" he said. According to Photography Is Not a Crime (PINAC), Cook "testified that he was not afraid of the dog, but was following training that required him to kill all dogs that approach him, even if it was chained and wagging its tail as Buddy was doing in this case."
Hupp told PINAC her case hinged on her husband's video, which they did not have for weeks after the incident because Cook confiscated the phone, which he was unable to access because it was protected by a password. "Without that video, it's just my word against a state trooper," she said. "Nobody is going to believe my word over law enforcement."NewsAbortion, Politics - U.S.
SIGN THE PETITION: President Trump: THANK YOU for defunding International Planned Parenthood
WASHINTON, D.C., January 24, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) -- White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters today that President Trump will not ignore the upcoming March for Life in Washington.
“I think it’s no secret that the President has campaigned as a pro-life President. It’s something that is very important to him, as evidence by the Mexico City Policy reinstatement he issued yesterday,” Spicer said.
“Obviously we’re going to have heavy administration presence there,” he added.
The March for Life takes place every year in the nation’s Capitol where hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children peacefully demonstrate against the 1973 Roe V. Wade Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in the US. The marchers fight for what organizers call a “world where every human life is valued and protected.”
The theme for this year’s event is “The Power of One.”
Spicer told reporters that President Trump is on the side of life.
SIGN THE PETITION: President Trump: THANK YOU for defunding International Planned Parenthood
“It’s no secret that this administration and this president are going to do what they can to fight for life,” he said.
When asked if Trump would be participating personally at the event, Spicer said that people will just have to wait to find out whether it’s a “greeting of some sort or a call.”
He confirmed once again that Kellyanne Conway, the highest-ranking woman in President-elect Trump's administration and the first woman from either major party to lead a presidential candidate to victory in the general election, will be speaking at the event.
Conway will join other notable speakers including New York's Cardinal Timothy Dolan, former Planned Parenthood Director and founder of “And Then There Were None” Abby Johnson, Mexican Telenovela star Karyme Lozano, and author and radio host Eric Metaxas, Bishop Vincent Matthews of the Church of God in Christ, who advocates for adoption in the African-American community.
On Sunday a Trump |
, Mack WC Affidavit Acquaintance of Oswald in Marine Corps.
Oser, Alvin Shaw trial closing arguments, Rebuttal arguments Prosecutor in the Clay Shaw case
Oswald, Robert Edward Lee WC Testimony Brother of Lee Harvey Oswald.
Owens, Calvin Bud WC Testimony Member, Dallas Police Department.
Owens, Ernest 11/22/63 Affidavit witnessed a man with a rifle on 11/21/63.
Oxford. J. L. 11/23/63 Report Dallas County Sheriff Deputy
Paine, Michael Ralph WC Testimony 1, 2, 3 Acquaintance of the Oswalds in Texas.
Palmer, Henry Earl Shaw trial testimony Witnessed Clay Shaw, David Ferrie, and Lee Oswald together in Clinton Louisiana
Palmer, Thomas Stewart WC Testimony Acquaintance of Jack Ruby.
Panzeca, Salvatore Shaw trial testimony Clay Shaw defense attorney
Papale, Antonio Edward Shaw preliminary hearing testimony Dean of the Law School of Loyola University
Pappas, Icarus M. WC Testimony Reporter, radio station, New York City.
Patrick, Leonard HSC deposition Associate of Jack Ruby
Patterson, B.M. Affidavit, FBI Report Witness in the vicinity of the Tippit crime scene.
Patterson, Bobby G. WC Testimony Member, Dallas Police Department.
Patterson, Robert Carl WC Testimony Acquaintance of Jack Ruby
Paul, Ralph WC Testimony Acquaintance of Jack Ruby
Pena, Orest WC Testimony Owner, Habana Bar, New Orleans.
Pena, Ruperto WC Testimony Brother of Orest Pena
Perkins, John N. Shaw trial testimony Police Officer, Central Lockup, B of I Division, New Orleans Police Department
Perry, W. E. WC Testimony Member, Dallas Police Department.
Peterman, Viola WC Testimony Neighbor of Oswald family in New Orleans.
Peters, Paul Conrad WC Testimony, ARRB Testimony Doctor, Parkland Hospital
Peterson, Joseph Alexander WC Testimony Acquaintance of Jack Ruby
Petty, Charles S. HSC Testimony Forensic pathologists serving on the select committee autopsy panel
Phelan, James Shaw trial testimony Freelance writer
Phenix, George R. WC Testimony Television cameraman and reporter, Dallas.
Pic, Edward John Jr. WC Testimony, Affidavit First husband of Marguerite Oswald.
Pic, John Edward WC Testimony Half brother of Lee Harvey Oswald.
Pierce, Edward E. WC Testimony Employee, Dallas City Hall.
Pierce, Rio S. WC Testimony 1, 2 Lieutenant, Dallas Police Department.
Pinkston, Nat A. WC Testimony Employee, TSBD.
Pitts, Elnora WC Testimony Acquaintance of Jack Ruby
Pizzo, Frank WC Testimony Assistant manager of auto agency, Dallas.
Player, Charles Polk 11/22/63 Sheriff's report Deputy Sheriff, County of Dallas
Poe, J. M. WC Testimony Member, Dallas Police Department.
Postal, Julia WC Testimony Cashier, Texas Theatre.
Potter, Nolan H. 3/19/64 FBI report Witness at assassination scene.
Potts, Walter E. WC Testimony Member, Dallas Police Department.
Powell, Nancy M. (a.k.a. Tammie True) WC Testimony Acquaintance of Jack Ruby.
Powers, Daniel Patrick WC Deposition Acquaintance of Oswald in Marine Corps.
Powers, David F. Affidavit Assistant to President Kennedy.
Price, Charles Jack WC Testimony Administrator, Parkland Hospital.
Price, J. C. 11/22/63 Affidavit Witness at the assassination scene.
Price, Malcolm H., Jr. WC Testimony Patron, Sports Drome Rifle Range.
Priddy, Hal, Jr. WC Testimony Relief dispatcher, O'Neil Funeral Home in Dallas.
Pryor, Roy A. WC Testimony Acquaintance of Jack Ruby
Pugh, Oran Affidavit Agent, U.S. Customs
Pullman, Edward J. WC Testimony Acquaintance of Jack Ruby
Putnam, James A. WC Testimony 1, 2 Member, Dallas Police Department.
Quigley, John Lester WC Testimony Agent, FBI.
Rachal, John R. Affidavit Employee, Louisiana Department of Labor, New Orleans.
Rachley, Virgie See Baker, Mrs. Donald.
Rackley, George W. Sr. WC Testimony Employee, Coordinated RR. Co.
Raigorodsky, Paul M. WC Testimony Member of Russian-speaking community in Dallas.
Randle, Linnie Mae WC Testimony, 11/23/63 FBI report Buell Wesley Frazier's sister and neighbour of Ruth Paine.
Ray, Natalie. WC Testimony Acquaintance of the Oswalds in Texas.
Ray, Thomas M. WC Testimony Husband of Natalie Ray and acquaintance of the Oswalds in Texas.
Ray, Valentina WC Testimony Acquaintance of the Oswalds in Texas.
Rea, Billy Andrew WC Testimony Advertising staff, Dallas newspaper.
Ready, John D. Original Report
Redlich, Dean Norman HSC Testimony Warren Commission Staff Member
Reeves, Huey WC Testimony Acquaintance of Jack Ruby.
Reid, Robert January 10, 1964, FBI report Witness at assassination scene.
Reid, Mrs. Robert A. WC Testimony Employee, TSBD.
Reilly, Frank E. WC Testimony Witness at assassination scene.
Reilly, John F. Shaw preliminary hearing testimony Police Officer, Central Lockup, B of I Division, New Orleans Police Department
Reynolds, Johnie FBI Report
Reynolds, Warren Allen WC Testimony, 1/22/64 FBI Report Witness in the vicinity of the Tippit crime scene.
Rheinstein, Frederic WC Testimony Producer-director, NBC
Rich, Joe Henry Statement Driver of the Vice-Presidential Limousine
Rich, Nancy Perrin WC Testimony Acquaintance of Jack Ruby.
Richey, Marjorie R. WC Testimony Acquaintance of Jack Ruby.
Richey, Warren E. WC Testimony TV engineer, Fort Worth
Riebe, Floyd ARRB Deposition
Riggs, Alfreadia WC Testimony Porter, City Hall
Riggs, Chester Allen, Jr. Affidavit Landlord of the Oswalds in Fort Worth.
Ritchie, James L. WC Testimony Passport Officer, Department of State.
Roberts, Earlene WC Testimony Housekeeper at Oswald's roominghouse in Dallas.
Roberts, Emory P. Original Report
Robertson, Mary Jane WC Testimony Employee, Dallas Police Department.
Robertson, Victor F. WC Testimony Reporter, Dallas.
Rodriguez, Evaristo WC Testimony Bartender at Habana Bar, New Orleans.
Rogers, Eric WC Testimony Neighbor of the Oswalds in New Orleans.
Rolland, Rowland Charles Shaw trial testimony President of Winterland Ice Skating Rink
Romack, James WC Testimony Witness at assassination scene.
Rose, Guy F. WC Testimony Member, Dallas Police Department.
Ross, Henrietta M. WC Testimony Technician, Parkland Hospital.
Roussel, Henry J. WC Affidavit Acquaintance of Oswald in Marine Corps.
Rossi, Joseph WC Testimony Acquaintance of Jack Ruby.
Rowland, Arnold Louis WC Testimony, 11/22/63 Affidavit Witness at assassination scene.
Rowland, Barbara Walker WC Testimony, 11/22/63 Affidavit Witness at assassination scene.
Rubenstein, Hyman WC Testimony Brother of Jack Ruby
Ruby, Earl WC Testimony, HSC Testimony Brother of Jack Ruby
Ruby, Jack WC Testimony 1, 2 Convicted slayer of Oswald.
Ruby, Sam WC Testimony Brother of Jack Ruby
Rusk, Dean WC Testimony Secretary of State.
Russell, Dick ARRB Testimony
Russell, Richard 12/16/63 Executive session U.S. Senator and member of the Warren Commission
Russell, Harold Affidavit, 1/22/64 FBI Report Witness in the vicinity of the Tippit crime scene.
Ryan, Joseph Shaw trial testimony Director, Office of Personnel, New Orleans Post Office
Ryder, Dial Duane WC Testimony, 2 Employee, Irving Sports Shop.
Salerno Ralph HSC Testimony Expert on the mob
Salyer, Kenneth Everett WC Testimony Doctor, Parkland Hospital.
Sanders, Charles ARRB Testimony
Sanders, Pauline E. 11/24/63 FBI report Witness at assassination scene.
Saunders, Richard L. WC Testimony Witness at the assassination scene.
Sawyer, J. Herbert WC Testimony Inspector, Dallas Police Department.
Sawyer, Mildred WC Testimony Neighbor and acquaintance of Oswald as a youth in New Orleans.
Schaeffer, Roy ARRB Testimony
Schmidt, Hunter Jr. WC Testimony City editor, Dallas.
Schmidt, Volkmar Interview by Kelly Aquaintance of Oswald
Scoggins, William W. WC Testimony Witness in the vicinity of the Tippit crime scene.
Scott, Peter Dale ARRB Testimony Assassination researcher.
Scibor, Mitchell J. WC Testimony Employee, Klein's Sports Goods.
Sedgebeer, Fenner O. Shaw Grand Jury testimony Investigator for New Orlean DA
Seely, Carroll Hamilton Jr. WC Testimony Assistant Chief, Legal Division, Passport Office, Department of State.
Semingsen, W. W. WC Testimony Employee, Western Union Telegraph Co.
Senator, George WC Testimony Roommate of Jack Ruby
Servance, John Olridge WC Testimony Head porter, City Hall and Municipal Building.
Shackelford, Martin ARRB Testimony Assassination researcher.
Shasteen, Clifton M. WC Testimony Owner of barbershop in Irving, Tex.
Shaw, Clay Shaw trial testimony Tried and acquitted as a conspirator in the assassination of JFK
Shaw, Robert Roeder WC Testimony 1, 2 Doctor, Parkland Hospital.
Shields, Edward WC Testimony Employee, TSBD.
Shires, George T. WC Testimony Doctor, Parkland Hospital.
Siegel, Evelyn Grace Strickman WC Testimony Social worker, New York City.
Simmons, Ronald WC Testimony Weapons evaluation expert, U.S. Army Weapons System Division.
Simon, Art ARRB Testimony
Sims, Richard M. WC Testimony Member, Dallas Police Department.
Sitzman, Marilyn Interview with Josiah Thompson Witness at assassination scene
Skelton, Royce G. WC Testimony, 11/22/63 Affidavit Witness at assassination scene.
Slack, Garland Glenwill 11/22/63 Affidavit Patron, Sports Drome Rifle Range.
Slack, Willie B. WC Testimony Member, Dallas Police Department.
Slaughter, Malcolm R. WC Testimony Resident in Jack Ruby's apartment building.
Slawson, W. David HSC Testimony Warren Commission Assistant Counsel
Smart, Vernon S. WC Testimony Lieutenant, Dallas Police Department.
Smith, Bennierita WC Testimony Acquaintance of Oswald at Beauregard Junior High School in New Orleans.
Smith, Edgar Leon Jr. WC Testimony Member, Dallas Police Department.
Smith, Glenn Emmett WC Testimony Service station attendant in Dallas.
Smith, Hilda L. Affidavit Employee, Louisiana Department of Labor, New Orleans.
Smith, Joe Marshall WC Testimony Member, Dallas Police Department.
Smith, John Allison WC Testimony TV technician, Fort Worth.
Smith, Kenneth ARRB Testimony
Smith, L.C. Sheriff's report member Dalls County Sheriff's Department
Smith, William Arthur WC Testimony, FBI Report Witness in the vicinity of the Tippit crime scene.
Snow, Clyde Collins HSC Testimony
Snyder, Richard Edward WC Testimony Foreign Service officer, stationed in the Embassy in the Soviet Union, 1959-61.
Solomon, James Maurice WC Testimony Captain, Dallas Police Department.
Solon, John J. January 6, 1964, FBI report Witness at assassination scene
Specter, Arlen HSC Testimony Warren Commission Counsel
Spencer, Saundra ARRB Deposition
Springer, Pearl December 5, 1963, FBI report Witness at assassination scene
Standridge, Ruth Jeanette WC Testimony Head nurse of operating rooms, Parkland Hospital.
Standifer, Roy E. WC Testimony Member, Dallas Police Department.
Staples, Albert F. Affidavit Dentist at Baylor University College of Dentistry.
Stass, Frank Joseph Shaw preliminary hearing testimony Registrar, Loyola University
Statman, Irving WC Testimony Assistant District Director of Dallas District, Texas Employment Commission.
Steele, Charles Hall, Jr. WC Testimony Resident of New Orleans who assisted Oswald in distribution of handbills.
Steele, Charles Hall, Sr. WC Testimony Father of Charles Hall Steele, Jr.
Steele, Don Francis WC Testimony Member, Dallas Police Department.
Stevenson, M. W. WC Testimony 1, 2 Deputy Chief, Dallas Police Department.
Stombaugh, Paul Morgan WC Testimony Hair and fiber expert, FBI.
Stovall, Richard S. WC Testimony Member, Dallas Police Department.
Stovall, Robert L. WC Testimony President, Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall, Dallas, Tex.
Strehly, Harold 11/27/63 Report Dallas County Sheriff Deputy
Stringer, John T. ARRB Deposition
Strong, Jesse M. WC Testimony Employee, Western Union Telegraph Co.
Stuckey, William Kirk WC Testimony Radio program director, New Orleans.
Studebaker, Robert Lee WC Testimony Member, Dallas Police Department.
Sturdivan, Larry HSC Testimony
Surrey, Robert Alan WC Testimony Publisher of handbill attacking President Kennedy.
Sutherland, Lawrence ARRB Testimony
Sweatt, Allan 11/23/63 report Chief Criminal Deputy, Dallas County Sheriff
Tadin, Nicholas Shaw trial testimony Claimed to have seen Clay Shaw and David Ferrie together at the New Orleans Airport in 1964.
Tadin, Matilda Shaw trial testimony Claimed to have seen Clay Shaw and David Ferrie together at the New Orleans Airport in 1964.
Tague, James Thomas WC Testimony Witness at assassination scene.
Talbert Cecil E. WC Testimony 1, 2 Captain, Dallas Police Department.
Tanenbaum, Robert ARRB Testimony
Tasker, Harry T. WC Testimony Taxicab driver in Dallas
Tatro, Edgar ARRB Testimony
Tatum, Jack Ray HSC Interview Witness in the vicinity of the Tippit shooting
Taylor, Gary E. WC Testimony 1, 8/4/64 Affidavit Acquaintance of the Oswalds in Texas.
Taylor, Warren W. Original Report
TenBrink, Philip ARRB Testimony
Thompson, Josiah ARRB Testimony
Thompson, Llewellyn E. WC Testimony Former U.S. Ambassador to Russia.
Thornley, Kerry Wendell WC Testimony Acquaintance of Oswald in Marines.
Tice, Wilma May WC Testimony Resident of Dallas
Tirado, Silvia HSC Testimony
Tobias, Mahlon F., Sr. WC Testimony Manager of apartment house where the Oswalds resided, Dallas.
Tobias, Mrs. Mahlon F. WC Testimony Wife of M. F. Tobias, Sr.
Todd, James Robert HSC deposition Associate of Jack Ruby
Todd, L. C. 11/27/63 Report Dallas County Sheriff Deputy
Tomlinson, Darrell C. WC Testimony Senior engineer, Parkland Hospital.
Tormey, James J. WC Testimony Executive secretary, Hall-Davis Defense Commission.
Trafficante, Santos HSC Testimony
Turner, F. M. WC Testimony Member, Dallas Police Department.
Turner, Jimmy WC Testimony TV director, Fort Worth
Twiford, Estelle Affidavit Wife of Horace Elroy Twiford
Twiford, Horace Elroy Affidavit Member, Socialist Labor Party, Houston, Tex.
Tyler, Stephen ARRB Testimony
Underwood, James Robert WC Testimony Assistant news director TV and radio, Dallas.
Vaughn, Roy Eugene WC Testimony Member, Dallas Police Department.
Verb, Hal ARRB Testimony
Verdacia, Jose HSC Testimony
Vernon, Robert ARRB Testimony
Vinson, Phillip Eugene WC Testimony Reporter, Fort Worth.
Voebel, Edward WC Testimony Acquaintance of Oswald in Beauregard Junior High School, New Orleans.
Voshinin, Igor Vladimir WC Testimony Member of Russian-speaking community in Dallas.
Voshinin, Mrs. Igor Vladimir WC Testimony Acquaintance of the Oswalds in Texas.
Wade, Henry WC Testimony District attorney, Dallas County.
Waldman, William J. WC Testimony Vice President, Klein's Sporting Goods, Inc.
Waldo, Thayer WC Testimony Reporter, Forth Worth.
Walker, C. T. WC Testimony Member, Dallas Police Department.
Walker, Edwin A. WC Testimony Resident of Dallas and object of shooting in April 1963.
Walker, Ira N., Jr. WC Testimony Broadcast technician, Fort Worth.
Wall, Breck (a.k.a. Billy Ray Wilson) WC Testimony Acquaintance of Ruby
Walters Ralph 11/23/63 Sheriff's report Deputy Sheriff, County of Dallas
Walther, Carolyn December 5, 1963, FBI report Witness at assassination scene
Walthers, Eddy Raymond (Buddy) WC Testimony, Sheriff's report Deputy sheriff, Dallas County.
Walton, Elizabeth Carolyn Shaw trial testimony Witness at assassination scene
Warner, Roger C. Affidavit Agent, U.S. Secret Service
Waren, Earl 12/16/63 Executive session Chairman of the Presidential Commission to Investigate the Asassination of President Kennedy
Waterman, Bernice WC Testimony Adjudicator, Passport Office, Department of State.
Watherwax, Arthur William WC Testimony Printer, Dallas newspaper.
Watson, James C. WC Testimony Member, Dallas Police Department.
Watson, Radio Sheriff's report Member Dalls County Sheriff's Department
Watts, Clyde J. WC Testimony Attorney representing Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker
Weatherford, Harry 11/23/63 Sheriff's report Deputy Sheriff, County of Dallas
Weatherly, Daryl ARRB Testimony Assassination researcher
Wecht, Cyril H. HSC Testimony Dissenting member of the House Forensic Pathology Panel
Wegmann, Cynthia Anne ARRB Testimony Daughter of Edward Wegmann
Wegmann, Edward F. Shaw trial testimony Attorney working for Clay Shaw
Weiner, Irwin Signey HSC deposition Associate of Jack Ruby
Weinstock, Louis Affidavit General manager, the Worker.
Weiss, Mark HSC Testimony Accoustic expert.
Weissman, Bernard William WC Testimony 1, 2 Codraftsman and signer of November 22, 1963, full-page advertisement.
Weitzman, Moses ARRB Testimony Photographic expert who has worked with the Zapruder film.
Weitzman, Seymour WC Testimony Deputy constable, Dallas County.
West, Troy Eugene WC Testimony Employee, TSBD.
Westbrook, W. R. WC Testimony Captain, Dallas Police Department.
Wester, Jane Carolyn WC Testimony Nurse, Parkland Hospital.
Whalen, Edward James Garrison Report on Associate of David Ferrie
Whaley, William Wayne WC Testimony 1, 2, 3 Taxicab driver in Dallas.
White, J.C. WC Testimony Member, Dallas Police Department.
White, Jack D. HSC Testimony Assassination researcer.
White, Martin G. WC Testimony Doctor, Parkland Hospital.
Whitworth, Edith WC Testimony Manager, used furniture store, Irving, Tex.
Wiggins, Woodrow WC Testimony Lieutenant, Dallas Police Department.
Wilcott, James B. HSCA Executive session testimony Former CIA Employee.
Wilcox, Laurance R. WC Testimony District manager, Western Union Telegraph Co.
Williams, Bonnie Ray WC Testimony Employee, TSBD.
Willens, Howard P. HSC Testimony, HSC Executive Session Testimony Warren Commission Staff Member
Willis, Linda Kay WC Testimony Daughter of Phillip L. Willis.
Willis, Mrs. Phillip Shaw trial testimony Witness at assassination scene
Willis, Phillip L. WC Testimony, Shaw trial testimony Witness at assassination scene
Wilson, Steven F. January 9, 1964, FBI report Witness at assassination scene
Wilson, Thomas ARRB Testimony Assassination researcher.
Winborn, Walter Luke 3/10/64 FBI report Witness at assassination scene.
Wiseman, John 11/23/63 Report Deputy Sheriff, Dallas County
Witt, Louie Steven HSC Testimony Witness at assassination scene.
Wittmus, Ronald G. Affidavit Fingerprint expert, FBI
Wood, Homer WC Testimony Patron, Sports Drome Rifle Range
Wood, Sterling Charles WC Testimony Son of Dr. Homer Wood
Wood, Theresa WC Testimony Wife of Dr. Homer Wood
Woodward, Mary Elizabeth December 7, 1963, FBI report Witness at assassination scene
Worley, Gano E. WC Testimony Reserve Force, Dallas Police Department.
Worrell, James Richard, Jr. WC Testimony, 11/23/63 Affidavit Witness at assassination scene.
Wright, Milton T. Statement Driver of the car carying Earl Cabell.
Wright, Norman Earl WC Testimony Acquaintance of Jack Ruby
Wulf, William E. WC Testimony Acquaintance of Oswald in his youth.
Yarborough, Ralph W. Affidavit U.S. Senator from Texas.
Yeargan, Albert C. Jr. Affidavit Employee, H. C. Green, Dallas.
Zahm, James A. WC Testimony Marine Corps expert on marksmanship.Before the Green Day concert Wednesday night at the Bell Centre, Vanessa Hermo agreed to buy her 11-year-old son Nathan Guilbault a Dookie t-shirt, figuring her kid deserved a memento of his first-ever concert. Little did they know he would be getting something a lot more special to bring home to ensure he never forgot this show.
About an hour into the concert, Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong told the 15,600 fans there that he was looking for a really awesome Montreal guitarist to play with them. Hermo and Guilbault, who were sitting just to the right of the stage, about four rows up in the reds, immediately began shouting and saying that he was ready to play a little guitar for the multi-platinum punk-pop band.
Armstrong spotted them and at first seemed a little sceptical.
“Mom, are you sure this guy can play?” he asked.
When she most emphatically said he could, one of their security guys escorted Guilbault to the stage and the Green Day singer-guitarist proceeded to show the boy the three chords necessary to play Knowledge, a song by fellow Californian punk band Operation Ivy that Green Day covered on their 1990 EP Slappy. Green Day often invite people from the audience to play with them when they do the song live.
“So the bodyguard carries me up to the catwalk (in front of the stage) and I stand up and my legs are shaking,” said Guilbault, in an interview at his Beaconsfield home on Thursday afternoon. “(Armstrong) shows me the three chords, hands me the guitar and says ‘play’. Then he guides me to the catwalk and I’m on the path and there’s a bunch of people cheering around me. Then we go back to the stage and he says – ‘In three seconds we’re going to jump.’ And on three, we jumped and just as our feet hit the ground, we whacked the guitars and we hit the chord and that was the end of the song.”
Then came the icing on the cake. Armstrong gave him two thumbs up and took the microphone.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is Nathan right here,” said Armstrong. “That was awesome. Hey Nathan, you get to keep the guitar.”
With that last line, the crowd goes nuts and, understandably, Guilbault starts jumping up and down.
The next day, Guilbault was happy to be playing that Epiphone guitar, which is signed by the three members of Green Day – Armstrong, bassist Mike Dirnt, and drummer Tré Cool. He was in the family’s newly-renovated music room in the basement, where he often jams with his two brothers, with Tyler, 13, on drums, and Brayden, eight, on piano. It’s not uncommon for their dad, Brad Guilbault, to sit in on guitar, though Guilbault Sr., a software engineer, is quick to stress that he’s strictly the rhythm guitarist, with his son handling all the complicated lead parts.
Their mom is also a musician. She plays piano and has a bachelor of music degree from McGill University. Both parents are big music fans. In fact, Hermo’s first concert was a Green Day show, at the old Forum, way back in 1995, and that’s why they thought it would make perfect sense for her to take her son to the veteran band’s gig for Guilbault’s first concert.
The parents bought the tickets a few months back when they went on sale but they didn’t tell Nathan until this Monday and he was beyond thrilled. Green Day is his favourite band and has been for a couple of years. He knows how to play several of their songs, though he didn’t know Knowledge until Wednesday night, and he played Basket Case at the talent show at Sherbrooke Academy Senior, his Beaconsfield grade school, just before Christmas.
The budding guitar hero did interviews on both CHOM and CJAD Thursday morning so by the time he got to school, most of the kids and teachers knew about his 15 minutes of fame.
When he got to school, the principal told him – ‘Wow you’re awesome!”
They were preparing a school assembly in the gym in the morning and when he walked into the gym, people started clapping.
His parents say he’s been fascinated by rock music and playing guitar since he was a little tyke. There’s actually a video on YouTube of him playing a toy guitar when he was two years old and his parents gave him his first real electric guitar when he was seven.
He’s an old-school rocker. His friends at school like Justin Bieber but he digs The Offspring, Led Zeppelin, Smashing Pumpkins and, of course, Green Day.
The crazy thing is that, before Wednesday, that talent show was the biggest crowd Guilbault had ever played for and yet he looked remarkably poised and not all-that-freaked-out on-stage on the Bell Centre stage.
“For some reason I didn’t feel nervous at all, it just felt awesome,” said Nathan. “I was like – ‘I want to do that when I grow up.’ I’ve actually wanted to be a guitarist since I was two.”
“I remember in pre-school him filling out what you want to be when you grow up and he’d write ‘rock star’ every time,” said Hermo. “But there’s a back-up plan. He’s a straight-A student.”
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She just couldn’t believe he could handle the stress of being on stage with his idols.
“He floored me. Watching him, I had tears running down my face and my phone was shaking. It was really something.”
bkelly@postmedia.com
twitter.com/brendanshowbizMalik Pope committed to San Diego State tonight, just days after he visited Phog Allen Fieldhouse in Lawrence for their Midnight Madness Festivities and a few weeks before he was set to visit Gonzaga. Pope was offered scholarships by college basketball elites, the best of the best, Kansas, Arizona, ASU, Georgetown, Louisville, Gonzaga, Washington, UCLA, USC and UNLV.
The 6 foot 9 inch wing from Sacramento is the #17 player in the class of 2014 according to Rivals.com, which makes him the highest recruit since Winston Sheppard last year at #21 and San Antonio Spur star Kawahi Leonard at #48.
"He really liked Coach Fisher and his history with wings like Kawhi Leonard, Jamaal Franklin, so on and so forth," LeRohn Dodson, director of Pope's AAU squad Team Superstar said. "He's a kid that doesn't mind being different and what I mean by that is he doesn't have to go to the biggest name school.
Pope picked SDSU over schools like Kansas, UCLA, Georgetown and many others because he felt he could come in there and do something special and help San Diego State get to the Final Four. "I think Coach Fisher is getting a program changer. They're getting somebody that is going to take them to the next level and help lead them to the Final Four. He's got that potential."
It looks like Steve Fisher, Brian Dutcher and Justin Hutson have the pipeline of Sacramento players coming to San Diego which includes: Chase Tapley, Xavier Thames and the two new kids from Sheldon high school Dakarai Allen and D'Erryl Williams.
Even though Kansas, Gonzaga, UCLA, Arizona and Washington did a good job recruiting, the Aztecs did a better job. Chase Tapley and Xavier Thames played a big part in that!
"Coach Fisher is a people person and really cares about his players and as for Justin Hutson - I think he's the best recruiter on the west coast. They are doing something really special with the program and play in a great conference. The Mountain West is no longer a mid-major - not at all. It's a great atmosphere for Malik to be in and I think he will do great things at San Diego State."
This leaves only Zylan Cheatham the 6 foot 8 inch power forward from Phoenix as the last piece of the Aztec puzzle. If Cheatham commits it will be the strongest Aztec class in history and would complete the Aztec Fab Five of Kevin Zabo at the one, Trey Kell the two guard, Malik Pope at the three, Cheatham at the four and Angelo Chol playing the five spot.
Cheatham tweeted "S/o to that boy Malik on the commitment..! #Aztecs" And Kell "SDSU future looking real bright right about now." Yes, the future is bright in America's finest city on Montezuma Mesa. Welcome to the Show Mr. Pope.Political attention here has been focused this summer in two very different directions. There is the Himalayan plateau where Indian and Chinese troops are engaged in the most tense and potentially explosive standoff since a 1962 border war. And there is the din emanating from the Trump administration, which has managed to frighten and confound just about every nation that counts on U.S. global engagement.
The two problems are not directly related: Indians wouldn’t want the United States to get involved in their dispute with Beijing, dangerous though it is, even if a more functional administration were in office. But the confluence is nevertheless unnerving. It has meant that India, a country with which President Trump claims to have established excellent relations, has had to grapple with both a dramatic demonstration of the strategic threat posed by China and an incipient crumbling of confidence in the American partnership it has seen as the antidote.
Let’s start with the border spat, which resembles China’s clashes with Japan over a disputed island chain and its invasive construction of islets and airstrips in the South China Sea. It began in June with a unilateral move by Beijing to construct a road in a disputed piece of mountain territory where India, China and Bhutan come together, overlooking the narrow strip that connects India’s northeast to the rest of the country.
Rather than tolerate the intrusion, the government of Narendra Modi, a populist and nationalist who shares Trump’s autocratic instincts, dispatched troops to block the bulldozers. Now Indian and Chinese soldiers are deployed just hundreds of yards apart, even as Chinese state media outlets blare angry rhetoric. Though Indian analysts say a shooting war is unlikely — China would be hard-pressed to dislodge the Indian forces from the high ground they hold — they expect the standoff to drag on through China’s Communist Party congress in the autumn.
(Reuters)
The dust-up has served to accentuate growing Indian anxiety about its emerging- superpower neighbor. Watching China’s initiatives in South Asia, from the construction of ports in Sri Lanka and Pakistan to the hugely ambitious “belt and road” projects from Central Asia to Africa, Indians need not be paranoid to feel encircled. Their sense of vulnerability has been compounded by the perception that Russia, a traditional ally, has been driven into the arms of China by its growing conflicts with the West.
India’s strategy for balancing China depends heavily on the United States. Though unwilling to conclude a direct alliance, Modi has followed previous Indian governments in moving steadily closer to Washington, conducting joint naval exercises and buying U.S. military equipment. His was one of the few friendly governments to find some cheer in Trump’s election: The candidate, after all, had promised to improve relations with India’s friend Russia and get tough on China and terrorism by Muslim extremists.
Instead, what Indians have seen from Washington is contradictions and chaos. Though not the aim of the White House, U.S. relations with the regime of Vladimir Putin are considerably worse now than they were six months ago. Trump, meanwhile, has gyrated between embracing China’s Xi Jinping and assailing him on Twitter for failing to rein in North Korea. U.S. “freedom of navigation” patrols challenging Chinese claims in the South China Sea ceased for a while before suddenly starting again.
In Afghanistan, a vital interest for India, the Trump administration at first seemed set to adopt a welcome new policy of beefing up U.S. forces to stop the Pakistan-supported Taliban. Then reports emerged that Trump had rebuffed the plan and was leaning toward abandoning the war.
At a conference on U.S.-Indian relations I attended here last week, one Indian official pressed the Americans representing the administration — including State Department pros serving in lieu of the as-yet-unnamed ambassador and regional assistant secretary — to say whether a White House seemingly sunk in disorder was even capable of focusing on geopolitics.
The vague reassurances they offered convinced few. “At this precise moment, the signaling from the U.S. is very confused” is the diplomatic way a former Indian ambassador to Washington, Arun Singh, put it to me.
Several Indian officials, including one who participated in Modi’s visit to the White House in late June, insisted that they remain bullish on the relationship. The president and his staff, they say, were well-prepared to engage with Modi, and the results were better than anyone in New Delhi had expected.
(Reuters)
That drew a smile from a former U.S. official, who pointed out that it only confirmed India’s sinking expectations from its would-be strategic partner. “They set the bar at one inch, and then cheered when they cleared it by a couple of inches,” he said. “The truth is the relationship is on hold.” For countries looking to Washington for help or leadership, that might be as good as it gets.
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IMPORTANT: This Relay only works for BDO EU
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for BDO SA please >click here<
for BDO NA please >click here<
The IHA BDO Relay is back! – Welcome to the Open Beta Test of the new/old IHA BDO Relay. I want to apologize that it took that long to bring it back… but let’s look into the future! Please keep in mind that the Relay is currently in an open beta testphase, there might … there will be bugs!
The IHA BDO Relay is the connection tool between your own Discord and the Discords of the International Hunting Association. It will instantly alert your Discord on a confirmed spawn of a World or Field Boss.
1. invite the IHA Relay to your Discord Server
2. create a new Text Channel named: ihaeu
3. make sure the Relay has access and write permission in the newly created channel
4. done
Disable the mentioning everyone Permission for IHARelay if you don’t want the @everyone prefix.
Please note that the IHA Relay only offers the initial spawning call but no instant HP updates, for those please join the respective IHA Discord of your server – you can find them here.
Invite the IHA Relay to your own Discord Server!How does one top a week of powerful speeches by Michelle Obama, Bill Clinton, Joe Biden, and Barack Obama?
You don’t even try.
Thursday night at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Hillary Clinton did not deliver the best address of this convention or even the runner-up. Instead she gave a solid, substance-laden, and highly effective acceptance speech to her fellow Democrats. It never reached the rhetorical flights of fancy achieved by Obama the night before — but it didn’t need to. Clinton delivered rhetorical shot after rhetorical shot to Donald Trump as she laid out a clear vision for her presidency. She offered the nation an unabashedly liberal agenda — one surely intended to appeal to Bernie Sanders supporters — but in its wonkish, populist tone was eerily reminiscent of political speeches once delivered by her husband. She fully embraced the diverse and multicultural society America has become. But above all, she did the one thing that she and her party absolutely needed to do this week in Philadelphia — make clear the stark political contrasts between Clinton and Trump for the general election to come.
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“Stronger together’’ has become the theme of Clinton’s campaign. In a country with the motto epluribus unum, out of many one — it’s an idea that would have resonance in any presidential race.
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But such words take on even greater significance against an opponent like Trump.
Indeed, throughout her speech, Clinton weaved the idea of togetherness and community — even mentioning that old ’90s nugget, “it takes a village” — into a clarion call for tolerance, but also shared sacrifice in pursuit of larger national goals.
“We will not build a wall,” she said, and then quickly pivoted to a line that would find a place in any Democratic acceptance speech: “Instead, we will build an economy where everyone who wants a good paying job can |
(Picture: Thomas Beavis)
Mr Beavis added: ‘I got chills, and still do. The girl could be the spirit of Anne Tottenham still walking around Loftus Hall. It could have been some strange occurrence because of a supernatural power, but I don’t know.
‘Normally I am a guy that believes in what he sees, but with this, I still don’t understand what’s going on in that photo.’
MORE: British couple photograph ‘ghost woman of Alcatraz’
MORE: Ghost hunters claim they have filmed three child ghosts in Chester haunted houseFour members of the Australian women's water polo team have been placed into quarantine in Rio after being struck down with a virus just days out from the opening ceremony.
The four Aussie Stingers athletes are suffering from a gastro-intestinal illness and were separated from their teammates as soon as the squad landed in Rio on Monday, Australian Olympic boss Kitty Chiller said.
The Stingers had been training in Italy in recent weeks before flying to Brazil, ahead of their first game against Russia on Tuesday, local time.
Chiller said the sick team members - who have not been named - would be isolated in an area of the athletes' village that normally houses Australian team officials.
Big electronics chains have been been running promotional deals in the past few weeks using Olympic Games themes. Photo: Getty Images
They would not have contact with their teammates or anyone in the village until they received the all-clear from team doctor David Hughes.
There was no suggestion at this stage that the athletes would be replaced ahead of the competition.
"Dr David Hughes will keep a close eye on them and they'll stay in there for 48 hours until after they're all cleared," Chiller said.
"There will be no interaction between anyone and the village for the next 48 hours."
The Aussie Stingers are yet again a strong medal hope for Australia, after their bronze-medal performances at the London and Beijing Games, while in Sydney the team clinched the gold medal in a nail-biting finish.After a steamy gay scene with co-star Sam Trammell, the British actor wants to sink his teeth into another
True Blood star Stephen Moyer has said he wants to sink his teeth into another gay sex scene in the cult television series.
The vampire actor said he had an ‘awful lot of fun’ in filming a steamy love scene with co-star Sam Trammell.
In an interview with The Advocate, Moyer said: ‘We had an awful lot of fun that day and I happen to think Sam’s a very good-looking man.’
‘Not that that particular scene was a challenge, but anything that seems like it could be a challenge in the script is just meat for an actor. So I looked at that scene like, Oh, my God, that’s fantastic. I can’t wait to do that,’ he added.
The British actor, who is having twins with his wife and co-star Anna Paquin, admitted he asked the writers for a gay sex scene with Alexander Skarsgard, who plays his arch-enemy Eric. He said both actors would ‘totally embrace that’.
When asked if True Blood had become ‘too gay’, he said: ‘Is there such a thing as too gay? We live in a very different world than we grew up in, so if people can’t embrace that aspect of our show, then that’s a shame.
‘I certainly don’t think it’s specifically gay, but our show ticks a lot of boxes for a lot of people.
‘We have an incredibly broad audience, one of the widest demographics in terms of sexuality and age groups, so obviously we’re doing something right.’
Check out Stephen Moyer and Sam Trammell’s gay scene here:Ask Norman Foster what if anything he’d like to change about Apple’s recently constructed headquarters in Cupertino, California, and he’ll need a moment to think. The famed architect, whose firm spent the last eight years perfecting plans for Apple’s glassy Campus 2, is mostly pleased with the results. But there is one thing: “The only hesitation I have is in terms of the changing patterns of transportation,” Foster said today at the WIRED Business Conference.
Apple’s headquarters feature a massive underground garage built to hold 11,000 vehicles. Today, that’s an amenity. But not too far in the future, it’s entirely possible that cars (and garages) will be far less important. “Maybe the conventional garage needs to be rethought and rethought now,” Foster continued. “Maybe if I had a second time around I’d be putting a lot of persuasive pressure to say, ‘Make the floor-to-floor of a car park that much bigger, so if you’re not going to be filling it with cars in the future you could more easily retrofit it for more habitable space.”
For Foster, the future of workplace design is dependent on this kind of flexibility. It might sound counterintuitive given Steve Jobs’ unrelenting attention to detail. Foster recalls when Jobs first approached him in 2009 to talk about building a new campus. “He had a very clear vision in terms of what the project was,” Foster said on stage. Jobs wanted the building to lie low to the ground to blend into the surrounding landscape. The late Apple CEO dictated everything from door handles to materials to the ultra-tight tolerances required throughout the building. Jobs was obsessed with glass and wanted to encourage the connection between indoors and outdoors, going as far as to build a door in the campus’ restaurant that could completely open in 12 seconds, eliminating the barrier to the outside world.
It’s easy to assume a strict adherence to vision would stifle flexibility. “The reverse is actually true,” Foster said. The best buildings, he contends, require a strong point of view. They must be thoughtfully designed to adapt to the ways humans and society will inevitably change, and that requires more than just building open-plan layouts.
Ultimately, the most enduring workplaces will take into account the deep-rooted desires of the people who spend time there. They’ll prioritize smart paths of circulation to help people connect with one another. Instead of sequestering employees into glass boxes, they’ll encourage them to connect with nature. To be truly competitive, architects and companies have to think beyond productivity. “From the very beginning, I’ve protested the idea that an office headquarters, whether it’s mega or micro, is only about work,” Foster said. “It’s about lifestyle.”The first release for an alternative implementation of bitcoin that would double its transaction capacity has been published.
Today, bitcoin users run or rely on versions of Bitcoin Core, the descendent of the original bitcoin software developed by its pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto. Yet the ongoing debate on how to increase capacity has opened the door to other implementations of bitcoin to gain prominence, as previously demonstrated by the rise and subsequent fall of Bitcoin XT.
The release of Bitcoin Classic, which constitutes a repackaging of the latest Bitcoin Core software with support for bigger blocks, indicates what could perhaps be a new phase in the ongoing debate whether or how to scale the bitcoin network’s transaction capacity. It follows the release of a second beta version last week.
For over a year, members of the bitcoin development community, users and business interests have engaged in a wide and often bitter debate about the block size.
The latest proposal, in the form of Bitcoin Classic, would raise the maximum size of transactions blocks from a 1 megabyte (MB) limit to a cap of 2 MB. If activated, the new software would constitute a split in the bitcoin network, each with its own divergent transaction histories after the point of divergence.
Since it was unveiled last month, Bitcoin Classic has attracted both supporters and detractors who, depending on their point of view, say it represents either the next phase for bitcoin development or a threat to its very existence.
So far, the proposal, which would effectively split the existing history of bitcoin transactions into two (one with 2 MB blocks and one with 1 MB blocks), has garnered significant support from startups working in the bitcoin space, as well as a number of bitcoin miners.
Discussions about the proposal, as well as the broader issue of whether to increase the transaction capacity on the bitcoin network, have raged on social media for weeks. The debate has effectively split bitcoin’s active Reddit community in two, and further debate has taken place on Twitter as well as individual Slack channels dedicated to Core and Classic.
What comes next?
Now that Bitcoin Classic has been released, one question remains: Will it actually be adopted?
Preliminary data suggests that the number of nodes running Bitcoin Classic is on the rise. According to node data site Coin.Dance, there are more than 500 nodes running the software at press time, compared to roughly 4,100 running Bitcoin Core.
Yet for the software to ‘activate’, the code requires that the last 751 out of 1,000 blocks be mined that support 2 MB blocks. Once that happens, a 28-day period will begin in which node operators and miners would need to replace their software in order to be compatible with Bitcoin Classic once the larger blocks start being processing.
On a conference call today hosted by bitcoin services startup Coinbase, which pledged its support to operate Bitcoin Classic nodes, original Bitcoin Core maintainer Gavin Andresen said that he expects miners that don’t immediately support Classic will move quickly to do so as the anticipated support ramps up.
“Once you get to 75% of miners, the remaining 25% come along very, very quickly,” he said. “We’ve done these…not exactly this type of upgrade but we’ve done similar types of upgrades in the past, so we do know what’s likely to happen. And so once miners see that all the other miners are going in a certain direction, they have an incredibly strong incentive to follow.”
Going forward, adoption depends on a majority of node operators and miners taking the step to break away from the existing network. To date, new versions of the bitcoin software have been rolled out via voluntary soft forks.
The Bitcoin Classic team, which counts among its members developers Andresen and Bloq CEO Jeff Garzik, said that it expects to release another version based on Bitcoin Core 0.12 in the next few weeks.
With the release also comes an updated list of developers and contributors. In addition to Andresen and Garzik, developers include Pedro Pinheiro, Tom Zander and Jon Rumion.
Jonathan Toomim, who was listed at the top of the developer list on earlier versions of the Bitcoin Classic site, is now listed as an “external advisor” alongside Ledger editor Peter Rizun.
Former Bitcoin Foundation board member Olivier Janssens is listed as a “facilitator”, and Final Hash CTO Marshall Long is said to be providing support on the mining side, though his name was previously removed from the Bitcoin Classic site.
Debate to continue
Supporters of a block size increase say that a capacity boost is needed in the near-term to make room for more transactions and stave off what they call prohibitively high transaction fees.
Those backing Bitcoin Classic say that competition among implementations of bitcoin is needed in order to spur development and create a greater degree of choice for users.
Opponents say the changes proposed are too fast and too risky, given what they say are lingering questions about how a hard fork – wherein nodes are required to download new software or risk being effectively cut out of the network due to incompatibility – could be successfully conducted.
Questions have also been raised about aspects of the governance system proposed for Bitcoin Classic, the introduction of two functioning blockchains that share years of transaction history and each with its own network of assets, and the exact degree of support from bitcoin miners for Bitcoin Classic versus a broader block size increase, particularly those based in China.
At the same time, there appears to be support among developers in the bitcoin community for some form of capacity increase, including a raising of the block size.
Bitcoin Core developers and supporters have rallied around a proposal called Segregated Witness that changes how signature data is included in transactions. This proposal has its detractors as well, who say that it adds unnecessary complexity to the network.
Overall, the debate has proven to be as acrimonious as it has been divisive. Accusations that Bitcoin Classic essentially constitutes a coup, as well as allegations that Bitcoin Core is acting at the behest of the startup Blockstream, have thus far colored the nature of the debate in recent weeks.
Today’s release is unlikely to change this state of affairs.
Image via ShutterstockLouis CK on Why Men Are Awful to Women
Louis CK: you know who he is, you know he’s often hilarious and that he’s at his best when he’s talking about privilege in a way that can hit home even for clueless dipshits. He hosted Saturday Night Live this past weekend, and his opening monologue was packed full of awesome commentary about the poor, women, and religion. Those of you in the US can check it out on Hulu:
Here are some choice quotes for those of you who can’t watch the video:
“I don’t think women are better than men but I do think men are worse than women.”
“Our father who art in heaven. What happened to our mom? What did he do to our mom?”
“It was so okay to beat your wife until so recently that today we have a kind of shirt named after it. There is a piece of clothing in our culture affectionately nicknamed after beating the crap out of your wife. And somehow this is offensive to nobody.”
“I was just wearing a wife-beater and child murder shorts…”
I swear sometimes I love that man.Get the biggest Newcastle United 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
Newcastle United are understood to have had interest from companies in the Far East over a potential new commercial deal.
United’s top brass are yet to finalise any new package yet, but with the club’s main sponsor Wonga set to be replaced for next season there has been an approach from the Far East over a possible partnership.
It is believed that a Far East company hold an interest in seeing their names emblazoned across United’s famous black and white stripes next season.
Talks with Newcastle Brown Ale did unfold last year but did not come to fruition.
United are also believed to have held discussions with a UK-based sponsor who are also keen to do a deal - but no deal is done yet.
And the Magpies have had interest from further afield in recent months - including China.
(Image: PA)
The Chronicle has learned that United are looking into the possibility of sending a delegation from St James’ Park to East Asia to discuss potential agreements.
The main aim of the trip would be to focus on commercial development.
Sources in the Far East also claim United been approached about spending pre-season in China, but with summer fast approaching the chances of a long-haul tour and high-profile friendlies in that part of the world could aren’t too high.
Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea are already signed up to pre-season tours of the Far East while Manchester United and Manchester City are heading to the United States.
With Premier League clubs now confirming their travel plans for the summer, as they look to tap into global audiences, United are concentrating on getting the job of promotion thrashed out first and foremost.
Once again there has been interest from the US with Newcastle a big draw across the pond and even talk of a potential joint tour with Premier League outfits.
But until Newcastle can say for sure which division they are in, they can’t finalise any plans for pre-season.
The Magpies had a short hop to Ireland last summer for a week-long training camp and a European destination this time around is being considered.The person who was behind hoisting a pirate flag on the legendary Russian Aurora cruiser, a symbol of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, was detained on Monday.
The person who was behind hoisting a pirate flag on the legendary Russian Aurora cruiser, a symbol of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, was detained on Monday.
A group of activists on Sunday attempted to climb up the masts of the Aurora, now a museum ship permanently moored in St. Petersburg. Five activists were detained by police officers, while three others managed to climb the mast and hoist the Jolly Roger - a black flag with a human skull and crossbones.
"One of the organizers was established and detained," St. Petersburg police chief Mikhail Sukhodolsky said.
The police chief identified the organizers and perpetrators as political activists who "have taken a most active part in Marches of Dissent."
Two organizations - a local "Narodnaya Dolya" ("People's Take") group and the "Food for Bombs" movement - claimed responsibility for the campaign, saying it was a protest against poverty in Russia ahead of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.
The Aurora, often referred to as "the ship of the Revolution," is famous for firing a blank shot to signal the start of the Winter Palace assault. The assault, in which the ship's crew also took part, was the last episode of the 1917 October Revolution.TVB hired an expert CGI team to cover up the cleavage-revealing costumes in Fan Bingbing’s (范冰冰) historical drama The Empress of China <武則天>, which is scheduled to broadcast seven days a week on TVB in April.
The 82-episode epic series, which will be reduced to 70 episodes in the TVB Cantonese-dubbed version, incurred some controversy when it aired on Mainland China’s Hunan TV in January. The actresses’ costumes were deemed too revealing by Chinese censors, and Hunan TV had to temporarily halt broadcast to re-edit the drama. This resulted in the censored scenes to show only the characters’ heads rather than their bodies. Despite complaints on the shoddy editing, The Empress of China managed to pick up in ratings after it was put back on air, eventually becoming one of Hunan TV’s highest-rated programs in recent years.
Though TVB previously announced it would air the uncensored version, the station said recently that it will air a “moderate version” instead, and hired a special CGI team to cover the actresses’ cleavage with a chiffon layer. Despite the moderate censorship, the CGI in TVB’s version was praised for looking realistic and detailed.
Taiwan’s CTi Entertainment, however, will be airing the uncut, uncensored version starting March 30.
Produced at 300 million RMB, one of China’s most expensive dramas in history, The Empress of China is about the life of of Wu Meiniang, Ancient China’s first and only empress sovereign. It also stars Zhang Fengyi (張豐毅), Aarif Lee (李治廷), Janine Chang (張鈞甯), Zhang Ting (張庭), and Kathy Chow (周海媚).
TVB invited Joey Yung (容祖兒) and Jinny Ng (吳若希) to sing the drama’s Cantonese opening and ending theme songs, respectively.
Source: ihktv.com
This article is written by Addy for JayneStars.com.One the nastiest roadways located within a residential neighborhood is one step closer to getting a much needed makeover. The agony of cars speeding along Parkside Avenue at Florence Avenue has been a heated debate for years. Cars race up and down Parkside, and continually careen off the road at one particular bend in the road, and into one particular house. Since Parkside Avenue links up with Rt. 198 Scajaquada Expressway, there is a feeling that it’s OK to speed. There are insufficient traffic calming measures in place, lack of bike lanes, etc.
Starting June 14, the City of Buffalo Department of Public Works will embark upon a $600,000* infrastructure project that will address many of the problematic issues that plaque the neighborhood. Drivers are being encouraged to use alternate roadways while work is underway.
Unfortunately the design is not progressive enough, in that it should have one vehicular lane in each direction, and bike lanes. As it stands, the project will convert Parkside into a three lane roadway with parking on the east side and a turning lane. The design below gives an idea about what it will look like.
One would think that will all of the talk about traffic calming, this street, bounding a park and a neighborhood, could have been brought down to two lanes with bike lanes? Obviously the idea is to continue to get the current traffic numbers flowing along Parkside with the least amount of disruptions for drivers, which is not necessarily the best plan.
[While work is underway] drivers are being encouraged to use alternate roadways while work is underway.
In cases when more aggressive traffic calming measures are implemented, some drivers end up using alternative routes. Parkside should not be considered a thoroughfare for cars. Drivers attempting to get to the 33 should be incorporating alternative routes into their commutes, instead of relying on urban neighborhoods to provide them with the easiest and fastest exit points. Is it going to be better than what’s there currently? Yes. Is it a progressive urban plan? No.
Mayor Brown stated, “Our top priority is ensuring the safety of our residents and this $600,000 infrastructure project along Parkside Avenue is a long-term investment that will result in improved traffic calming and safety measures. I thank the community for working closely with us on this project, as well as my partners in government who helped secure the necessary funding.”
“Improvements on this stretch of Parkside will allow for a safer pedestrian experience and a more efficient flow of traffic that helps address the needs of the residents and visitors to the Parkside neighborhood,” said Congressman Brian Higgins.
“Cities often struggle with increased vehicular traffic, the planned (traffic diversion for the) downgrade and reconstruction of the Rt. 198 Scajaquada Expressway will only add to this problem in the Parkside Community,” said Assemblywoman Crystal Peoples-Stokes. “The planned traffic-calming measures will improve safety, reconfigure an intersection, and allow individuals and families to continue to safely enjoy Delaware Park and the Buffalo Zoo. I applaud Mayor Byron Brown for his commitment towards pedestrian safety; I am also very pleased that $150,000 in NYS CHIPS funding helped to make this $600,000 project a reality.”
Assemblyman Sean Ryan said “I am pleased to see this project moving forward, and I thank Mayor Brown for working diligently to receive public input and advance this critical traffic calming project. When completed, this project will help to ease the flow of traffic, and improve safety for the Parkside community.”
*$450,000 Federal and $150,000 NYS CHIPSCLOSE President Barack Obama says the Smithsonian's new African American history museum is great because it does more than tell stories about the past, but can be relevant to what is happening in today's society. (Sept. 23) AP
President Obama walks into the Grand Foyer with Lonnie Bunch, Director of the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture, and first lady Michelle Obama, to speak at a reception for the museum opening Friday. (Photo11: Susan Walsh, AP)
WASHINGTON — President Obama heralded the opening of the National Museum of African-American History and Culture on Friday, calling it a timely reminder of the progress made by black Americans — but also the progress left to make.
Referring to the recent police shootings of African-American men in Tulsa and Charlotte, Obama said he hoped that the new Smithsonian museum would help black and white Americans to see current events in a historical context.
"The timing of this is fascinating," he said, departing from his prepared remarks. "Because in so many ways, it is the best of times. But in many ways, these are also troubled times. History doesn't always move in a straight line, and without vigilance, we can move backwards as well as forwards."
Obama said he hopes the museum might cause white Americans to "step back and say, 'I understand, I sympathize, I empathize, I can see why folks might feel angry, and I want to be part of the solution as opposed to resisting change.'"
And, he said, "my hope is that black folks watching some of those same images on television and then seeing the history represented can say to themselves that the struggles we’re going through today are connected to the past, and yet, all that progress we've made tells me I cannot and will not sink into despair,"
Obama's remarks came in a star-studded reception at the White House for supporters and benefactors of the museum, including talk show host Oprah Winfrey, singer Harry Belafonte, record producer Quincy Jones and civil rights leaders like John Lewis, Jesse Jackson and Andrew Young.
Even as Obama spoke, cable networks played and replayed cell phone video of the police shooting of Keith Scott, a 43-year-old African-American man with a traumatic brain injury. That shooting sparked three nights of occasionally violent protests in Charlotte. In a separate incident last week, a police officer in Tulsa shot and killed an unarmed black motorist and has now been charged with manslaughter.
In an interview at the museum broadcast Friday on Good Morning America, Obama said violence is "the wrong way" to protest against police shootings, but said he would stay out of the debate about specific incidents this week so as not to interfere with federal investigations.
"What we've seen over the past several years is that the overwhelming majority of people who have been concerned about police-community relations doing it the right way. Every once in a while, you see folks doing it the wrong way," he said. "Looting, breaking glass — those things are not going to advance the cause."
Obama declined to speak about any specific case, saying he did not want to interfere with the investigations. And as he has in the past, Obama tried to balance the need to correct inequities in the criminal justice system — something he said that "should be a source of concern for all Americans — with support for police officers.
"I think it’s important to separate out the pervasive sense of frustration among a lot of African-Americans about shootings of people, and the sense that justice is not always color blind," he told ABC News. "Police have a really tough job. They’re dealing with people, typically, who are not looking forward to their interaction with police."
Obama will give an address at the museum's grand opening Saturday.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2d3Eg1iWhen Americans go to the polls in November to elect the next president, more than 5.8 million of them will be unable to vote due to a past felony conviction.
Many of them, like our client Kelli Griffin, were convicted of a non-violent drug offense and have since recovered from drug dependence, served their sentence, and returned to their communities. But because Kelli lives in Iowa — one of three states, along with Florida and Kentucky, that disenfranchise people for life after a felony conviction — she remains a second-class citizen denied full participation in the democratic process.
Kelli was convicted of a non-violent drug offense in 2008. At the time, she was in an abusive marriage and struggling with substance abuse. She completed her sentence of probation and reclaimed her life. She has since remarried and received treatment and counseling. She is now raising her four children and volunteers at a women’s drug treatment center, where she speaks to groups of women who, like her, are domestic violence survivors.
Democracy needs more participation and less civil death.
In 2014, we filed a lawsuit on Kelli’s behalf, challenging Iowa’s automatic lifetime disenfranchisement. But the Iowa Supreme Court decided today that drug offenses will continue to result in permanent disenfranchisement. And it did so, despite recognizing the growing movement towards rehabilitation and reintegration as well as the severe disproportionate impact the laws have on African-Americans and other groups who are historically marginalized at the polls.
Criminal disenfranchisement laws not only cause harm to returning citizens eager to contribute to their community — they harm the health of our democracy.
Decades into a failed “War on Drugs,” we still arrest, convict, and imprison people who struggle with addiction at rates without historic parallel. In Florida, Kentucky, and Iowa, we impose a “civil death” on everyone convicted of a felony offense, denying their equal citizenship by permanently depriving them of the right to vote.
Now, many millions of ruined lives later, we can safely say that neither prosecution nor imprisonment cures addiction. The use of our criminal justice apparatus to “treat” addiction — which is better addressed through drug treatment, mental healthcare, and community investment — is wasteful, ineffective, and racist. It needs to be reformed.
President Obama recently took action to address some of the harmful collateral consequences of conviction. But when it comes to the right to vote, most damage is done at the state level.
In the midst of long overdue debates about criminal law and sentencing reform, we ignore the perspectives of those who have been policed and prosecuted into prison by taking away their voting rights. In turn, criminal disenfranchisement lowers the volume of the debate on urgent issues like mass incarceration that affect people without access to the franchise.
Democracy needs more participation and less civil death. People who have served their sentence and returned to their community should have their rights restored immediately and automatically.ES News Email Enter your email address Please enter an email address Email address is invalid Fill out this field Email address is invalid You already have an account. Please log in or register with your social account
Gay marriage legislation is to blame for this winter's heavy rainfall and flooding, a Ukip councillor has claimed.
David Silvester said he warned Prime Minister David Cameron that allowing same-sex couples to get married would lead to "natural disasters".
The councillor for Henley-on-Thames said the law reflected an abandonment of faith, and insisted the miserable weather endured by much of the country this winter is a result of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act being passed.
In a letter to his local newspaper, the Henley Standard, Mr Silvester said: "The scriptures make it abundantly clear that a Christian nation that abandons its faith and acts contrary to the Gospel (and in naked breach of a coronation oath) will be beset by natural disasters such as storms, disease, pestilence and war.
"I wrote to David Cameron in April 2012 to warn him that disasters would accompany the passage of his same sex marriage Bill.
"But he went ahead despite a 600,000-signature petition by concerned Christians and more than half of his own parliamentary party saying that he should not do so.
"Now, even as Cameron sheds crocodile tears on behalf of destitute flooded homeowners, playing at advocate against the very local councils he has made cash-strapped, it is his fault that large swathes of the nation have been afflicted by storms and floods."
Mr Silvester defected from the Tories to UKIP in protest at David Cameron's support for gay marriage.
Speaking of the Prime Minister, he added: "He has arrogantly acted against the Gospel that once made Britain 'great' and the lesson surely to be learned is that no man or men, however powerful, can mess with Almighty God with impunity and get away with it for everything a nation does is weighed on the scaled of divine approval or disapproval.
"Since the passage of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act, the nation has been beset by serious storms and floods.
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"One recent one caused the worst flooding for 60 years. The Christmas floods were the worst for 127 years. Is this just global warming or is there something more serious at work?"
Ukip said the views expressed by Mr Silvester were "not the party's belief" but defended his right to state his opinions.
A party spokeswoman said: "If the media are expecting Ukip to either condemn or condone someone's personal religious views they will get absolutely no response. Whether Jain or Sikh or Buddhist or Sufi or Zoroastrian or Jewish or Muslim or Baptist or Hindu or Catholic or Baha'i or Animist or any other mainstream or minor religion or movement, we are taught as a tolerant society to accept a diversity of ideologies.
"Freedom to individual thought and expression is a central tenet of any open-minded and democratic country. It is quite evident that this is not the party's belief but the councillor's own and he is more than entitled to express independent thought despite whether or not other people may deem it standard or correct.
"That is what makes the United Kingdom such a wonderful, proud, diverse and free country."
Henley's Tory MP John Howell, said: "I thought Mr Silvester's letter was not the sort of thing that he should have written in today's age. He really needs to consider his position."A Canadian man has been sentenced to 20 years in a U.S. federal prison for his role in a smuggling operation that sent more than $130 million worth of drugs between the United States and Canada.
Prosecutors had argued that Harinder Dhaliwal of Brampton, Ont., should spend 30 years behind bars for his role in the drug trafficking ring, while defence lawyers had argued for a lighter sentence.
Judge William Skretny of Buffalo, N.Y., handed the decision down on Wednesday, but did not elaborate on his reasoning.
Dhaliwal, who was arrested in Canada in 2014, was among a group of at least six other people indicted on charges related to distribution and exportation of large amounts of cocaine and marijuana between 2006 and 2011.
He was held in Canadian custody for nearly two years before being extradited to the U.S. to face charges in April 2016.
READ MORE: Ontario man pleads guilty to smuggling $120 million of cocaine into Canada from U.S.
Weeks later, court documents show that Dhaliwal pleaded guilty to one of the eight charges against him, namely conspiracy to export at least five kilograms of cocaine from the U.S.
“As part of his plea agreement, the defendant admitted that during the course of the charged conspiracy, he was responsible for the transportation, exportation and distribution of more than 3,000 kilograms of cocaine … and the importation of tens of thousands of ecstasy pills and hundreds of pounds of marijuana,” prosecutors said in their pre-sentencing report.
Court documents said Dhaliwal owned trucking companies that he used to ferry drugs over the border concealed in hidden compartments that he built along with another co-conspirator.
A pre-sentencing report prepared by his defence team said he was lured into the easy money of drug trafficking because of financial hardships associated with failed business ventures.
The defence team, in arguing for a sentence that was “sufficient but not greater than necessary,” said he had been living in Canada for many years with his wife and two children at the time of his arrest.
READ MORE: Hot peppers can’t conceal 20 kg of cocaine on Trinidad flight at Toronto airport: CBSA
Defence lawyers argued that Dhaliwal’s co-operation with authorities, poor health and remorse for his actions would justify a lighter sentence.
“Mr. Dhaliwal is extremely remorseful that he placed his needs for ‘quick money’ over the needs of society,” reads a pre-sentencing report from the defence team.
“Mr. Dhaliwal accepts responsibility for his choices and his conduct. Mr. Dhaliwal acknowledges and appreciates the wrongfulness of his actions and offers no excuses or rational (sic) for his conduct.”
Defence lawyers asked the court to consider allowing Dhaliwal to serve his sentence in Canada, a request Skretny denied.
Dhaliwal was sentenced to 20 years in U.S. custody and five years of supervised release, though Skretny’s decision did say he is to be recommended for the Canadian Transfer Treaty Program.A girl gamer’s perspective on being made to feel the minority despite being the majority when it comes to dealing with gender equality in gaming.
“Gamer.” That’s a loaded word if I’ve ever heard one. It’s a broad enough term that it should cover all bases – video gamer, console gamer, mobile gamer, the list goes on and on. And don’t get me wrong, it is a wide encompassing term…unless you happen to be a girl gamer, in which case the term changes from simply a gamer to a gender specific girl gamer.
The first game that I can remember playing was Duck Hunt in the playroom at my parents’ house. My two older brothers loved the fact that there was real life (albeit plastic) gun that tracked and shot the ducks in the game. I know that I am not alone in fond memories of experiencing new games as a child, with the love for these games following me to present day. As a girl gamer, I find that more often than not, the “girl” in “girl gamer” proves to be differentiating me for the negative rather than for the positive.
Everything’s just wonderful, I’m having the time of my life
Though my first foray into gaming was with a home console, just as gaming has evolved, I have evolved with it. And while my brothers slowly grew out of the gaming hobby, I grew up toting my purple Game Boy with me. Living through the advent and evolution of handheld consoles, all the way up to what modern day where my phone has replaced my Game Boy, yet I continue gaming.
I wasn’t alone in using Game Boy as a young girl. In 1995, Nintendo itself reported that 46% of GameBoy users were female (note the irony here in the name “Game Boy”). Fast forward to my adolescence and it was all about Nintendo DS fights with my friends at school. Through the development of handheld games, mobile was born. Women on average download 2.64 mobile games a month, while men download 2.92. In fact, it is even expected that by 2018, mobile games will account for 27% of games revenue, women will have a large impact on this growing statistic.
I know that I personally will contribute to this growing statistic. In fact, many mobile gamers — myself included — face a predicament in which they have no remaining space left on their phones. Thankfully, there are tools like Andy OS that let us play mobile games on the computer, saving space on my phone and the worry of a dying battery.
Speaking of computer gaming, women are also highly influential in this gaming genre. A study conducted in 2015 found that 68% of women who identified as gamers enjoyed playing online.
Unfortunately, this number would be larger if it weren’t for a great number of women that feel discouraged from gaming online thanks to trash talk that equated to sexual harassment. Even with all of the people speaking out against this behavior, there is a long road ahead in terms of prevention.
I’m a sinner, I’m a saint, I do not feel ashamed
Women are typecast as the gentler, more sympathetic sex. But we all know that these traits vary person to person, and shouldn’t be generalized. And that’s the thing. We’re not always sweet and serene. Sometimes we get pissed and feel aggression, competitiveness and more. Being able to escape into a game such as GTA and Halo help us, male or female, blow off some steam; it’s almost a form of therapy.
So yeah, sometimes we have a bad day and need to just come home and release it. Some people opt for yoga, some opt for cooking, others opt for gaming. Just cause we’ve been taught to be more genial doesn’t mean we don’t find release in shooting some zombies.
Make me feel like I’m the only girl in the world
Of 1. |
on its side (which one is your decision) or upside down
- Put the table on its side (which one is your decision) or upside down Mount the hardware between the left and right leg If you mount the first item, it is recommended to install it against the table top for good fit. This happens automatically if you have the LackRack upside down, except in zero gravity environments.
Screw all the screws that fit in the rack mount in the left and right leg (for stability). With deep units, a Z-shaped bracket may be advisable to secure the rear of the unit against the underside of the tabletop.
???
Profit! (note how lackable.com has been bought by sgi recently)
Note
Current LACK tables have hollow legs; only the top 5 cm (2") is solid. Fitting equipment below the solid section may require the use of cavity plugs, such as these
Goodies
You can put food and/or drink on your rack.
You can put a small lamp on top of the rack to see your hardware and/or better find the aforementioned food and drink.
The table can be painted in a color of your preference, or decorated in various ways. The eth0 Design team can advise, for a fee, how to optimally decorate the rack to suit your environment. That means, no more dull black/gray racks! Or you can put stickers of your favorite event on them.
It's easy to colour-code your datacentre: e.g. red for critical services, grey for office automation, green for file-servers, black for systems and network management.
for critical services, for office automation, for file-servers, for systems and network management. Cheap!
Easy!
Looks good!
Alternative configuration
fitting the equipment to the rear of the front legs
Mounting the equipment to the rear of the front legs is recommended if you plan to fit switches with fiber uplinks; the created tabletop overhang shields the fiber connections from minor mishap
front view: 8 port switch with fiber uplink, and power bar
note protective overhang
FAQ
Q: Does the LackRack provide redundant power supply? A: Only if you add it yourself
Q: Can I put my (coffee) mug on top and don't have to worry about it if I spill liquid on the LackRack? A: You can spill coffee on the LackRack, since it can be cleaned quite easily. However, if you have appliances in the LackRack, there is a chance that these appliances cannot handle the coffee (or any other liquid). You should take precautions in order to protect your appliances
Specs
As from the Ikea product page:
Product information Easy to assemble. Low weight; easy to move. Readily available desktop area holding your laptop during maintenance. Levenstein distance of "Lack" and "Rack" is 1. Can this still be a coincidence?
Designer: IKEA of Sweden
Product dimensions Length: 55cm (21 5/8 ") Width: 55cm (21 5/8 ") Height: 45cm (17 3/4 ") Almost 9U of rack space
Care instructions Wipe clean using a damp cloth and a mild cleaner. Wipe dry with a clean cloth
Product description Top: Particleboard, Fiberboard, ABS plastic, Printed and embossed acrylic paint, Clear acrylic lacquer Filling material: Paper Leg: Particleboard, Fiberboard, Foil, Foil
Special Editions
Enterprise Edition
Additional brackets used to raise the shelf and support the 45kg+ weight. Norco RPC-3216 mounted in a LackRack Enterprise Edition.Additional brackets used to raise the shelf and support the 45kg+ weight.
Ikea LACK coffee table: almost twice as deep, and comes with a shelf. Its size allows both short ends to be used as rack space simultaneously. It's interesting to note that Ikea photographed it from the side; an uncommon artistic approach to 19" server rack photography. It provides for 8 U of hardware: 4 on either side of the shelf.
Following ICT tradition, the Enterprise Edition is more than three times as expensive, while providing less stability than two of the regular products combined.
Product information Easy to assemble. Low weight; easy to move. Readily available desktop area holding your laptop during maintenance. Levenstein distance of "Lack" and "Rack" is 1. Can this still be a coincidence?
Designer: IKEA of Sweden
Product dimensions Length: 90cm Width: 55cm (21 5/8 ") Height: 45cm (17 3/4 ")
Care instructions Wipe clean using a damp cloth and a mild cleaner. Wipe dry with a clean cloth
Product description : Top: Particleboard, Fiberboard, ABS plastic, Printed and embossed acrylic paint, Clear acrylic lacquer Filling material: Paper Leg: Particleboard, Fiberboard, Foil, Foil
Other rack solutions from Ikea
It is clear that Ikea has strived to keep many of their products rack compatible since so many of them are capable of housing 19" equipment. See List_of_IkeaRacks
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GalleryThe Minnesota House meets during the final week of the 2017 legislative session on Monday, May 15, 2017 inside the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul.
A day after accusing a male lawmaker of sexually harassing her, state Rep. Erin Maye Quade said sexual harassment is a big problem at the Minnesota Legislature that goes beyond one person.
"This is a culture that just is very pervasive here in the Legislature," said Maye Quade, DFL-Apple Valley. "I don't want to anyone to think that it just happens to one senator, they resign and it's over with. It's whole behaviors that need to change by a lot of people."
On Wednesday, Maye Quade told the online publication MinnPost that prior to winning election to the House she received unsolicited text messages from state Sen. Dan Schoen, DFL-St. Paul Park, that came off as a solicitation for an encounter at his home. The run-in with Schoen was while she campaigned for a seat she later won.
Since taking office in January, she said there have been other incidents involving other lawmakers.
"I've had at least four men in the (Republican) majority make sexual comments, comment on my body, send sexual text messages, those kind of things," she said.
DFL Rep. Dan Schoen sponsored a bill requiring gun sale background checks. Brandt Williams | MPR News 2016
Maye Quade said she reported those incidents. That's why she and other Democrats are taking exception with a statement Republican House Speaker Kurt Daudt made Wednesday to MPR News.
"We take sexual harassment in the Minnesota House very seriously," Daudt, R-Zimmerman, said. "And I have not had a specific complaint of sexual harassment since I've been speaker."
Daudt said he will require all Minnesota House members to undergo mandatory training on sexual harassment and other discrimination issues during the next legislative session. Senate leaders said they too were looking at stepped up training.
• On Capitol Hill: Female lawmakers allege harassment by colleagues
Since the MinnPost story Wednesday, a bipartisan chorus of lawmakers, including Gov. Mark Dayton, have called on Schoen to resign. Lindsey Port, who was a DFL House candidate, also told MinnPost of incidents where Schoen made unwelcome sexual remarks and touched her on the buttocks during a 2015 political party event.
Schoen said in a statement that the allegations "are either completely false or have been taken out of context." He said he regrets if any of his actions made someone feel uncomfortable or harassed.
Schoen also works as a Cottage Grove police officer. The city said he will be on administrative duty until the allegations are investigated. Officials there are looking at whether any of city policies were violated.
Senate Minority Leader Tom Bakk, DFL-Cook, was among those calling for Schoen to resign from the Legislature.
"These allegations are very serious and clearly a violation of the Senate rules on bringing dishonor to the institution," Bakk said. "I feel for the people that are victims and have come forward. It's a terrible situation for everybody involved."In 1931, Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Germany's propaganda minister, married Magda Quandt. Seven decades later, her descendents are counted among the country's wealthiest families.
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Magda's children from a previous marriage inherited the family fortune and are their expansive estate is thought to be worth no less than 40 billion dollars.
The Quandt family holds a 46.7 percent stake in BMW and is the owner of German supermarket giant Lidl and Aldi. German magazine Manager crowned the family as the richest in Germany.
Magda and Joseph Goebbels with their six children and Harald (Photo: Getty Images)
In 1921, Magda married Günther Quandt, a German industrialist, and later gave birth to a son, Harald. Eight years later, Magda left her husband, marrying Adolf Hitler's right hand man within two years. The Nazi leader even served as best man to Goebbels at the wedding.
Harald moved in with his mother and the German propagandist, living with the pair until 1939, when he joined the Nazi air force. He served as a lieutenant in the Luftwaffe until 1944 when he was injured and captured by Allied troops in Italy.
In 1945, while imprisoned in Benghazi, the young Harald received a letter sent by his mother from Hitler's bunker in Berlin, informing him that she had committed suicide with her husband and six children.
"It's likely that you'll be the only one to remain who can continue the tradition of our family," Magda wrote to her captive son.
Harald – Madga's only surviving descendent – inherited the Quandt family fortune along his with his half-brother Herbert. The family business had accumulated vast profits producing rifles and missiles for the Nazis, the British paper Times reported.
In the 1960s, Harald's half-brother saved German car giant BMW from collapsing, and the turnaround in the company's fortunes helped raise the Quandts to the top of the country's wealthy list.
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Harald's five daughters inherited the family fortune along with Herbert's widow and her two children. While Herbert's descendents have kept a public profile, Herbert's four living daughters have shied away from the public's eye.Sound Transit has seen costs go way up for a second parking garage in Kent for Sounder train riders.
Sound Transit officials revealed during their latest update to the Kent City Council on Aug. 15 that costs are up to an estimated $65 million for the 500-plus stall facility. During a February report, agency staff still used the estimated cost of $35 million.
“The ST2 plan was closer to $35 million,” Karen Kitsis, project coordinator for Sound Transit’s south corridor, said about the tax package approved by voters in 2008 to fund expansion of the system. “When ST3 was being developed, we looked at other (garage) projects in Puyallup and Sumner, and the number was not likely to stand up, so more money was allocated to the structures than what we saw in February.”
The agency’s board restored funding last year for parking garages in Kent and Auburn. Voters approved additional parking garages for Kent and Auburn in 2008 as part of the ST2 package, when costs were much lower. The board suspended the project in 2010 because of the Great Recession when sales tax revenue for the agency came up shorter than projected.
“After the project was reactivated by the board in 2016, Sound Transit reviewed and adjusted available funding for the project based on the cost of similar projects that have been completed in recent years,” said Sound Transit spokeswoman Rachelle Cunningham in an email. “The recent cost estimates for the project validate the need for the higher funding.”
City and Sound Transit officials are in the process of picking a site for the new garage. Construction on the garage is expected to start in 2021 and be completed in 2023, according to transit documents.
Council President Bill Boyce told the agency he prefers an earlier opening.
“I look at the timeline, we have immediate need for parking,” Boyce said. “It seems like forever before we can park cars.”
Sound Transit staff has heard from Kent and Auburn officials about wanting the garage projects done sooner.
“With the Puyallup and Sumner projects we are looking at a different method that could go faster,” Kitsis said.
When Boyce pressed for a specific timeline about an earlier completion date, Kitsis declined to pick a year.
“Perhaps not as long as we show,” she said of the 2023 estimate.
Commuters now park at the Kent Station garage, 301 Railroad Ave. N., which opened in 2001. The garage and surface lot provide 996 parking spaces but fill up quickly.
Sounder trains carried about 1,900 daily riders in 2016 in Kent. Ridership is projected to go as high as 3,000 daily in 2025. About 51 percent of the riders get to Kent Station by car; 14 percent by transit; 12 percent walk; 9 percent are dropped off; 9 percent by carpool or vanpool; and 4 percent by bicycle.
About 80 percent of the riders live east of the Kent Station; 27 percent are from outside of Kent; and 18 percent are from outside of the Sound Transit district, such as Covington.
The council is expected to pick a preferred site for the garage at its Oct. 17 meeting. That recommendation will go to the Sound Transit board on Nov. 16.
The estimated costs for a garage at the four potential sites range from $65 to $82 million, but the funding available remains at $65 million.
“It is not anticipated that funding would increase, but that the scope of the project would be adjusted to remain within available funds,” Cunningham said. “ST would work with stakeholders and elected officials through the environmental, design and project development process to identify the project scope that would be affordable within the available funding.”
Kent’s four potential sites for a second garage are:
• Site 1: vacant lot north of East James Street
515 stalls, estimated cost $75 million
Cost drivers: pedestrian bridge, right-of-way, anticipated hazardous materials abatement
• Site 2: parking lot west of Sounder platform
Parking stalls: 645 (470 new)
Estimated cost: $72 million
Cost drivers: replacement of existing stalls, substantial right-of-way and business relocation costs
• Site 3: Railroad Avenue, storage building, ST surface lot and several Central Ave properties
Parking stalls: 620 (550 new)
Estimated cost: $65 to $75 million depending how align station
Cost drivers: inefficient layout, construction over roadway, interim parking lot, alley vacation
• Site 4: Kiabara Park
Parking stalls: 535 (495 new)
Estimated cost: $82 million
Cost drivers: extremely constrained site, substantial right-of-way costs, replacement of existing stalls, impacts to the Kent Library site.Splash News has posted these photos from the set of World War Z. Brad Pitt has been filming the zombie thriller in the seaside town of Falmouth in Cornwall, UK. The site says:
Feeling the pinch of a cold British summer morning, Brad appeared wrapped up on board the yellow SD Salmoor where most of the filming is taking place. The admiralty salvage vessel was covered in wax and fake icicles plus a hoard of locals that were signed up as extras. The crew set sail to a nearby location and returned banging weapons and hollering for the camera.
In related news, The Hollywood Reporter says that Bryan Cranston (“Breaking Bad”) has been cast in a “small but flashy” role in the Marc Forster-directed film.
The summer 2012 release is based on Max Brooks’ best-selling novel about a worldwide infestation of flesh-eating zombies. Brooks, the son of Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft, wrote a detailed tale in which a researcher for the U.N. Postwar Commission interviews survivors from countries all over the world, 10 years after the crisis, to gather a first-person post-mortem on a war that obliterated every country on the map.The biggest silent financial bailout going on in the nation revolves around commercial real estate. Commercial real estate (CRE) values have plummeted $3 trillion from their peak in 2008. While residential real estate values peaked in 2006 CRE waited two more years before moving lower. The two year lagged occurred because many banks, especially local regional banks have held onto trillions of dollars of CRE loans that have now lost nearly half their value. This includes hotels without adequate demand, empty shopping centers, and multi-use projects that really have little market demand in a country facing a debt base recession. Ultimately CRE had to come down to reflect the values of what people could afford. As it turns out when the average income is $25,000 in the U.S. there is little discretionary income on a per capita basis to spend day and night at the local shopping mall. We have all heard of the residential real estate bailout since this seems to be the message coming from the banks and government yet little is ever mentioned about this $3 trillion industry that is benefitting just as much.
The Federal Reserve bails out CRE without your knowledge
Source: MIT
The biggest continuing bailout is occurring through the Federal Reserve. The Fed has allowed banks to suspend mark to market accounting so many institutions are merely rolling over CRE debt and allowing borrowers to renew loans even if they currently are non-paying. Most Americans do not have the luxury to stop paying on their medical bills, student loans, or car payment. It is better for a bank to pretend that their CRE is worth a peak value even if no money is coming in. This carefully mapped out calculus is problematic and the only way this can occur is if the bank of all banks, the Federal Reserve allows this to occur. The Fed has massive oversight and regulatory jurisdiction if it wishes to enforce any actions on the banks. Instead it continues to purchase mortgage backed securities and even today, the Fed is at the peak of their balance sheet:
With QE2 ongoing and other items like Maiden Lanes still in progress, the Fed is quickly approaching $2.75 trillion in terms of items they have on their balance sheet. Of course this is a recovery according to the press but what the above balance sheet shows you is a market lacking demand for real estate in all forms and the Fed is really the only buyer in many niche segments. If there were real market demand willing participants would be purchasing these properties ex-Fed. But who would buy an empty strip mall in this market:
“Looks like a lot of demand here.”
The Fed fully understands that there is little political will in the public to bail out failed luxury hotel projects or empty shopping malls that catered to a wealthy class. The middle class has just undergone the most painful contraction of income in the last decade since the Great Depression. Americans are maxed out in all forms of debt; credit card, student loans, mortgages, and auto loans all carry a heavy weight now on the purchasing power of Americans. CRE caters to the consumption class but what if consumption, that engine of our economic growth, is now entering a sustained contraction? Banks internally know problems are occurring as witnessed by the MIT chart contracting but also the amount of commercial loans being made:
The contraction is ongoing because there is little demand for new projects. If there is suddenly a demand in the marketplace it will likely come in the form of using these currently built projects. Why build new places when the storefront is already there? The Federal Reserve is trying to orchestrate a slow inflationary environment so banks can walk away from these debts. The Fed’s actions merely postpone the day of reckoning because the problem isn’t lack of credit in the market but that prices are much too high. It cannot keep prices elevated because incomes simply do not justify prices in many locations.
Ultimately this is a massive hidden bailout. There is a big cost here. The Fed artificially keeps rates low and this punishes savers. Savers have witnessed one of the worst decades in terms of savings rates. This is occurring because the Fed has made it a priority to bail out banks by allowing them to continue to keep zombie loans on their books while using current bailout funds to speculate in global stock markets to pad their balance sheets. Yet the cost is shouldered by the working and middle class of this country. This is the continuing shadow bailout here. How many times have you heard about the CRE bailout in the mainstream press? You don’t even hear much about the continuing banking bailouts. In fact, many outlets are talking about the bailouts being over. Just glance back up and look at the Fed balance sheet. Does that look like things are okay?
CRE once had an estimated national value of $6.5 trillion. Today it stands at an optimistic $3.5 trillion. Banks have not come to terms with those losses and the Federal Reserve will try to keep that under wraps in their now approaching $2.75 trillion portfolio.
If you enjoyed this post click here to subscribe to a complete feed and stay up to date with today’s challenging market!U.N. Secretary-General expects 120 countries to sign the deal on Earth Day
By Valerie Volcovici
WASHINGTON, March 31 (Reuters) - The United States and China confirmed Thursday that they will sign the Paris climate change agreement in New York on April 22, a move that officials hope will help the accord enter into force this year.
The world's two biggest greenhouse gas emitters issued a joint presidential statement in which they called on other countries to sign the accord next month "with a view to bringing the Paris Agreement into force as early as possible."
Leaders from nearly 200 countries forged the landmark agreement to transform the world's fossil fuel-driven economy on Dec. 12 after four years of fraught negotiations.
But the Paris climate agreement needs at least 55 countries representing at least 55 percent of global emissions to formally accede to it before it can enter into force.
Todd Stern, the U.S. climate envoy who helped broker the deal in Paris, said hitting that threshold as soon as possible will benefit countries that are vulnerable to climate change.
"The best thing that can happen for them is to get this agreement going and get it into force," he said.
Stern has stepped down from his role as the chief U.S. climate negotiator. He will be replaced by his former deputy, Jonathan Pershing, on April 1.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said earlier this month that he expects 120 or more countries will sign the accord at the April 22 ceremony at its New York headquarters.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to sign on behalf of the United States.
India's Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar will also attend the signing of the agreement at the United Nations headquarters, the Times of India reported last week.
The U.S.-China statement also confirms that the countries will continue to cooperate on efforts to combat climate change.
Both countries said they would work jointly to ensure that a global agreement to curb greenhouse gas emissions in aviation at the International Civil Aviation Organization and a pact to curb HFCs, a potent greenhouse gas, are reached this year. (Reporting By Valerie Volcovici; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.A new law in Utah is forcing abortion doctors to render their patients unconscious to ensure that the foetus does not feel “pain’”.
The “Protecting Unborn Children Amendment” aims to “eliminate or alleviate organic pain to the unborn child”, arguing that a foetus can feel pain after 20 weeks – a claim that is not backed up by science.
Republican Senator Curt Bramble told lawmakers he would ban abortions if he could, but the US Supreme Court has blocked this path.
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.
“This will require that if we are going to take the life of an unborn child,” he said, as reported by the Salt Lake Tribune, “then anaesthesia would be required to protect the child from the infliction of pain at the time their life is forfeit.”
The law does not require doctors to inform women of the risks and side effects of receiving an anaesthetic which, medical experts argue, their patients do not need.
“You’re asking me to invent a procedure that doesn’t have any research to back it up,” Dr Leah Torres, who works at one of Utah’s two licensed abortion clinics, told the New York Times. “You want me to experiment on my patients.”
Providers do already offer anaesthesia to patients seeking later term abortion, but it is not compulsory and doctors must inform women of the possible risks.
Dr Torres said there is no guidance in the new law on what kind of drug – or how much – should be administered to patients, as the law has been compiled by politicians and not medical experts.
Doctors are also required to tell patients that “substantial medical evidence from studies concludes that an unborn child who is at least 20 weeks gestational age may be capable of experiencing pain during an abortion procedure.”
A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that a foetus does not develop the ability to feel pain before 29 or 30 weeks.
Doctors say the law is not medically possible, according to the Salt Lake Tribune, yet if they refuse to follow the new law, doctors could face a third-degree felony.
At least 12 states have tried to ban abortion after 20 weeks altogether, and failed, as reported by Think Progress. However, the new law in Utah, the first of its kind in the US, might as well be a ban as it could deter doctors from performing the procedure altogether.
“Imagine that I sit down with a patient and tell her what she can expect and how I'm going to take care of her,” Dr Anne Davis, consulting medical director for Physicians for Reproductive Health, told CNN. “And somehow I work in, 'Oh, by the way, the state has told me that I have to give this to you?' She asks, 'Why?' And I say, 'There's no benefit to you, but there will be additional risk.’”
A study by Rutgers University in February found that a third of women who get leaflets on abortion from the state are being misinformed. In North Carolina, women are told that foetus between 12 and 14 weeks have fully formed lips, noses and fingernails are starting to grow.
A March study discovered that 70 per cent of recently introduced state abortion restrictions are based on false information.
Arizona recently passed a law to require doctors to tell women that their abortion procedure might be reversible, which most doctors say is wrong. Arizona Planned Parenthood public policy director Jodi Liggett called the law “dangerous and quite simply outrageous”.
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 nowWho We Are
The Nationwide Museum Mascot Project (NWMMP) promotes art institutions through custom made, sports team-like mascots that engage with passersby, visitors and staff alike with handshakes, high-fives, hugs, pro-museum sign picketing, social networking and workshops. Mascots pass out homemade buttons, stickers, balloons, zines and corn-dogs. This project is on the tipping point between sincere promotion and playful parody.
OCMAscot, Orange County Museum of Art, 2010
Our History
Since 2008, the Nationwide Museum Mascot Project has represented dozens of art institutions including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; San Diego Museum of Art; Centre George Pompidou, Paris; Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Michigan; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City; Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA; and Museum of Modern Art, New York.
MOMAscot, 2012
What We Want To Do
This summer, NWMMP will mascot and promote fifteen institutions in the Los Angeles area and Central and South America.
We need your help to get from Los Angeles to Lima!
Please help us realize our LA-LA Tour: From Los Angeles to Latin America by providing funds to help us cover: mascot programming (i.e. workshops and activities), homemade museum memoribilia (i.e. homemade stickers, buttons, t-shirts, signage, zines, corndogs), mascot costume materials and fabrication, airfare, lodging and ground transportation.
LACMAscot, Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, 2009
MCASDscot, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, 2012
PERKS!
Mascot knick-knacks!
Buttons Buttons Buttons!About
Fashion Meets Engineering
Above & Higher Inc. is a fashion engineering company founded in Toronto, Canada by Shawn Li to produce functional, high quality fashion products without the retail markup. This is our first kickstarter campaign :D
We hope you like our cheesy "AS SEEN ON TV" infomercial :P
<<< SHARING IS CARING!!! >>>
I've gone through countless belts over the years and not one has lasted.
Typical $15 - $30 belts
Then I started to invest a bit more on brand name products. They look great at first, but they did not last either....
Luxury designer belts $150+
I was very disappointed....as an engineer I had to solve this problem!
At ABOVE & HIGHER INC. we took an engineering approach to design a belt that is build for long term quality and a style that stands out in the fashion industry.
The Carbon Fiber Belt
Fashion meets Engineering
For the belt buckle we choose Carbon Fiber Composite to handcraft asingle piece design. Since it does not have any mechanical movements, therefore we eliminate any potential quality issues in the future. Plus it made the buckle look classy and sleek and did we mention it's metal free :P
Aerospace grade 3K Carbon Fiber
For the leather belt, we source Full Grain Leather from Calfskin to hand stitch each belt with Suede Leather for long term durability and comforts. The luxury leather is engineered to last a life time with a red colored backing that makes a flashy yet classy fashion statement.
Full Grain Leather + Leather Suede
Extremely Strong
Super Light- 7X times lighter than metal buckle
100% Metal free to get you through security :P
Full Grain Calfskin
Ultra Soft Suede Backing
Leather Suede is used because of its scratch resistance properties.
Extra Thick at 4mm / 10oz
Size matter! Typical belt are just above 2mm thick, our belt is at 4mm thick.
At ABOVE & HIGHER INC. we are here to engineer products for everyone. We believe providing the best value to our customers.
All the features without the price
<<< The Onyx Package >>>
One (1) Carbon Fiber Buckle + One (1) Onyx Leather Belt
<<< The Cognac Package >>>
One (1) Carbon Fiber Buckle + One (1) Cognac Leather Belt
<<< The Complete Package >>>
One (1) Carbon Fiber Buckle + One (1) Onyx Leather Belt + One (1) Cognac Leather Belt
Dressed for Business
Dressed for Pleasure
Buckle: 2.75" X 1.6" X 0.14" Inches [70" X 40" X 3.5"mm]
Belt: 1.25" Inches [31.75"mm] wide (Formal Dress Pants Size)
Details:-100% Aerospace Grade 3K Carbon Fiber Buckle - One piece minimalist design - Full Grain leather available in Onyx and Cognac colors- 10oz or 4mm thick full grain and suede leather
Sizing: We will take your size at the conclusion of the campaign.
Our sizes will be: 28, 30, 32, 34, 36, 38, 40, 42, 44, 46
1st light bulb! I was travelling quite often, spending countless hours at the airport. It made me think about a more efficient way to process security checks.
2nd light bulb! I wear a belt for business and pleasure, I've gone through countless belts over the years and not one has lasted. It made me think about creating a quality belt that was engineered to last.
...then the idea was born:
The founder of Above & Higher Inc., Shawn Li, is an Industrial Engineer. Unlike your typical fashion company, we are truly an engineering company first. Our mission is to innovate and engineer functional products that changes the fashion industry.
We use various advanced engineering methodologies to bring the best products to the market. Here is a glimpse of our manufacturing process and the initial prototypes:
Started from the bottom:
And now we are here:
The future:
New colors/materials and additional products are on the way
Spread the love:
In order for us to bring this company to the market we need you and your friends to spread the love. Only by sharing and pledging our kickstarter campaign we can meet our funding to support our next step. So please spread the love and thank you very much for your support!
<<<Our Online Store>>>The Nasarawa state police command said they have rescued 12 children from a suspected child trafficker
– The man, identified as Nuhu Adams claims he is an evangelist
– The children were between the ages of six to 17
The Nasarawa state police command said they have rescued 12 children from a suspected child trafficker.
The man, identified as Nuhu Adams who denied the police claims, stated that he is an evangelist, Daily Sun reports.
Parading the suspect, the Nasarawa state commissioner of police, Abubakar Bello, said his men received intelligence report on December 16, 2016 that the suspect had in his custody eight children between the ages of six and 17.
According to the police boss, the suspect was found with the children in his Peugeot tation wagon car with registration No AA 273 ANW at a church in Karu local government area of the state, from where he was arrested.
He said in the cause of investigation, the police also recovered four other children Adams had earlier sold in Abuja and Jos, even as he said the children have been rescued and had since been reunited with their parents.
His words: “The suspect used to go to IDPs camps in Taraba state to collect children from parents with the promise of educating them. Police were able to recover four children he had earlier sold in Abuja and Jos.
“The suspect was arrested after one warrant officer, Auta Isah, reported to the police that the suspected trafficker came to their church premises with a Peugeot station car marked AA 273 ANW with eight children between the ages of six and 17 years and was sharing them to some individuals.”
Adams however disputed the police boss claims, he said he was providing welfare support to displaced persons across the country and that the children found with him were not stolen
“I was in Nasarawa state to save children who were displaced by Boko Haram insurgency and those neglected by the government, dying in poverty at various IDPs camps across the nation.
“I have been touring under the Christian Association of Nigeria and I went to Taraba state and they gave me permission to assist those in need,” he said.
He also said he trained the children under a non-profit organisation named Fellowship of Internally Displaced Persons/ Refugees, which he said was registered in 2014.
Meanwhile, the Adamawa state police have confirmed the killing of three police officers after an attack by armed men in Demsa local government area.
Othman Abubakar, the Adamawa police spokesperson, also confirmed that two other officers went missing after the attack
Like this: Like Loading...Switzerland ups legal prostitution age from 16 to 18
GENEVA - Agence France-Presse
A sign is seen on the opening day of Switzerland's first sex drive-in on August 26, 2013 in Zurich, which is aiming to get prostitution off the city streets. AFP PHOTO / FABRICE COFFRINI
The Swiss parliament voted Tuesday to raise the legal prostitution age from 16 to 18, tightening the country's liberal sex-trade laws to bring them in line with European standards.The lower house of parliament voted to change the Swiss penal code to make it illegal to pay for sex with a minor, following suit after the upper house adopted the bill.Until now, paying for sex with people above 16 -- the legal age of consent in Switzerland -- was legal in the small Alpine country.With the law change, prostitutes between the ages of 16 and 18 will not face penalties, but clients who pay for sex with minors will face up to three years behind bars.Anyone encouraging prostitution by minors, including pimps, and people running brothels or escort services, will face up to 10 years in prison.The law change also raises the legal age to participate in pornography, making it a crime punishable by up to five years in jail to produce, import, promote, screen or possess pornography featuring minors.The parliament's decision was needed for Switzerland to implement a European Council convention on the protection of children that it signed in 2010."It is important that the protection of children is not limited by borders and can be ensured across the entire European territory," Socialist lawmaker Margret Kiener Nellen told the house ahead of Tuesday's vote, according to the ATS news agency.Prostitution is legal and regulated in Switzerland, where it is considered a legitimate form of economic activity.Prostitutes can ply their trade openly in specific areas of some cities, as well as in brothels or through escort services, as long as they pay taxes and social charges on the money they make.Last month, prostitution in Switzerland made global headlines when Zurich opened the country's first sex "drive-in", on the outskirts of town, in a bid to create a safer space for sex workers and remove the trade from the city centre.Giant Wall Scrabble®
$ 1795.0 Regular $ 1346.0 Member
The writing is on the wall. We've taken classic Scrabble® to truly gigantic proportions, and increased the fun factor exponentially. Crafted from wood, with colors and graphics based on the original 1949 edition, this wall-mounted version has everything its tabletop predecessors have, including a fabric bag for the letter tiles. Strong magnets keep the letters in their squares, and a built-in chalkboard lets you keep track of the score.
Show Details +
Dramatically oversized wall-mounted Scrabble game
Solid wood frame and trim, letter tiles and tile racks
Vintage graphics drawn from the original 1949 edition
Includes 4 magnetic tile |
to. It shouldn't be necessary to note that we're all human beings but it's worth re-iterating just in case.
Let me pause for a moment and speak only to readers who are also male: as a male researcher, have you ever pondered adding "Researcher" to your name tag in the hopes more people would discuss technical work with you at a technical conference? Anecdotally that crossed at least one female researcher's mind. If considering that is even necessary, we've failed them, and we're all losing out because of it.
ML conferences should have a Code of Conduct
Globally, both in tech and other fields, the #MeToo movement has helped bring to the forefront the oft ignored violations of fairness and equality in academia and industry. These remain a problem within our field and a problem that even post-Weinstein men seem to underestimate.
70% of female founders say sexual harassment in tech is still underreported vs. 35% of male founders. Men were 4 times more likely than women to say the media's overblown the issue. https://t.co/ndNAIYP66W — First Round (@firstround) December 7, 2017
Some technical conferences have had a Code of Conduct in place for many years, such as PyCon's. Others have recently been added after existing incidents and assaults came to light. Regardless, the default conference should now have a Code of Conduct. We've seen the costs come too high for those without one. A Code of Conduct sets community expectations and ensures that, should an incident occur, there are steps in place to properly handle them.
A conference's Code of Conduct is only as strong as the enforcement of it however. Much of the PyCon Code of Conduct is discussing the channels to raise and resolve incidents as well as the procedures and responsibilities of the staff. Not having these in place before an incident will not end well.
Visa denials
Talented researchers and practitioners were denied visas simply due to travel bans against their home countries. Even of those countries not explicitly banned, the Black in AI team had to fight against bureaucracy and idiocy to support the visas of many from outside of the country.
Many never made it. We should all be angry at the loss for them and ourselves for not being enriched.
Stories of visas being held for weeks at an embassy, candidates being unable to get physical US dollars to pay visa application fees, or the US government fearful that the participant wouldn't return to their country even when they had a family back home. There is no silver bullet to solve this problem but we can take steps. Improving policies regarding absent presenters, ensuring our conferences remain in a welcoming country, and supporting the groups that fight to ensure attendance by our broader disadvantaged community are all part of it.
#blackinai @ #NIPS2017 was incredible. I can't stop thinking about one man telepresenting from Ethiopia whose wifi just wasn't giving us audio. He would raise his voice to be heard, awaking sleeping neighbors, and still we couldn't quite make it out. What are solutions? — MMitchell (@mmitchell_ai) December 10, 2017
Supporting good causes against unfair (and insane) backlash
When Black in AI was announced, there was backlash from a subset of the community on Twitter. Luckily members of the community stepped in to help defend and share the purpose of the group.
All of our voices are important here. Those of us who are part of our minority groups or communities should know they have allies and that their knowledge, insights, and perspective are welcomed and valued. Those of us with privilege / not in underrepresented groups should empower others. Together we can make the community as a whole richer.
Childcare at conference venues
Childcare is nowhere near a trivial task but should be something that we as a community work towards.
That a conference as large and well funded as #NIPS2017 doesn't have day care is a travesty. Imagine if companies spent even a tiny portion of their party budget on sponsored day care? :( — Smerity (@Smerity) December 8, 2017
I would highly recommend reading more of the discussion within that thread. Some issues I was idiotically blind to (such as complications regarding caring for children who might not have English as a first language) but I refuse to believe that a community that solves hard problems continuously couldn't solve these given time, thought, and a few of those sponsor dollars.
Fin
Honestly, I'm not the right person to talk about any of this in detail. What I simply want to say is that this is a community issue. It won't be solved by one champion, no matter how brilliant they might be. We all need to play a part in shifting our attitudes and behaviour.
Thanks to those who have read and helped refine this post through their feedback and expertise. I truly appreciate your constructive criticism and reflections! If you have insights to give, feel free to contact me - I'd love to hear them :)Julius Caesar was at his wits end on how to deal with the Gauls. The little village of Asterix and others simply refused to surrender to the Roman emperor and were impossible to defeat in battle. One of Caesar’s ‘ He conquered many lands and kingdoms butwas at his wits end on how to deal with the. The little village ofand others simply refused to surrender to the Roman emperor and were impossible to defeat in battle. One of Caesar’s ‘ wiseguys ’ suggested that they should sow anarchy and disharmony among the Gauls. Inject the citizens of Gaul with so much poison, internal conflict and hatred that they die fighting among themselves. They found a man who could do the job. Enter Tortuous Convolvulus (TC). Caesar wanted to test him but he needed no proof as the agent immediately had his senators fighting, gossiping and speaking ill of the emperor himself. Now this guy TC was so devious that once, when thrown to lions in a circus, he made the lions fight among themselves and kill each other. So you know what talent we are talking about. Take a look at his pic. TC oozes cunning and deceit from head to toe, doesn’t he?
So Caesar sends TC to Gaul to divide and destroy them. On the way he has all the members on his ship fighting each other too. When pirates are about to attack his ship he even sets the pirates fighting among each other by claiming he paid gold to one of them for not being attacked. TC manages to create havoc in the Gaul village but they eventually realise his scheme and turn the tables on him. They plot and prove to the Romans that TC is a traitor and had fooled their army. TC is sent back to Rome for punishment. It is suspected, though, that with his cunning and deceit TC would have escaped punishment.
Unfortunately, good old Caesar didn’t have Indian TV media in his time. He wouldn’t have needed a TC then. All he would have had to do was ask a couple of Indian news channels and their celebrities to land in Gaul before a battle and they would have done the job better than TC. You know, like our own Romans have media channels doing the job for them. We have this little state called Gujarat which is troublesome, is headed by a man with some magic potion, who defies the empire at every turn. So every time there’s an election battle around, our own TCs land in Gujarat to divide people. In particular, their chosen target for the divisive agenda is the Muslim community. The topic? Of course, the 2002 riots. Even if Muslims have moved on our media morons will never let them forget and will keep re-opening old wounds.
A little bit of history is in order. Let’s take Ahmedabad for example. The city is divided into East and West for reference by the Sabarmati River. Till the mid-1980s the western parts of Ahmedabad were undeveloped, had sparse population. Hindus and Muslims lived alongside each other in the eastern part but Hindus slowly started migrating to the western parts in huge numbers. Does Sagarika Ghose or Barkha Dutt ever explain why? It was riot-fatigue that made Hindus move to the western parts and, of course, better housing. Most Hindus in Ahmedabad do feel that they received a raw deal in all the communal riots till then under Congress rule. Groups of Muslims also shifted to the western parts. A few are concentrated in a middle class area called Paldi while low income groups huddled up in one of the largest ghettos called Juhapura. Hindus practically used to refer to Juhapura as Pakistan. There is a historical animosity that wasn’t brought about by Narendra Modi. This historical animosity did come under a series of Congress govts. Will Sagarika and Barkha tell you that? No! The MSM folks seem to have discovered Muslims in Ahmedabad and Gujarat only since 2002. I need not add that in all their shows they conveniently forget that 2002 wouldn’t have happened if the Godhra train burning hadn’t happened.
Tragedies can be man-made and natural. Have Muslims moved on from the earthquake (which claimed over 20000 lives and much destruction of property) of 2001? Have they moved on from 2002? Has Gujarat moved on from both? The answer is YES! There may be a few families that may still be suffering the pain and that need not be only from Muslims. So what makes people like Barkha Dutt rush to Gujarat and frequently keep injecting a sense of permanent “victimhood” in Muslims? This is not just in Gujarat but they do it across India. If Muslims keep falling for this propaganda they may risk the danger of pushing themselves further into victimhood. Barkha was in Juhapura to talk to rickshaw drivers and others on their conditions but she doesn’t tell you the full story. She sexes up her report with incomplete stories. Take a look at this map below.
On the right you can see Paldi. Most private buses to Saurashtra region (Rajkot, Bhavnagar etc) start from Paldi. Till 2002 the route (in black) through Juhapura to the Sarkhej highway, onward to Rajkot, is the route they use to follow. Post-Godhra 2002 all these buses take the longer route (marked in red) to avoid passing through Juhapura which Barkha so devotedly covers on her trip. Wonder why? My route-marking may not be the exact roads but shows the direction very accurately. Bus operators were willing to go through a longer route as against taking risks. Can Barkha explain why? Now, since the red route has become quite established, it’s not just Hindu bus operators but Muslim operators also follow that route. Truth is, for a long time Hindus have avoided going through the route past Juhapura unless absolutely necessary. Things are different now. There is no fear and most people drive past Juhapura. This was the same fear and fatigue that drove most Hindus from the eastern parts of Ahmedabad to the western parts. Juhapura is just one example that I’m giving. There are many other stories that the Tortuous Convolvuluses in the media aren’t going to tell. The post is not about history but only refers to what Barkha touched upon in her show.
Interestingly, look at the title of both Barkha’s and Sagarika’s shows. Both talk about a “Muslim narrative”. That they are identical shouldn’t be any surprise at all. The headlines could have made a happily married couple out of both channels. Their only agenda was to somehow smear Narendra Modi just around the elections. Try and whip up some anti-Modi sentiments through Muslims and hope Caesar is happy. While harping on no Muslim being given an election ticket by the BJP someone on NDTV asked Nidhi Razdan why Omar Abdullah hasn’t given any tickets to Hindus. No answer! The same agents never talk about the pogrom or systematic ethnic cleansing that happened in Kashmir. In Gujarat, Muslims now live peacefully, many who left have also returned. There is no returning for Hindus who were driven out of Kashmir. No govt or media speaks for them. This is one of the reasons Narendra Modi has become an icon for Hindus. Caesar’s agents don’t seem to get this simple fact or happily choose to live in denial.
Most things that Barkha discussed on her show are worth the trash can. On December 11 she gently brought up the ‘Muslim’ agenda by asking if development is significant if there is “no justice”. This is as much a lie as any you can get from agents. Gujarat 2002 is probably the only communal riots where many have been convicted and punished. Increasingly, even BJP supporters wonder why people like Nirmala Sitharaman and others even appear on her agenda-driven shows. Any Muslim who mentions Modi favourably or appears with him is permanently tarred by the media, the Congress and by the NGO criminals who have made a killing with the riots story.
Irfan Pathan’s appearance on stage with Narendra Modi, Barkha couldn’t conceal her anguish. Even Sunetra Chaudhury of NDTV couldn’t conceal her contempt for this event in her tweets. So what riles up these folks? Even way back in 2007 when India won the T-20 world cup Narendra Modi’s govt had Are they suggesting he’s a Muslim first and not Indian first? And a successful cricketer? Muslims must guard against such clever spin. Caesar’s agents may not like it because all they want is that Narendra Modi be hanged sent to prison or at least apologise since they have already stuck the “convict badge” on him. Programs by the Barkhas and their tweets and other communication aren’t those of journalists. They sound more and more like electioneering lobbyists and people are able to see through their messages now. This is what bothers them. While harping on’s appearance on stage with Narendra Modi, Barkha couldn’t conceal her anguish. Even Sunetra Chaudhury of NDTV couldn’t conceal her contempt for this event in her tweets. So what riles up these folks? Even way back in 2007 when India won the T-20 world cup Narendra Modi’s govt had awarded 5 lakhs to the Pathan brothers. Modi applauds achievements of any Gujarati quite frequently. He lauds Sunita Williams, the Pathans and even those not from Gujarat. The media doesn’t seem to have any problems with Bollywood actors campaigning for Modi, so why a problem with Irfan Pathan?. Caesar’s agents may not like it because all they want is that Narendra Modi be hanged sent to prison or at least apologise since they have already stuck the “” on him. Programs by the Barkhas and their tweets and other communication aren’t those of journalists. They sound more and more like electioneering lobbyists and people are able to see through their messages now. This is what bothers them.
Then Barkha sits around wondering why her tweets and comments are questioned even by those who are blocked by her. That is laughable and can only come from a moron who doesn’t really know how twitter works or how public figures will always be assessed by people. By her stupid logic she should know that Narendra Modi has practically blocked her long back. He doesn’t give any interviews to her or any of the celebs from NDTV and yet she keeps hovering over 2002 and chasing Narendra Modi. Doesn’t she get his message? Actually, the more Barkha rants against Modi the more he seems to get popular and she doesn’t even get that. Real question is not whether Muslims have moved on from 2002. It is whether Barkha has moved on from 2002, from Radiagate. It’s whether she has moved on from the ‘Shoddy Journalism’ episode. It is whether she has moved on from the Chaitanya Kunte episode.
As clever as Tortuous Convolvulus was, he failed to destroy the spirit and unity of the Gauls or their fierce defence of their little village against the Romans. The Roman agents from Delhi keep turning up in Gujarat as a regular ritual before every election. And yes, they do go back severely exposed and feeling stupid like TC. Convolvulus was clever and deceitful enough to escape the lions but I wonder if our Roman agents can escape the lions from Gujarat.The latest shipment of special edition CZ858 “Spartan” rifles have been declared prohibited by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
In a move by the RCMP, the latest shipment of special edition CZ858 Tactical-2P “Spartan” rifles have been declared prohibited as “converted automatics”.
The rifles, which are a special-production run for Wolverine Supplies, feature a Greek helmet and the text Molon Labe in Greek letters – a common phrase of defiance that translates to “Come and Take Them” – etched into the breech block receiver and wooden butt stock. It also sports a Canadian maple leaf on the pistol grip and handguard.
According to the Regulations Prescribing Certain Firearms and Other Weapons, Components and Parts of Weapons, Accessories, Cartridge Magazines, Ammunition and Projectiles as Prohibited, Restricted or Non-Restricted the CZ858 Tactical-2P rifle is legal. However, the RCMP claims that these particular examples of the Tactical-2P are not the same because the Molon Labe, Spartan, and Canadian maple leaf markings are not on the original – thus these are “CZ858 Tactical-2P Spartan Limited Edition Proofed 2007 Or Later”, which is not specifically named as an exemption according to Regulations.
The RCMP FRT entry also states that the “‘CZ858 Tactical-2P’ firearm proofed 2007 can be converted to a fully automatic firearm in a relatively short period of time with relative ease”.
This is an egregious attempt by the RCMP to prohibit completely legal firearms with a “gotcha” technicality by attributing a new model name to the firearm based upon the furniture of the rifle and claiming that new model name is not exempted by the Regulations in addition to utilizing the same “converted automatic” tactic they had used in 2014 to originally prohibit all CZ858 rifles, a decision that was overruled by then-Public Safety Minister Steve Blaney who has announced his consideration to run for leader of the Conservative Party of Canada.
Wolverine Supplies is currently seeking legal advice and is offering full refunds to anyone who has pre-ordered the affected rifle. The FRT Report can be found below.When a roundup of tutorials is done, they usual focus on one specific area of design, development or coding. However we at Pelfusion know that a lot of our web developers have their fingers in more then one area of development. So, we’ve dedicated this article to the development of fantastic blogs and website.
We have focused on finding articles based on the following areas of web development:
CSS 3
WordPress
Jquery
Whether you have just started in web development or if you’re a pro, or if you want to just improve your skills, then these tutorials are for you. We, at Pelfusion, believe that 2010 is the year for all of us to go beyond our boundaries and really focus on working on our skills. CSS 3 and Jquery are the tools you need to take your web design skills and really boost them to the next level. For wordpress, we’ve included all of the tricks of the trade you need to give your blog that cutting edge that is demanded in this new year.
This article focuses on the BEST tutorials for each field, so we hope you enjoy it and if you have any other tutorials to suggest, please feel free to let us know.
CSS 3 Tutorials
Not everything in this article is practical, or even bug-free, but it’s a fun primer on what’s in the pipeline for Web design. To get the most from these examples, you’ll have to use Safari 4 or Chrome.
Why bother with CSS that has such limited support? It won’t always have limited support, and these articles are all about preparing for the future of web design (and just doing some really cool stuff).
Until the Advanced Layout and Grid Layout modules are implemented, we have to get by with the existing tricks of the trade. One of those is the use of faux columns, a background image which simulates equal-height columns.
In this article, the first of the articles that explore practical (and even far-fetched) implementation of CSS3, we start by applying CSS3 to something we all have to create: buttons.
There are exciting new features in the pipeline for Cascading Style Sheets that will allow for an explosion of creativity in Web design.
6. CSS Trick Hidden Messages
Here’s a cool little CSS 3 trick for hiding messages within your text. We’re going to be using the ::selection declaration to change the colour of the text on selection.
Everyone who has been using CSS is immediately familiar with selectors as they are what is used to target elements on a page and style them. CSS3 brings even more options as far as selecting elements goes.
If you’ve been doing CSS for a while you’ll know that there are approximately 3,762 ways to create a rounded corner box. The simplest techniques rely on the addition of extra mark-up directly to your page, while the more complicated ones add the mark-up though DOM manipulation.
“I’ve included quite a lot of other CSS3 into the mix. There is liberal use of box-shadow to give the allusion of depth on the windows and title bar. Rounded corners have been added to windows.”
By combining the CSS3 Box Shadow and Rotate properties, this effect is relatively easy to create.
In this article, the first of a two-part series, we will look at attribute selectors and how do they allow us to better style portions of a Web documents.
Transform:rotate is a new feature of CSS 3 which lets you… well, rotate stuff. Transform will also allow you to scale, skew and translate (move) objects in your web page.
One of the CSS3 properties designers have been longing the most for is undoubtedly the border-radius property. With CSS3 border-radius property it’s possible to create the so popular rectangles with rounded corners exclusively via CSS – no images needed.
First we’ll create the markup, then the CSS and then we’ll use jQuery to open and close our vertical sliding panel.
We’ve all had to achieve some effect that required an extra handful of divs or PNGs. We shouldn’t be limited to these old techniques when there’s a new age coming.
This article is a summary of a 3 fast and easy CSS techniques you can use to display only a portion of an image in your content. All techniques explained here actually need only couple of lines of CSS.
The letterpress effect is becoming hugely popular in web design, and with a couple of modern browsers now showing support for the text-shadow CSS3 property it’s now simple and easy to create the effect with pure CSS.
18. Text Embossing techniques with CSS
I give you the rules around how to correctly add an embossed effect to any text depending on the colors used.
Text Gradient is a simple css trick that allows you to improve your site’s appearance by putting gradients on system font titles using nothing but css and a png image.
WordPress Tutorials
For our blog, MaxPower, we needed to have certain articles ’stay at the top’ longer than others.
A short video tutorial on how to make a wordpress plugin.
22. How to make a random post button
Ever wanted to have a “Random Post” link or button in your sidebar but you don’t know where to start? Well, today I’m going to show you how to do it.
I’m going to show you how to sell more ad spaces by adding stats to your WordPress blog’s Advertise page.
Multiple layouts can always be achieved with custom page templates, but to keep things clean and economical, it’s much better to rely on one global template (”page.php”) if you can get away with it. So how will it work?
In this “Wordpress Hack” you’ll learn how to create a custom 404 Error page for your blog. It’s helps your visitors find what they need, and also helps you not lose visitors!
Your blog is online accessible to anyone in the world. Translating blog posts and pages increases your audience and monetization capabilities by at least ten-fold!
A fun part of customizing WordPress themes is designing a comments format which complements the rest of the site.
Organize your wordpress blog by setting up a post series people can follow for specific topics.
Here’s a good idea to make your readers visit your blog more often, or suscribe to your rss feed: What about listing the title of your scheduled posts? If you’re interested to do so, just read this recipe.
If you are wondering how some webmasters or bloggers create this little peel away effect on the top right corner of their website.
It’s cool to have the WordPress login page customized to fit your own website branding.
While making the redesign for this blog I wanted to highlight the category in the navigation when browsing the specified category as well as keeping it highlighted when on the a single post added to that category.
Add Gravatars to your WordPress theme. Gravatars are a quick way to add a personal touch to your blog comments by displaying the avatar of the commenter alongside their comment.
Although WordPress has a *very* extensive plug-in collection, now and again things come up for which there are no suitable plug-ins available (yet).
Recently I had my blog posts divided into three columns with different blog posts appearing in each one. I’ve now switched back to two columns, putting my blog design/tech posts in one and my personal/life posts in the other.
If a commenter knows the email address of the blog author, she could use the blog owner’s email address in her comment and get her own comment highlighted.
To display Google AdSense ads (image ads or text ads) between your posts, log into your WordPress dashboard, go into your theme editor screen (see the red circle on the left in the image above to find your editor screen).
Jquery Tutorials
In this tutorial we will be taking your average everyday website and enhancing it with jQuery.
Animation and visual feedback are great ways to assist a user in navigating and interacting with a website.
In this tutorial we’ll create a poll using PHP and XHTML, then make use of some jQuery Ajax effects to eliminate the need for a page refresh, and to give it a nice little bit of animation.
40. Face-book style Lightbox
Facebox is a jQuery-based, Facebook-style lightbox which can display images, divs, or entire remote pages.
In this tutorial, I will show you how to make “filtering by category” a little more interesting with just a little bit of jQuery.
Tag-clouds are easy to do badly; whether from a design perspective or from a code perspective. Thanks to jQuery, it’s also easy to do well.
Here is a new approach: Using jQuery to reduce the size of the tag cloud that you have on your sites, so our demo will introduce “Hover Sub Tags” under each main Tag.
The more I learn about jQuery, the more natural it feels. Probably because of how closely tied to CSS it is.
I’m pleased to present you with part one of a two part series on creating a photo site using PHP, jQuery, and AJAX. Originally, I intended to fit the entire tutorial into one screencast, but that quickly became a pipe dream as I realized that there was simply too much to cover
With some custom JavaScript and jQuery magic you can create some interesting widgets. A good way to demonstrate this functionality is by building a browsable Amazon.com books widget.
In this tutorial I will be showing you how to create a style switcher using jQuery and PHP.
One struggle that still remains today in web design is displaying all of the redundant information on every page. For example, a login form. What if there was a way to easily make the content accessible on every page.
In this tutorial I’ll show you how to use jQuery to do some instant checking on an example comment form.
As a matter of usability and aesthetics, it is a good thing to add some kind of visual feedback on web forms to indicate the currently active (or “focused“) field.
First of all, you might ask yourself why you’d want to develop a plugin. The first and best reason is the ability to maintain chainability.
In this tutorial I’m going to show you how to quickly write a jQuery plugin that will replace the typical browser tooltip with something a little flashier.
53. Crafting an animated postcard with Jquery
In this tutorial we will learn the basics of setting up a continuous animation which can be applied pretty much anywhere.
We are going to build a header that animates it’s background. We will also encase the header in shadow for the little extra dramatic effect.Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) said Wednesday at a House Financial Services Committee hearing that people on the internet are trying to kill her.
The focus of the hearing was primarily centered around the financial aspects of terror plots, especially those that are deemed to be small-scale or “lone-wolf” threats, PJ Media noted.
Waters took advantage of the opportunity at the hearing and linked the KKK, white supremacists, and extremists to the “alt-right."
"I think we should focus a lot on domestic terrorism also,” Waters said. “So I would like to ask again, given all that you have said about how difficult it is and the privacy concerns, do you have any thoughts about what we can do to begin to deal with the KKK, the white nationalists, the — the extremists, the alt-right?"
Waters then ratcheted up her normal level of crazy — the level where she claims "Russia is invading North Korea" — by stating, without evidence, that right-wing media is trying to kill her.
"They're on the internet, Breitbart, if you look at YouTube, you see how much they want to kill me and others. What can we do? Anybody, any one of you," Waters said.
Waters — whose only purpose seems to be calling for President Donald Trump’s impeachment — is no stranger to making ridiculous remarks.
In mid-August, Waters lumped two members of President Trump’s administration — African American HUD Secretary Ben Carson and Jewish Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin — in with KKK members and Nazis.
Waters, who previously called President Trump’s cabinet a “bunch of scumbags,” said in early August on ABC’s The View that she was “so glad” that people are leaking damaging information on the Trump administration and that she doesn’t care if the leak information jeopardizes national security.
Follow Ryan Saavedra on TwitterCongress will shut down on Thursday, and leaders have told lawmakers the Defense Department will fly them to Florida for the funeral of Rep. C.W. Bill Young, who died late last week.
Mr. Young was the senior Republican in the chamber, and the move to close down business is a mark of respect for him — though it also means that there will be no floor votes and that many committee meetings have been canceled, cutting short what was already a mostly empty week. The House’s hearing examining the health exchange rollout will continue as planned, however.
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After passing a deal to raise the debt ceiling and reopen government, the Senate went on an 11-day vacation. The House was slated to be in Tuesday evening through Thursday but will now just be in for a day and a half, with the chief business a vote on a public works legislation.
House officials told lawmakers to be ready to leave Washington from Joint Base Andrews early Thursday to make the funeral in Largo, Fla., and then plan to return late in the evening.
A Pentagon spokesman couldn’t say how much it will cost to fly the members to Florida for the funeral.
“We are currently evaluating options for support. Because no aircraft has been designated at this time, I can’t provide any additional information on cost,” said Cmdr. Bill Urban.
The move comes the week after Congress took heat for including a $174,000 payment to the widow of multimillionaire Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg, who died earlier this year, leaving an estate estimated at more than $50 million.
Mr. Young’s estimated wealth was far less than Mr. Lautenberg’s, and it’s likely his widow, Beverly, will get a similar death gratuity payment, which is a regular occurrence when members of Congress die in office.From sea to shining sea, Brittany has steadily carved out a reputation as one of our nation's most prolific dick takers, particularly the anal variety. Sometimes the plain old lovemaking sessions can get really boring, and that is exactly where we would love to step in!
She masturbate her sweet pussy and it looks very exciting! We have no control over the content of these pages. Today's update is all about Lily Sincere. Foxy redhead Jodi Taylor and her brunette sweetheart, Paisley Parker, are always looking for new experiences. Noelle is such a.. Some choose to hide their faces, but none are shy about letting the camera soak up their booties.
Look, her friend licks her backside so hard and with passion, she likes.. More guys than ever are crazy for curvy chicks with lots of junk in the trunk and we have plenty of thick amateur chicks with fat asses to offer up for your pleasure. For related inquiries please contact each gallery site owner individually. This babe graced us with her..It was an outrageous—and ultimately false—story of 20 teens in a small high school in Texas having chlamydia that finally got media outlets to discuss whether kids need medically accurate information.
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In recent weeks, numerous media reports have questioned whether abstinence-only-until-marriage programs are failing our high school students and leaving them vulnerable to sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and unintended pregnancies. Interestingly, it was not new statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showing the record high number of STIs among teens across the country, nor was it the mountains of research showing abstinence-only programs don’t work that made news. It wasn’t even the increased funding that Congress quietly passed for these failing programs last month that put this type of sex education in the spotlight. Instead, it was an outrageous—and ultimately false—story of 20 teens in a small high school in Texas having chlamydia that got media outlets, including the Washington Post, the U.S. News and World Report, People.com, and The View, to discuss whether kids need medically accurate information.
I appreciate the attention on this issue, and I hope the debate can go on even as we begin to learn the truth about what’s happening in Crane, Texas. But I am disappointed that yet again, the mainstream media and general public seem only to pay attention to teens’ sexual health needs when we can tie them to a situation so alarming or scandalous it can practically write its own headline.
This story began in early May, when the superintendent of the Crane Independent School District, Jim Rumage, sent a letter to parents alerting them that chlamydia was “on the rise” in the local high school. According to reports, the letter said that about 20 students out of the 300 in the school had tested positive for this bacterial STI. The article that ran on a local news website said that the CDC had declared this to be “epidemic proportions.” Rumage told reporters, “We do have an abstinence curriculum, and that’s evidently ain’t working. [sic] We need to do all we can, although it’s the parents’ responsibility to educate their kids on sexual education.”
From there the story took off, with articles and television pieces across the country and even internationally questioning how so many students could have an STI. (Rewire covered it in a podcast.) Most, like Rumage himself, ended up blaming the school’s poor sex education. Raw Story, for example, scoured the district’s website and pointed out that although the school does not offer a human sexuality course, it does run an optional three-day program that focuses on remaining abstinent until marriage. That story also noted that in 2012, an advisory panel recommended that the school adopt Worth the Wait, an abstinence curriculum produced by Scott and White Hospital in Texas that relies on fear and shame and suggests condoms provide very little protection from STIs.
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This is not out of the ordinary for Texas, which has a long history of abstinence-only programs. When former President George W. Bush was governor, he started the Lone Star Leaders, one of the first state programs promoting abstinence until marriage. According to the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), Texas has spent a total of $156 million in state and local funds on abstinence-only programs since 2003. And in March, the Texas House of Representatives voted to cut $3 million of funds currently allocated for HIV and STI prevention and devote them instead to abstinence-only programs, despite the fact that their state has the third-highest rate of HIV diagnoses in the country.
Though much of this abstinence funding is used outside of schools, Texas schools do often take a similar approach to sexuality education. State law does not mandate any sexuality education, but does say that it must focus on abstinence if it is taught. Though schools can discuss contraception and STIs, the law says that class must “devote more attention to abstinence from sexual activity than to any other behavior.” Moreover, the laws says that courses must “emphasize that abstinence from sexual activity, if used consistently and correctly, is the only method that is 100 percent effective in preventing pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), infection with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) or acquired immune deficiency syndrome.”
It appears that superintendent Rumage agrees with this aspect of the law. He told a local paper: “If kids are not having any sexual activity, they can’t get this disease … That’s not a bad program.”
I suppose he’s not entirely wrong. If his students weren’t having sex, they could not get chlamydia. But clearly they are not being abstinent, nor are their peers across Texas. According to the CDC’s 2013 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 43 percent of high school girls and 49 percent of high school boys in Texas have engaged in sexual intercourse. Texas also has the third-highest rate of teen pregnancy across the country. And, in 2012, there were nearly 40,000 cases of chlamydia among teenagers 15 and older reported in Texas.
These statistics should be enough to get everyone paying attention to the poor sexual health of teens in Texas, and similar statistics are available for states across the country. But the media tends to gloss over these health indicators or report them in a brief news story without ever investigating what we are doing wrong. Apparently, it takes a story like Crane to make the general public take notice.
Only what we have learned since the story broke is that the “outbreak” of chlamydia that was reported in Crane was greatly exaggerated. Some reporters began questioning the numbers because the local health department listed only eight cases of chlamydia in the whole county. Rumage has since agreed that his number was incorrect and explained that he got his information from a local doctor and that he misheard or possibly misunderstood. When the doctor said that more than 20 students had |
0:35:22 – Chief Engineer 0:38:18 – Ensoul Artifact 0:41:26 – Jace, the Living Guildpact 0:46:21 – Military Intelligence 0:48:46 – Soul of Ravnica 0:51:44 – Cruel Sadist 0:54:10 – Indulgent Tormentor 0:58:45 – Necromancer’s Stockpile 0:59:30 – Soul of Innistrad 1:04:15 – Act on Impulse 1:07:54 – Aggressive Mining 1:09:33 – Altac Bloodseeker 1:14:08 – Borderland Marauder 1:18:07 – Generator Servant 1:24:18 – Stoke the Flames 1:27:47 – Goblin Rabblemaster 1:24:31 – Soul of Shandalar 1:43:27 – Hornet Nest 1:50:10 – Reclamation Sage 1:53:15 – Nissa, Worldwaker 2:02:07 – Soul of Zendikar 2:04:38 – Yisan, the Wanderer Bard 2:08:26 – Perilous Vault 2:12:33 – Scuttling Doom Engine 2:13:50 – Soul of New Phyrexia 2:23:53 – Sunblade Elf 2:27:19 – Garruk, Apex Predator 2:37:45 – Notable Reprints (the painlands, Chandra, Chord of Calling, Elvish Mystic, Hornet Queen, Phyrexian Revoker, Restock, Urborg)
Links
MaRo’s comic about Ensoul Artifact
CardboardCrack’s comic about black removal at common
Pirates vs. Ninjas Duel Deck
Promos for the M15 Game Day
Mark’s set review at MTGS
The RSS feed for the show: http://manadeprived.com/podcasts/mtgin3d/feed/
For further discussion: MTGin3D – e-mail (mtgin3d@gmail.com)
twitter (@mtgin3d)
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Arthur – cube list (http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/7597)
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Pedro – cube list (http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/266)
Intro: “Something Elated” by Broke for Free Available at http://goo.gl/W8o9w
Outro: “Drops of H2O (The Filtered Water Treatment)” by J.Lang
Available at http://goo.gl/toizjH
Both under CC BY license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
MI3 logo by Bernardo Lopo
We are always looking for feedback, let us know what you think about the show! 🙂The rockets which would make up the NATO missile-shield unit in Poland and the CEE region, have been successfully tested in Hawaii.
A successful test of the antiballistic SM-3 missile was conducted on Thursday.
The rockets will be used as part of a NATO missile defence shield in the CEE region, including Poland.
“The Missile Defense Agency conducted the first intercept test of a Raytheon Land-Based Standard Missile-3 Block IB from the Aegis Ashore Missile Defense Test Complex. The SM-3 destroyed an intermediate range ballistic missile target in space by using remote track data from [a] ballistic missile defense radar in a 'launch-on-remote' engagement,” read a press statement released by Raytheon, a US defence contractor.
The missile base will become operational in line with plans, and will be launched later this year in Romania.
A base in Redzikowo, northern Poland should also become operational by 2018.
In September, the Sejm lower house of Parliament authorised the president to ratify the technical agreement on the Redzikowo base with the United States. (rg/rk)Eric Bishop, a middle-aged postman working for the Manchester sorting office, is going through a dreadful crisis. For starters, his second life companion has not resurfaced although she was released from prison a few months ago. He is left alone with two stepsons to look after, which is no bed of roses since the two teens disrespect him and keep disobeying him. To make matters worse, Ryan, the older boy, fascinated by Zac, a dangerous gangster, has accepted to hide his gun in Eric's house. On the other hand, he is asked by Sam, his student daughter who has a newborn baby, to get back in touch with Lily, his separated wife. Now, Eric left her not long after she gave back to their daughter. As a result Eric panics... Having lost all his bearings, Eric Bishop soliloquizes face to the poster of his idol, another Eric, French footballer Eric Cantona, when the latter appears just like the genie out of Aladdin's lamp. Through a series of aphorisms peculiar to him, the footballer-philosopher... Written by Guy BellingerBank of America, the nation’s biggest bank, announced Tuesday that operating profit rebounded in the third quarter, helped by improved credit conditions among consumers and businesses.
On a noncash basis for the quarter, the bank reported a loss of $7.3 billion because of a $10.4 billion write-down in the value of its credit card unit, attributed to federal regulations that limit debit fees and other charges.
Without the one-time charge, the bank earned $3.1 billion, or 27 cents a share. Wall Street had been expecting earnings of 16 cents a share, according to Thomson Reuters.
Analysts said the improving credit environment was a healthy sign, both for the bank and the broader economy. The bank set aside $5.4 billion in the quarter for credit losses, $2.7 billion less than the previous quarter and $6.3 billion less than the period a year ago.
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“The biggest thing is that credit quality improved way more than anybody thought,” said Chris Kotowski, an analyst with Oppenheimer & Company. “That is the holy grail — anything else you can deal with. The one thing that kills value for banking institutions is when credit quality spirals out of control, so this should be the key to the stock doing well for the next year or two.”Holding cardboard signs and passing flyers to pedestrians, over 20 students staged a protest outside of the Citibank on Broadway and 112th Street Tuesday morning.
The demonstration, which lasted just under an hour, was to protest Citibank's funding of the Dakota Access Pipeline, an oil pipeline slated to pass under the Standing Rock Indian Reservation's reservoir that has come under fire from activists nationwide. DAPL protesters across the U.S. have been arrested for occupying Citibank locations in recent weeks.
Citibank was the only bank with toll-free ATMs on Columbia's Morningside Heights campus until last spring, when Campus Services replaced the on-campus Citibank with Santander. Santander is not invested in DAPL.
At Tuesday's protest, students chanted, "What do we want? To defund DAPL. When do we want it? Now," and "Fuck you, Citi, fuck your stock, we stand with Standing Rock."
The group's aim was to raise awareness of the bank's involvement in DAPL in order to convince Citibank customers to withdraw from their accounts. Flyers handed out by the group also encouraged people to move money to the Lion Credit Union Initiative, a credit union for members of the Columbia community. None of the protesters, however, were affiliated with the credit union.
"When a lot of people came here they opened an account with Citi because it was the only one with no ATM fees, so we thought Citi would be a really good target for that reason," Lili Brown, BC '18, said. "We mostly just wanted people to close their accounts."
Brown added that several students at the protest closed their accounts with Citibank on Tuesday.
Citibank responded to criticism last month in a statement saying that the bank is monitoring engagement between Standing Rock communities and the federal government and has advocated for a review of the project with the Sioux tribe.
After protesting outside Citibank, students marched up Broadway while chanting until they reached College Walk, where the protest ended.
Although the protest was not organized by a single student group, some protesters were members of activist groups including Columbia Divest for Climate Justice and Barnard Columbia Solidarity Network, both of which have advocated for the rights of indigenous people in the past.
aaron.holmes@columbiaspectator.com | @AaronPHolmesclick to enlarge Image via YouTube
Good riddance.
While authorities are at it, they might look into his repeated use of his radio program to promote his own state House candidacy before Nov. 8. Under Illinois election law, donated time on public airwaves for a candidate’s promotion constitutes an in-kind campaign donation and must be reported on required campaign finance reports. Romanik made no such declaration.
The "Grim Reaper of Radio" says it's time to hang up his scythe."We’re going to go back to country music," shock jock Bob Romanik said during his 10 a.m. broadcast yesterday on KQQZ (1190 AM). "We tried this format, but see with this format you have to get in step with everybody else. You can’t be your own person, you can’t tell the truth, you gotta be politically correct."In other words: If he's going to face blowback for saying "n*gger" on the air, he quits.Earlier this week, thereported that Romanik had called the rapper Waka Flaka Flame a "greasy black n*gger son-of-a-bitch" during an on-air tirade last month. That story drew calls for FCC intervention, as well as a campaign to target his advertisers.A conservative firebrand in the mold of Rush Limbaugh, Romanik subsequently dedicated much his airtime to defending — and repeating, over and over and over again — the N-word. "I’m going to take that First Amendment right and I’m going to exercise that sumbitch, I’m going to exercise that First Amendment right until it looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger," Romanik thundered to his listeners.... Or at least until it affects his bottom line.According to Romanik, he was justified in labeling the rapper with the slur because Waka Flaka Flame had taken a concertgoer's Donald Trump jersey and used it to wipe his bare ass. Over the course of three shows this week, Romanik veered between defending the slur and taking calls from supporters, several of whom introduced themselves on-air by stating they were "proud" white men who agreed with Romanik's worldview.In Romanik's mind, when he and other "proud white people" use the the N-word, they're patriots exercising their First Amendment rights.Romanik's basic defense was to whine — not only that the First Amendment gave him the right to say anything he wanted on air, but that it was simply an expression of personal honesty to append the fully-pronounced slur to any black person who offended his sensibilities."If you say cracker or honky to a white race, I won’t get any heat, but let me say n*gger one time," Romanik said later in the show. "A black person can use the word and a white person can’t? How discriminatory is that?" As we reported yesterday, Romanik's insistent use of the racial slur prompted concerned listeners to contact his advertisers. And on Tuesday, theeditorial board called on the FCC to put a stop to the radio man's runaway mouth.The editorial board added,Announcing the change in format, Romanik said that the show would shift to country music in the next few days."We’re going back to our great country," he said, "and it’s going to be better than ever."Once again, Bob Romanik is having the last laugh.As it turns out, news of the shock jock's demise was premature. Although Romanik stated on-air Wednesday that he was "changing the format" of the KQQZ (1190 AM) back to its previous iteration as a country music channell,Romanik returned to the subject this morning, declaring in no uncertain terms that he and his show are sticking around."I'll be on every day," Romanik said, explaining that the "change in format" would only apply to the syndicated content on the station, which includes news dispatches and nationally distributed conservative talk shows."I ain't going to quit talking and saying what I want until they cut my tongue out and put me six foot under," added the radio host.This author also came in for a personal drubbing. "The trash, they just put out an article, and it shows ya that these idiots don't know what the hell they're doing. I appreciate the publicity but... 'Bob Romanik announces end of radio show under fire of racial slurs,' by Danny Wizen... he is a stupid Polack. And I'm part Polish and I'm ashamed to be Polack. Danny Wicen...towski. You're a damn liar."During Thursday's show, Romanik also used the N-word multiple times and repeated his belief that doing so did not make him a racist.This article is about the wardrobe malfunction. For other uses, see Wedge
A male receiving a wedgie
A wedgie is the act of forcibly pulling a person's underwear upwards from the back. The act is often performed as a school prank or a form of bullying.
Wedgies are commonly featured in popular works, either as a form of low comedy or as a behaviour representative of bullying. In such works, briefs are usually the type of underpants that are worn by the victim.[1][2]
Dangers
Wedgies, especially when performed on males, can be dangerous, potentially causing testicular or scrotal damage. An incident in 2004 involving a ten-year-old boy required reattachment of a testicle to the scrotum.[3]
Variations
A female receiving a regular wedgie
As a prank or form of bullying, there are a number of variants to the normal, or traditional wedgie. It is impractical to list every variant, as the names and processes can be rather subjective; however, there are a few better-known variants of the wedgie.
The melvin is a variant where the victim's underwear is pulled up from the front, to cause injury, or, at least, severe pain to the victim's genitals. [4] The female variant is sometimes called a minerva.
is a variant where the victim's underwear is pulled up from the front, to cause injury, or, at least, severe pain to the victim's genitals. The female variant is sometimes called a. The atomic wedgie entails hoisting the waistband of the receiver's underwear up and over their heads. [4] This form is the title character's signature prank from The Mask: The Animated Series.
entails hoisting the waistband of the receiver's underwear up and over their heads. This form is the title character's signature prank from. The hanging wedgie is a variant in which the victim is hung from his or her underwear, elevated above the ground.[5]
See alsoSpeculations are growing that the economic toll from Hurricane Harvey could soon make it the second-costliest natural disaster in US history, trailing only the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
The price tag of Harvey is estimated by economic researchers, including the national forecasting firm Moody’s Analytics to be $81 billion to $108 billion or more, most of that in damage to homes and commercial property.
That would be larger than the hit from Hurricane Sandy in 2012 but less than Katrina, which inflicted $175 billion in damage and lost economic activity, the Los Angeles Times reported in a report.
Although the brunt of Harvey’s cost will be borne in southeast Texas, particularly the sprawling Houston area, the effects will be felt more broadly.
Motorists across the country can expect to pay more for gas, at least for a while, and consumer spending overall could fall a bit as well, the report added. US exports could see a slight drop from the temporary closure of one of the nation’s busiest ports.
All in all, Harvey is likely to sap some momentum from the American economy, which went into the summer chugging along in its ninth year of expansion, added the Los Angeles Times in its report.
It remains to be seen how long it will be before businesses and workers can get back on their feet. The longer it takes, the bigger the blow to near-term economic growth, in lost wages, sales and consumer spending.
Harvey swept through a large swath of southeast Texas — at least 19 counties have been declared major disaster areas by the federal government. More than 32,000 people have been housed in shelters, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency is expecting nearly a half million people to seek some sort of disaster aid.
Moody’s estimated that as many as 700,000 vehicles and 400,000 homes were significantly damaged. Most homeowners did not have flood insurance, so their personal spending will be constrained.
Harvey came on the 12th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, which made landfall in 2005 in southeast Louisiana and killed 1,800 people.JAMMU: The police on Sunday shifted Rukhsana Kausar, the young Kashmiri girl who shot dead a dreaded LeT terrorist at her residence in Rajouri last week, to district police line there after she expressed fears over her safety."Rukhsana's family has been shifted from remote Kalsia-Thanamdani belt to high security DPL. Two police quarters have been given to the 12-member family as a security measure," a police officer said."My family should be shifted from here. They should be given some accommodation at Rajouri and security should be provided them there. We are unsafe here now," 22-year-old Rukhsana had told reporters in Rajouri on Friday before leaving for New Delhi where she was felicitated."Now, militants can target us again. This security would not be sufficient as they want to take revenge from us", she said.Police has not only provided them housing facilities, but also mobile escorts for their movement with personal security officers (PSOs).The children of the family and Rukhsana have been provided with 2 PSOs and they are being given security by mobile escorts where ever they move in the area.Ministers are expected to weigh up whether they should hold the same-sex marriage referendum on its own or in tandem with a byelection and other pending referendums.
The byelection to fill the Dáil seat vacated by European commissioner Phil Hogan must take place by the end of April, while the Government has consistently said the same-sex vote will take place next spring.
A number of other referendums, arising out of recommendations made by the constitutional convention, are also outstanding. These include lowering the voting age from 18 to 16; reducing the age candidates must be to contest the presidential election from 35 to 21; and removing the offence of blasphemy from the Constitution.
While the likely scenario is holding the Carlow-Kilkenny byelection and same-sex marriage, voting age and presidential candidate referendums on the same day, a final decision had not yet been made. The issue is expected to be discussed today by Ministers at their final meeting before Christmas.
Sensitive issues
The latest Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll showed support for same-sex marriage is rising steadily, with 71 per cent saying they would vote in favour of it.
However, Fine Gael and Labour figures believe the support is soft and are wary of complacency following the 2012 children’s referendum. It passed on a very small turnout after support ebbed away in the months leading up to polling day. The Government intends that the Child and Family Relationships Bill, which provides for the adoption of children by same-sex couples, will be passed into law by the time the referendum takes place.
It hoped this would prevent the issue of adoption by same- sex couples featuring in the referendum debate. According to sources, internal party research has shown support for same-sex marriage drops when the issues cross over.On the eve of International Women’s Day, President Hamid Karzai has given Afghan women an unwelcome present: the message that they are second-class citizens.
In remarks made Tuesday, Karzai backed a “code of conduct” written by the Ulema Council of 150 leading Muslim clerics. It could dramatically restrict women’s daily lives and threaten a return to the dark days of Taliban rule.
“Men are fundamental and women are secondary,” the council said in its statement released last week, and later published on Karzai’s own website.
The move appears aimed at enticing the Taliban into the peace process — but also gives pause to Canada and other countries that have supported efforts to advance women’s rights in the land they fought to take back from the extremists.
“These reports are of serious concern to Canada,” said a statement from Joseph Lavoie, press secretary to Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird. “We call on the Government of Afghanistan to uphold the provisions of Afghanistan’s constitution, which establishes equal rights for men and women, and to respect its obligations under international law.”
Since 2002, 158 Canadian soldiers have died in Afghanistan.
The Ulema Council’s code is part of a general framework for political issues. It was described as “voluntary” for women who are devout, and not legally binding.
It says women should not travel without a male guardian or mingle with men in public places such as schools, offices or markets. It also allows wife-beating in the case of a “sharia-compliant” reason, although it rejects forced marriage and the bartering of women to settle disputes.
In Kabul, Karzai said that the council had not put “any limitations” on women, and that it was only stating “the sharia law of all Muslims and all Afghans.” But some Muslim scholars have disputed the clerics’ strict interpretation.
“We want the correct Islam, not the Islam of politics,” activist Fatana Ishaq Gailani, a founder of the Afghanistan Women’s Council, told reporters in Kabul.
Before the 2001 invasion, Afghan women were confined to their homes and forced to wear burkas. Girls were not allowed to go to school, and females could not get medical attention from male doctors.
Since then women have made large strides, returning to work and school, starting businesses and taking part in the political process. But their lives are frequently at risk, and have become more difficult as security has frayed in recent months.
“Sixty-five per cent of the population is under the age of 25, and young women are not prepared to take it any more,” says Toronto author and journalist Sally Armstrong, who has written on Afghan women’s rights. “They are brave, and they march in the street. The message is ‘Karzai must go.’”
Karzai has been backtracking on women’s rights in recent years, as Western countries began to roll up their military operations. By 2014, most will have left the country, although they have pledged to continue support for its development.
“Karzai is between a rock and a hard place,” says Mark Sedra, an adjunct lecturer at University of Waterloo who studies Afghanistan. “He doesn’t want to end up like (Soviet-backed president Mohammad) Najibullah, who was left hanging from a lamp post,” years after the Soviet troops withdrew.
Other factions besides the Taliban are deeply conservative, Sedra added, and Karzai needs their support.
“It makes political sense to him to make these statements. He may be ridiculed in the West, but his position is tenuous now.”
That bodes ill for women, who will also have a harder struggle if Islamist factions gain ground.
“They will continue protesting,” said Armstrong. “They are raped, killed for producing girl children, beaten and harassed. They don’t have anything to lose.”Troops posted in the Siachen glacier have sent back to the base more than 63 tonne garbage since 2014 — the year Swachh Bharat Mission was launched, the Indian Army said on Tuesday.
These loads of garbage included packing material, barrels and perishables, an army statement said.
On arrival to disposal areas, the trash was buried in deep trenches dug mechanically in areas which are not on run of rivers and where landmass is not fragile.
“Siachen, the highest battlefield in the world, is a place where everything is ferried from the hinterland. It is a logistic challenge to move all types of waste out of the glacier, so that these do not become environmental hazard,” the statement said.
A huge amount of garbage has been brought back through man-pack loads, porters, ponies and sometimes returning helicopter ferries.
“Army continues to take steps to ensure hygiene at the highest battlefield...,” it said.
Working in close coordination with civil administration, students and locals, the troops of Ibex Brigade launched another drive in the border areas of Garhwal region under the recently conceived “Swacchata Hi Sewa” campaign. It will serve as a major awareness programme in the area.
The areas to be covered under the campaign range from the icy peaks of Mt. Kamet, border villages such as Niti, Malari and Manaand, and places of pilgrimage like Badrinath, Kedarnath, Gangotri and Yamunotri.
The soldiers would work in coordination with civil administration and locals to address garbage collection, plastic disposal, clearing drains and setting an example to achieve the goals of the campaign, the statement added.
A major cleanliness drive has been launched along the popular tourist tracks of Kedarnath, Bhavishyabadri and in enroute transit towns of Rudraparyag, Joshimath, Harsil and Gaurikund, aimed towards waste disposal and management and conserving precious water sources involving local priests, pilgrims, temple administration, municipality, police and local trade unions, among others.
First Published: Sep 20, 2017 00:19 ISTThis post at Reddit got me thinking about stories that make me cry, which then got me thinking about stories that make you cry. Thus, a poll.
What episode/story made you cry the most?
Given is a randomized list of most of the ones that got me – I left out a few that might indicate issues with my psychology. As an aid to memory, in the parentheses are some of the characters you may or may not have cried about.
Please pick the #1 most weepy one. If your top pick isn’t in the list, please mention it in the comments. Also feel free to elaborate in the comments what exactly got you, why, etc.
What episode/story made you cry the most? Doomsday (Ten/Rose) (21%, 42 Votes)
The Angels Take Manhattan (the Ponds) (17%, 34 Votes)
The End of Time (Ten/Wilf) (13%, 26 Votes)
Vincent and the Doctor (Van Gogh) (11%, 22 Votes)
Journey's End (Donna/Rose/Ten) (7%, 13 Votes)
The Parting of the Ways (Nine/Rose) (4%, 8 Votes)
The Last of the Time Lords (the Master/Ten) (4%, 8 Votes)
The Family of Blood (John/Joan/Martha) (4%, 7 Votes)
Father's Day (Rose/Pete) (3%, 6 Votes)
The Girl Who Waited (the Ponds) (3%, 5 Votes)
The Doctor's Wife (Eleven/TARDIS/the Ponds) (2%, 4 Votes)
The Girl in the Fireplace (Madame de Pompadour) (2%, 4 Votes)
Forest of the Dead (River/Ten) (2%, 3 Votes)
A Good Man Goes to War (the Ponds) (2%, 3 Votes)
Other - specify in comments (1%, 2 Votes)
The Doctor Dances (Nancy/Jamie) (1%, 2 Votes)
A Christmas Carol (Kazran/Abigail) (1%, 2 Votes)
Planet of the Ood (the Ood/Donna) (1%, 2 Votes)
The Fires of Pompeii (Donna/Ten/Caecilius's family) (1%, 1 Votes)
Asylum of the Daleks (Oswin/the Ponds) (1%, 1 Votes)
Dalek (Rose/the Dalek) (1%, 1 Votes)
The God Complex (Eleven/Amy/Rita) (1%, 1 Votes)
The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe (Madge) (0%, 0 Votes)
42 (Kath/Korwin) (0%, 0 Votes)
Gridlock (Face of Boe/Hame/Ten) (0%, 0 Votes)
Blink (Sally/Billy) (0%, 0 Votes)
Cold Blood (Rory/Amy) (0%, 0 Votes)
Turn Left (Donna/Colesanto) (0%, 0 Votes)
School Reunion (Sarah) (0%, 0 Votes)
Voyage of the Damned (the Van Hoffs/Astrid/Frame/Ten) (0%, 0 Votes)
Amy's Choice (Rory/Amy) (0%, 0 Votes)
The Big Bang (Eleven/Amelia/Rory/Amy) (0%, 0 Votes)
Earthshock (Adric) (0%, 0 Votes) Total Voters: 197Galindez writes: "When Sanders compared the invasion of Iraq to regime change in Iran, Chile, and Guatemala, he reassured the progressive base that he will not have an interventionist foreign policy."
Bernie and Jane Sanders. (photo: David Becker/Reuters)
Why Bernie Sanders Cleared a Path to Victory in 2nd Debate
By Scott Galindez, Reader Supported News
he pundits and many polls are saying Hillary Clinton won, and maybe for a week or two while Americans worry about ISIS they might be right. Maybe she did pass the commander in chief test. But let’s face it, when Democrats caucus and vote they will not be doing so based on foreign policy. Besides, Bernie Sanders did make waves on foreign policy in a manner that could just help him in the long run.
When Sanders compared the invasion of Iraq to regime change in Iran, Chile, and Guatemala, he reassured the progressive base that he will not have an interventionist foreign policy.
“The disagreement is, not only did I vote against the war in Iraq, if you look at history, you will find that regime change, whether it was in the 1950s in Iran, toppling Salvador Allende in Chile, overthrowing the government of Guatemala – these toppings of governments, regime change, have unintended consequences. On this issue I am a little more conservative than the secretary. I am not a big fan of regime change,” said Sanders as the watch party at Drake University exploded in cheers. In the debate hall there really wasn’t much reaction to anything throughout the debate. It was a reserved, establishment crowd.
But at the watch party as Sanders delivered that response you could hear “Whoa,” “Oh my,” and “Yes” coming from people who were happy to hear a candidate for the Democratic Party’s nomination for president admitting to US foreign policy mistakes in Iran, Chile and Guatemala.
When the media and the pundits try to determine who won debates, they are looking at the event through filters colored by the past. I think Bernie made a very important step in solidifying anti-war anti-intervention groups who were uneasy about some of his past votes on foreign policy. That was lost on the pundits.
“It’s the economy, stupid”
Remember when James Carville and the Clinton inner circle understood that and focused on it? Hillary Clinton can impress everyone with her diplomatic accomplishments all she wants, but they don’t pay the mortgage or the doctor bills and they won’t put your kids through college.
The big differences between the three Democratic candidates for president are not on ISIS (none of them want boots on the ground) or the Iran nuclear deal, which they all favor. The difference is how we are going to deal with economic inequality and who is best positioned to lead that fight. This is the area that Bernie Sanders clearly won in the debate. Was there a game changer? Probably not, but the seeds of doubt were planted.
One reason I think Sanders did enough is that he even polled well after the debate on the economy and economic inequality.
So who won on points? It was a Saturday night debate on CBS, so let’s use their overnight poll, since nobody else was watching – another blunder by the DNC.An underwater volcano shot ash and smoke miles into the air above Tonga this week, leading to many flight cancelations and frustrated travelers.
All flights to and from Tonga on Tuesday were canceled due to the underwater eruption, according to The New Zealand Herald. Officials on the island said all flights resumed Wednesday, but some flights from New Zealand were still unable to land, the report added.
Travel woes aside, the eruption has been a fascinating study for local scientists. The volcano, erupting near the uninhabited island Hunga Ha'apai, has created a large new island since it started erupting last month, Agence France-Presse reported.
(WATCH: Lava + Ocean = THIS )
"The new island is more than one kilometre wide, two kilometres long and about 100 metres high," said Tonga's lands and natural resources ministry in a statement.
The AFP also reported officials took a boat trip to the new island and discovered the new island is more than a kilometer wide and two kilometers long. They also observed the volcano erupting about every 5 minutes, spewing ash and rock thousands of feet into the air.
Acid rain and ash are having a negative effect on the nearby islands. Leaves on the trees of Hunga Ha'apai and Hunga Tonga have been killed by the toxic ash and gases, the AFP report also said.
The eruptions have continued through the rest of the week, leading to more flight cancelations, a separate New Zealand Herald report said.
MORE ON WEATHER.COM: An Underwater Volcano Eruption in TongaThe Syrian Arab Army’s 4th Mechanized Division – in coordination with Hezbollah, the National Defense Forces (NDF) of Aleppo City, Kataebat Al-Ba’ath (Al-Ba’ath Battalions), and several Iraqi and Iranian paramilitary units – imposed full control over the villages of Tal Mamou and ‘Aziziyah in the Aleppo Governorate’s southern countryside after intense firefights with the Islamist rebels from the Syrian Al-Qaeda group “Jabhat Al-Nusra”, Harakat Ahrar Al-Sham, Harakat Nouriddeen Al-Zinki, and Liwaa Suqour Al-Sham this morning.
According to a battlefield journalist reporting from southern Aleppo, the Syrian Armed Forces, Hezbollah, and their allies launched a powerful assault from their positions at the recently captured village of Kafr Haddad towards the village of ‘Aziziyah; this battle lasted no more than an hour and ended with the Islamist rebels retreating to the nearby village of Tal Mamou.
Not long after losing ‘Aziziyah, the Islamist rebels from Harakat Nouriddeen Al-Zinki, Jabhat Al-Nusra, and Harakat Ahrar Al-Sham would retreat from Tal Mamou following a fracture in their frontlines due to the joint assault by the Syrian Arab Army’s 4th Mechanized Division and Hezbollah; this loss for the Islamist rebels has allowed for the Syrian Armed Forces to advance west towards the strategic Aleppo-Damascus Highway (M-5 Highway).
On Saturday, the Syrian Armed Forces were able to position themselves for this assault on Tal Mamou and ‘Azizyah after they secured the road leading from Kafr Haddad to the aforementioned villages in the southern Aleppo countryside.
The objective of this Syrian Army offensive is to recapture the towns along the Aleppo-Damascus Highway in order to obstruct the Islamist rebels’ main supply route from the Idlib Governorate to the provincial capital of Aleppo.
AdvertisementsPretty much every modern router offers some kind of traffic prioritization scheme. Be that as it may, Linksys insists its WRT32X is different in that it is laser focused on provided lower ping times and less lag when gaming.
To accomplish that, Linksys teamed up with Rivet Networks and incorporated its Killer Prioritization Network (KPE) into this router. The claim is that KPE can reduce peak ping times by up to 77 percent. The caveat is that your PC or laptop will need a Killer network adapter.
"Killer reduces peak ping by 77 percent calculated from the reduction of peak ping rate from 74 milliseconds (ms) to 17 ms when using the Killer Prioritization Engine on the WRT32X and a Killer-enabled PC using a 10 megabits per second (Mbps) down/2Mbps up internet connection that has multiple devices consuming the 10Mbps connection," Linksys says.
Beyond its fancy KPE integration, this is a dual-band AC3200 MU-MIMO router rated to deliver up to 2600Mbps on the 5GHz band and up to 600Mbps on the 2.4GHz band.
Like most routers, it has a four GbE LAN ports on the back for wired connections. It also has a USB 3.0 port and an eSATA/USB 2.0 port for hooking up external devices, such as a shared printer or storage drive.
High end routers from Linksys are known for delivering decent range, and we suspect that will be the case here as well—the WRT32X has four external antennas. These are detachable in case you need to replace one or want to upgrade.
You can preroder the WRTX32X now for $300, down from its MSRP of $330. It will be available on September 21, 2017.An ongoing back issue has forced St George Illawarra Dragons centre Dylan Farrell to officially end his rugby league career.
The local Culburra Dolphins junior sustained a complex and ongoing back injury towards the end of the 2015 season and despite intensive rehabilitation has been unable to overcome the ailment.
Farrell, 25, made his first-grade debut for the Rabbitohs during the 2010 season and was named in the National Youth Competition “Team of the Year” for that year.
He joined the Dragons ahead of the 2014 campaign and played 19 first-grade games for the Club during his three year tenure for a total of 89 NRL games overall.
“It is not the way that I would have preferred to bow out but deep down I know it is the best decision for both my family and myself moving forward in the long run,” said Farrell.
“I have enjoyed every minute playing rugby league and wish I could have returned to the field but unfortunately it was not meant to be.”
Farrell has balanced his injury rehabilitation this season by being strongly involved |
He's starting to feel like a "grief mop", like his only real responsibility is to "bear witness" to death and suffering. Frank and his partner Larry (John Goodman) are attempting to resuscitate a heart attack victim as the movie begins, and as the man's daughter Mary (Patricia Arquette) looks on in horror, Larry is successful in pulling him back from death's door. The overrun hospital, however, shoves him into a corner and keeps him drugged up, shocking him back to "life" when necessary. Mary tells Frank she hadn't spoken to her father for a long while before his attack, and in fact had often wished he were dead, but that now there's nothing she'd like more that to just hear his voice again. She was once a junkie but has now been clean for months, she tells him. Frank seems moved by Mary, seems to want to "save" her -- perhaps he thinks if he can save her, he will be able to let go of the pain of losing Rose.
Frank's developing feelings for Mary provide a counterpoint to the insanity he encounters on emergency calls with his partners Larry (John Goodman), Marcus (Ving Rhames), and Walls (Tom Sizemore). Sometimes the calls involve merely picking up the local smelly drunk Mr. O, their "most frequent flier" who seems to think the hospital is a nice place to sober up. Other times they involve matters that are much more serious, like resuscitating a heroin OD in a club (a great scene) or assisting in the allegedly virgin birth of twins (haunting, and one of the movie's many examples of religious imagery). But no matter where Frank goes, he sees Roses' face -- he sees her everywhere, she comes to him in the guise of the nameless street people that cross his path.
There really is no plot to "Bringing Out The Dead", and that's a good thing because the movie isn't meant to be a straightforward narrative. It's meant to be a snapshot of a man's soul, of his inner demons, and a conventional plot would only cloud the movie's real point. The narrative thrust comes mostly from Frank's interactions with his partners -- each of them representing a different approach, a different way of dealing with the pain brought on by this nerve wracking job. Larry (Goodman) seems to be able to block out the emotional aspects of his job, he seems to see his position mainly as a means to an end, and in fact he tells Frank he'll be a captain one day. Marcus (Ving Rhames, in a scene stealing performance) puts all trust and faith in God, believing that if someone dies, it's just their time to go. Walls (a scarily effective Tom Sizemore) is a borderline psychotic, terrorizing patients (including dread locked street person Noel, well played by singer Mark Anthony) and bashing in his ambulance headlights with a baseball bat.
If these three provide the kinetic thrust of the movie, Frank and Mary provide it's emotional center. Frank finds himself drawn closer and closer to Mary, and in fact he tries to rescue her when she resorts to visiting scummy drug dealer Cy Coates (the excellent Cliff Curtis) at the Oasis, a scarily shot urban hellhole that seems to be a local haven for drug dealing. She needs some respite, however temporary and narcotic, from the pain, and in this sense she has a link with Frank (who drinks on the job and taps into his own medical supplies to get high). The movie seems to be saying that these two people need each other; perhaps each has what is needed to soothe the other's hurt.
"Bringing Out The Dead" is the fourth collaboration between Scorsese and screenwriter Paul Schrader, and it touches on their familiar themes of faith, guilt, hope, and redemption. Much has been written about the similarities between this film and "Taxi Driver", Scorsese's 1976 ode to urban rot. I feel these similarities are somewhat superficial. Though Frank and Travis Bickle are both lonely, disenfranchised, ill people, Frank wants to help people; Bickle just wants to clean the "trash" up off the streets. Bickle lashes out in rage; Frank lashes out in fear and desperation. Schrader's screenplay offers satisfying levels of complexity, so that ultimately, towards the end, when Frank does something totally unexpected and morally ambiguous, we understand exactly why he's doing it and can sympathize.
Of course, from a technical standpoint "Bringing Out The Dead" is flawless. Ace lensman Robert Richardson (who previously worked with Scorsese on "Casino") gives the city an appropriately gloomy, sick look, and his work is especially effective in a scene in which Cy dangles from a sixteenth floor balcony while fireworks explode behind him. Thelma Schoonmaker's expert editing is, as usual, outstanding -- she gives the fast paced scenes the charge they need, and provides some dizzying sped up camera effects during the emergency call scenes. Scorsese's choice of music is great, as is his work with the actors. Sizemore, Anthony, Curtis, Arquette, and especially Rhames are all good, but it's Cage who must hold the movie together, and he succeeds with a towering performance that is easily his best work since "Leaving Las Vegas". Cage is cast perfectly here; his tortured, implosive Frank Pierce is an indelible character.
"Bringing Out The Dead" is not for everyone. The movie's lack of a conventional narrative arc will probably confuse and alienate some viewers, and the way it uncompromisingly looks into the darkest corners of human nature with an unflinching eye will disturb others. Yet these qualities are Scorsese's hallmarks, and this film has links to many of his other works -- the confusion of "After Hours", the emotional indecision of "The Age of Innocence", the alienation of "Taxi Driver", the spiritual search of "The Last Temptation of Christ". "Bringing Out The Dead" is not easy to watch, and at times it's hard not to look away. But it's real, and it stays with you.Image caption Police showed this image of pressure cookers allegedly to be used as explosive devices
Two people have been arrested in British Columbia accused of plotting to plant a bomb outside the provincial legislature on Canada Day, police say.
John Stewart Nuttall and Amanda Marie Korody were self-radicalised and inspired by al-Qaeda, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said.
The two Canadians from Surrey, British Columbia, were arrested on Monday, which was Canada's national day.
They are not believed to have been in contact with other militant groups.
"Our investigation demonstrated that this was a domestic threat, without international linkages," said Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Assistant Commissioner James Malizia.
The pair were arrested in the town of Abbotsford and are in custody in Surrey, police said. They are due in court later on Tuesday.
'Committed to violence'
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Royal Canadian Mounted Police Assistant Commissioner James Malitzia said the pair "were inspired by al-Qaeda ideology."
At a press briefing on Tuesday, RCMP officials said the pair had been charged with conspiring to place an explosive in a public place with the intent of causing death or serious injury and with possessing a device to cause an explosion.
They also face one count of knowingly facilitating a terrorist activity.
Authorities displayed images of pressure cookers, which they said were to be used to make bombs similar to those detonated at the Boston marathon bombing in April.
The RCMP said that inside the pressure cookers were nuts, bolts, nails, washers and other material that could kill or injure people.
The arrests are the result of a probe launched in February under an operation known as Project Souvenir, authorities said.
"The suspects were committed to acts of violence and discussed a wide variety of targets and techniques," said Assistant Commissioner Wayne Rideout.
He added that there had not been a threat to public safety and that authorities had intervened to make sure the devices were not dangerous.
"These devices were completely under our control, they were inert, and at no time represented a threat to public safety," the assistant commissioner added.A range of examples suggests a lack of information about their fellows can favor cooperation and prevent conflict among animals — and even among genes
For the Oct. 16 issue of Biology Letters, a special issue commemorating the 50th anniversary of W.D. Hamilton’s famous paper on kin selection, two Washington University in St. Louis biologists contributed an article describing intriguing exceptions to one of his predictions.
The basic idea of natural selection is to pass on your genes, but Hamilton pointed out, in an article that revolutionized the study of social evolution, that you can pass on genes by helping your relatives as well as your offspring.
Hamilton predicted that organisms ought to evolve the ability to discriminate degrees of kinship more and more finely. Genes that made them choosy would survive to future generations because the organisms would direct help to those individuals with whom they shared the most genes.
True, say evolutionary biologists David Queller, PhD, the Spencer T. Olin Professor of Biology in Arts & Sciences, and Joan Strassmann, PhD, the Charles Rebstock Professor of Biology, but there also seem to be many cases where “a veil of ignorance” prevents organisms from gaining this kind of information. That forces them to consider a situation from the perspective of all members of their group instead of solely from their own perspective or that of their close kin.
In this way, the veil of ignorance can favor cooperation and suppress conflict within groups. The question, the scientists say, is whether ignorance is selected as a trait because it favors group harmony or merely persists once it evolves because it helps foster cooperation.
Lowering the veil
“A curious finding that arose from work with social insects, some our work and some by others, is that although social insects are pretty good at recognizing foreigners from a different colony, they seem almost universally bad at distinguishing among different degrees of relatedness within their own colony,” Queller said.
“In many colonies, this doesn’t matter because all of the insects are the progeny of a single mother, so they’re all full sisters. But in others, such as honeybee colonies, the queen mates with multiple males, and so there are 17 or 20 sets of paternal genes, which we call patrilines, within the colony. The insects are half sibs; they all share the same mother but they have different fathers,” he said.
“The bees don’t distinguish among half and full sisters and nobody knows why for sure. So this is an example of a veil of ignorance,” Queller said. “It works to the advantage of the colony because if the bees can’t tell half and full sisters, they’ll be out foraging rather than loitering near the queen cells to make sure a full sister becomes the next queen,” he said.
The bees apparently recognize one another by means of distinctive hydrocarbons in their cuticles, or exoskeleton. If a worker bee is isolated, it will develop a distinctive hydrocarbon profile and be rejected if it is reintroduced into a colony.
But within the colony, the hydrocarbons rub off on other bees and on nest material as the bees feed, groom and move about, so that the hydrocarbons get mixed together, creating a general colony odor.
The question, said Queller, is: Why did cues that rub off evolve in the first place? “It’s possible they evolved to mask kinship within colonies because kin-blindness benefits the colony. But it’s also possible that the veil of ignorance arose for other reasons, and it’s just that once it did arise, it was retained because it helps to cement group function and cooperation,” he said.
The work on the within-colony veil of ignorance has additional implications for the practice of science, said Strassmann. “One is that it shows the danger of oversimplication. Hamilton’s famous kin-selection inequality takes into account both the relatedness of cooperators and the costs and benefits of cooperation. Because relatedness is easier to measure, the costs and benefits can get ignored. Within-colony kin blindess is one example that shows how the benefits of cooperation can trump fine gradations of genetic relatedness,” she said.
The second implication, she said, “is that it is important to understand the mechanism that underlies an evolved trait. If being able to discriminate among degrees of kinship within a colony were an advantage, the mechanism for recognition would not be shared across colonies,” she said.
“Our understanding of adaptation advances best with a clear understanding of both evolutionary advantage and mechanisms,” she said.
Lifting the veil
Hamilton predicted that kin recognition might reach all the way down to genes. He said it was possible that one gene might be able to detect other organisms carrying a copy of itself.
He was right. The red fire ant, for example, has a gene that worker offspring can recognize and workers with this gene kill all queens that don’t have it.
Genes like this one are called greenbeards, because they confer an externally visible label that allows them to spot copies of themselves, much as if every man with a certain gene dyed his beard green.
But what about the mother’s genes and the father’s genes in an embryo? These long have been thought to lack self-identity and to be shrouded under their own veil of ignorance, the assumption being that both sets of genes work for the common good.
We now know that some genes are marked as maternal or paternal through the addition of methyl groups while they are in the egg or sperm.
As a result of marking, called imprinting, the veil of ignorance is lifted.“Considerable evidence suggests that imprinting leads to conflict between the matrigenes and the patrigenes in the embryo,” Queller said.
A mouse, for example, can mate with more than one male and have a litter with two or more fathers. It’s in the interest of the father’s genes to produce large offspring that compete for maternal resources at the expense of other pups. And it’s in the interest of the mother’s genes that all of her offspring survive to adulthood so they, too, can reproduce.
Not surprisingly, many of the genes that are imprinted are somehow involved in growth and metabolism. “The father’s trying to crank up something that causes the offspring to get more, and the mother’s trying to crank down the very same thing,” Queller said.
Does this have anything to do with social justice?
The phrase “veil of ignorance” is not original to biology. It comes from a long tradition of thinking about the social contract in human societies.
Philosopher John Rawls, for example, suggested the veil of ignorance could be used in a hypothetical scenario in which a group of people is deciding the political and economic structure of society. In this scenario, everyone is ignorant of his or her gender, race, age, intelligence, wealth, skills, education and religion. The idea is that they will then make choices that benefit all members of society, including the least advantaged.
Asked if there is a connection, Queller said, “This is not a matter of the social contract; it’s a matter of biology. But sometimes, biological individuals or groups are able to arrive at something that resembles a social contract. They don’t do it consciously, but sometimes it works out that way.”
But he then gives an example where the veil of ignorance produces injustice. Slave-making ants, he said, have lost the ability to care for their young and themselves. To survive, they raid the nests of other ants and steal the pupae. Once the pupae emerge, they imprint on the colony odor and work as if they were members of that colony. “That’s a veil of ignorance, but it doesn’t lead to justice in any sense,” Queller said.
Nonetheless, Queller and Strasmann’s examples are thought-provoking, particularly in the age of the Internet, which enables blind interactions among individuals whose true identities are concealed.Microsoft's complaint against Barnes & Noble's Android-based Nook devices has been narrowed down to just three patents, with the US International Trade Commission having to decide whether Nook devices infringe on several patented methods of interacting with and downloading electronic documents. Barnes & Noble is also asking the ITC to declare the patents invalid because they cover obvious and trivial functionality.
Microsoft's ITC complaint, which was filed in March 2011 and targets Foxconn and Inventec in addition to Barnes & Noble, cited five patents. One 1994 patent related to "new varieties of child window controls [that] are provided as system resources that application programs may exploit," and a 1997 patent related to how browsers load and display content in portable computers with limited display areas have since been dropped from the case.
An ITC staff attorney revealed Monday that he is recommending a ruling stating that Barnes & Noble did not infringe the three remaining Microsoft patents, but a final decision is not scheduled to be revealed until April 27. The ruling will be an important one in Microsoft's quest to extract money from every Android hardware vendor. Samsung, HTC, Acer, LG, and others have signed patent licensing agreements with Microsoft. Amazon—which uses Android for its Kindle Fire tablet but not for the Kindle e-readers—signed a patent agreement with Microsoft in February 2010 which includes a license to one of the patents being asserted by Microsoft against Barnes & Noble.
Other than Barnes & Noble, the lone major device maker refusing to join what Microsoft calls its "Android licensing program" is Motorola Mobility, which holds 17,000 patents of its own and is in the process of being acquired by Google.
Barnes & Noble has accused Microsoft of demanding excessively high licensing fees. While the bookseller lost a "patent misuse" claim it filed against Microsoft, it can still win the day by either proving the patents were wrongly issued or that Nook devices do not infringe them. Microsoft's complaint centers on the Nook and Nook Color, and seeks to block imports of the devices into the United States.
With that in mind, let's take a look at the three remaining patents Microsoft is asserting in its claim against Barnes & Noble. One discusses a method of letting users annotate read-only documents, another describes a method for highlighting and selecting elements of electronic documents, and a third covers a method for browsers to quickly download documents from a remote computer network. Barnes & Noble has called all the patented features "insubstantial and trivial."
Patent #6,957,233: Making annotations in read-only documents
This patent, filed in December 1999 and issued in October 2005, is the one already licensed to Amazon for use in its Kindle e-readers. Long before there were Kindles and Nooks, Microsoft's patent filing observed that an inability to annotate read-only documents could hamper the electronic publishing industry. The patented Microsoft technology solves the problem with "A system and method for capturing annotations for a non-modifiable document. Once it is determined that an annotation is to be created, the system determines the file position of the selected object. The file position of the selected object is stored along with the created annotation in another file or a non-read only portion of a file storing the document. Using the file position, the annotation may be properly identified with the selected object without modifying the non-modifiable document."
In its March complaint against Barnes & Noble, Microsoft says it uses this patented technology in Windows Phone 7, and provided screenshots demonstrating how the Nook Color's system for annotating electronic books allegedly violates the patent. The Nook Color lets users select text from read-only portions of a document and add notes to the selected text, while storing the position of the annotation and the annotation itself "separately from the non-modifiable portion of the file," and then making the annotations available to the user in a secondary display area. This technology is a patent violation, according to Microsoft.
While not all of the ITC case documents have been made public, Barnes & Noble's defense can be gleaned from an April 25, 2011 filing from a corresponding case in US District Court in Seattle. "The Nook and Nook Color do not infringe any valid claim of the [five patents cited by Microsoft]," Barnes & Noble stated, "and none of these trivial features serve as a basis for customer demand for these products. The subject matter embraced by the... patents was not new and would have been highly obvious at the time those patents were filed."
With respect to the patent on annotations in read-only documents, Barnes & Noble says it was improperly issued because Microsoft failed to disclose prior art from a European patent to the US patent office. "In implementing the concept of annotating non-modifiable documents, Microsoft did not have to devise any unique solutions, but merely applied well known techniques to the problem created by the advent of electronic publishing," Barnes & Noble wrote. "This was nothing more than the utilization of common sense solutions to a problem, and there is nothing patentable about the concepts allegedly covered by this patent."
Patent #6,891,551: Highlighting and selecting elements of electronic documents
This patent, which Microsoft filed in January 2001, covers "A computer system and method for highlighting and selecting elements of electronic documents.... In one embodiment, a selection area identifies an initial selection of data, and one or more selection handles appear on the selection area to allow dynamic resizing of the selection area to select a larger or smaller portion of data or number of items."
While the previous patent we discussed talks about methods for annotating documents, this one covers the process of highlighting the text onto which readers would add highlights and notes. By allowing users to select text, and then increase or decrease the amount of text selected by dragging "graphical selection handles" in the form of two vertical bars positioned at the beginning and end of the selection area, Barnes & Noble violates the patent, Microsoft says. The patent covers both touch-sensitive displays and other types of inputs, like a mouse or trackball, and references Microsoft's implementation of the technology in Windows-based tablet PCs.
Barnes & Noble, however, states that "the simple act of using handles for their very purpose—changing the size of selections—was neither novel nor non-obvious" at the time the patent was issued. Further, Barnes & Noble denies that Nook devices include handles with the functionality described in the patent itself.
Patent #5,778,372: Quickly downloading documents from a browser
Filed in 1996 when the Internet was a much different beast than it is today, this patent covers browser technology that allows faster viewing of downloaded documents by displaying viewable portions of the document before the download is completed. "For enhancing responsiveness, the browser initially displays an electronic document without a background image so that the electronic document is initially displayed more quickly," the patent sates. "The browser also prioritizes downloading of embedded images of the document by their incorporation in the currently visible portion of the electronic document. Further, the browser dynamically creates additional connections for retrieving resources incorporated into the electronic document from the remote computer network."
In its complaint, Microsoft notes that Nook devices have a pre-installed Web browser, which "draws an initial display" of a webpage without a background image before issuing a second request for the image. "After the background image is received from the remote server, the webpage is redrawn by superimposing the webpage contents over the background image," Microsoft states. Although this seems like a rather basic capability; the browser's act of making a separate request to retrieve the background image and its ability to display the page in a basic form before receiving the image is the key in Microsoft's infringement claim.
Barnes & Noble denies that Nook devices infringe the patent, and seems to indicate that removing similar functionality from modern devices wouldn't harm the user experience. "The patent refers to perception of slow displays involving background images that existed with typical Internet connections and processors at the time of filing (i.e. 1996)," Barnes & Noble states. The patent "describes displaying text and then redisplaying the text again after the background image loads. While this duplicative display may have had some use in the 1990s, it has no value for the connectivity and processors of today used by the Nook and Nook Color devices."
Can Barnes & Noble prove the patents are invalid?
While Barnes & Noble denies violating Microsoft's intellectual property, the company's main argument seems to be that the "the patents themselves are invalid," IP attorney Patrick Patras of Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP in Chicago, who has represented Hitachi and others in patent lawsuits, tells Ars.
Patents carry a presumption of validity making them difficult to overturn. But there are factors seemingly going in Barnes & Noble's favor. The ITC staff attorney's recommendation that Barnes & Noble get a favorable ruling is not binding, but it is a good sign, Patras said.
"The staff attorney is really acting as an independent third party in the litigation whose job is to protect the public interest," Patras said. "The fact you've got this independent third party who is sophisticated in patent matters, who has apparently reached the conclusion that Barnes & Noble should win, I think that speaks volumes."
Further, Barnes & Noble's argument that the patents themselves are invalid is likely to get a better hearing in front of an ITC administrative law judge than in front of a jury, Patras believes. "Invalidity must be proven by clear and convincing evidence, which typically is said to be pretty difficult to do," he said. "I suspect it's more difficult to persuade a jury to find a patent invalid than it would be to persuade an administrative law judge to find a patent invalid."
While the Barnes & Noble case is being decided long after most Android-using device makers settled with Microsoft, a decision in Barnes & Noble's favor could make it harder for Microsoft to obtain licensing fees from other vendors going forward. Microsoft is, presumably, putting some of its best patents forward in the case. This case may not be representative of all other Android litigations, because many patents are specific to smartphones, but a ruling that the patents are invalid would be a blow for Microsoft nonetheless.
"I think other parties that were approached by Microsoft would probably feel a little bit more confident in standing up to Microsoft in fighting for a better deal," if Barnes & Noble were to win, Patras said. "If they're found to be invalid or not infringed by Android, in a sense Microsoft then is going to have to rely on what they themselves view as less good patents."Never mind the ivy league; professors in the maple-draped ivory towers of Canada are on average the best-paid in the world, new research shows. This means the University of Toronto, with the loftiest campus pay-cheques in the country, could have the highest paid teachers of all — save for the most famous private Ivy-schools such as Harvard and Princeton.
In a new study of public university salaries in 28 countries — from the knowledge hubs of Asia to the powerhouses of Great Britain and the U.S. — it is Canadian profs who outstrip all others in their pay’s purchasing power. While some blame soaring salaries for driving up the cost of higher learning — Ontario economic guru Don Drummond has called for smaller post-secondary raises — others argue they give us an edge in courting the best and brightest. “In an increasingly international labour market, it’s good to offer strong compensation,” noted education professor Glen Jones of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at U of T and who is part of the Canadian team of researchers on the study.
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The research, released Thursday, was led by the Boston College Center for International Higher Education and the National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow. The study adjusted the dollar-value of full-time salaries to the cost of living in each country to allow a true comparison of the value of the pay. In adjusted dollars, Canada’s average full-time professor earns $7,196 per month, compared to $6,054 in the United States and $5,943 in the United Kingdom. And while the study excluded private institutions, including ivy league names such as Harvard and Princeton, these are relatively small schools that likely would not have changed the U.S. average by much, noted Jones. “Canadian professors work hard, they’re productive and they’re one of the reasons our universities are relatively well ranked,” said Jones, “and unlike other jurisdictions, their full-time tenure stream is still strong.” But there’s a cost to those heady salaries, he noted: Canadian universities are increasingly turning to part-time, contract, lower-paid instructors who can be excellent, but who often say they are underpaid, overworked and unconnected to campus life.
And there are too many of these part-timers these days to ignore in any study of salary, warned Constance Adamson, president of the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations. “This study focussed on full-time tenured faculty but as we know, almost half of teaching is being done by non-tenured, contract academics staff,” she said. Still, high salaries are not out of line for a profession so highly educated that “most of them don’t get to start their careers until their early 30s.”
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What else drives up these Canadian pay cheques? Almost all Canadian campuses are unionized, said Jones, and far more of our professors are full-time, tenured staff than other countries such as the United States. Canada’s university professors saw their salaries climb by 46 per cent between 2001 and 2009 — nearly three times the rate of inflation, which was 16 per cent, according to Statistics Canada. “A lot of it has to do with the way that pay levels were set when new money came into the sector at the turn of the century (2000) and we were trying to compete with American institutions,” said education analyst Alex Usher of Higher Education Strategy Associates. “And then the dollar rose by 65 per cent. And an extraordinary number of our institutions are trying to compete with the top tier of American universities.” Physics professor George Luste is president of the University of Toronto’s faculty association, and he admits there are some blue-ribbon names on the U of T payroll. “But they’re not typical,” he said. “It’s like having Bill Gates walk into a poor village and immediately raise the average income. There may be some professors who are making $300,000 — but they also work in an area where houses can cost more than $1 million.”The Windows Phone emulator allows iPhone and Android users to experience Microsoft's OS
Microsoft has enabled Android and iPhone users to get a taste of what life would be like on Windows Phone, with a neat browser-based demo.
The HTML5 demonstration showcases Windows Phone's Metro user-interface and allows you to follow through and experience the operating system's basic functionality.
You can view within the Phone, People, Messaging, Outlook, Calendar, Family, Local Scout and Picture tiles, while the emulator guides you through the main features.
Each of the tiles work as they would on any Windows Phone 7 handset.
Shedding the stigma
Android and iPhone users can reach the Windows Phone demo by typing http://aka.ms/wpdemo into the browser.
The demonstration is a nice idea from Microsoft, as it seeks to prize away mobile users from the big two and shed the stigma of previous Windows Mobile iterations.
Via: Engadget, Windows Phone ThoughtsGod of War® III Remastered
IN THE END, THERE WILL BE ONLY CHAOS™
Originally developed by Sony Computer Entertainment's Santa Monica Studio exclusively for the PLAYSTATION®3 (PS3™) system, God of War® III has been remastered for the PLAYSTATION®4 (PS4™) system and gameplay supports 1080p at 60fps. God of War III Remastered will bring epic battles to life with stunning graphics and an elaborate plot that puts Kratos at the center of carnage and destruction as he seeks revenge against the Gods who have betrayed him.
Set in the realm of brutal Greek mythology, God of War III Remastered is the critically acclaimed single-player game that allows players to take on the fearless role of the ex-Spartan warrior, Kratos, as he rises from the darkest depths of Hades to scale the very heights of Mount Olympus to seek his bloody revenge. Armed with double-chained blades and an array of new weapons and magic, Kratos must take on mythology's deadliest creatures while solving intricate puzzles throughout his merciless quest to destroy Olympus.The DOL reported:
In the week ending November 12, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 235,000, a decrease of 19,000 from the previous week's unrevised level of 254,000. This is the lowest level for initial claims since November 24, 1973 when it was 233,000. The 4-week moving average was 253,500, a decrease of 6,500 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised up by 250 from 259,750 to 260,000.
There were no special factors impacting this week's initial claims. This marks 89 consecutive weeks of initial claims below 300,000, the longest streak since 1970.
emphasis added
Click on graph for larger image.
The previous week was unrevised.The following graph shows the 4-week moving average of weekly claims since 1971.The dashed line on the graph is the current 4-week average. The four-week average of weekly unemployment claims decreased to 253,500.This was lower than the consensus forecast. The low level of claims suggests relatively few layoffs.VANCOUVER - He may be able to remake a team, but Jim Benning could use some help from Martha Stewart redecorating a workspace.
Three months into his job as the Vancouver Canucks’ general manager, Benning’s office remains sterile white, largely uncluttered by artwork, pictures and memorabilia.
The last occupant, former GM Mike Gillis, had a big photo of himself and a trophy fish. Brian Burke proudly displayed a portrait from his minor-league playing days: Burke bloodied but stoic. (He was injured in the warm-up).
Benning could show off a photo, too — for instance, holding the Stanley Cup he won three years ago.
“I just cleaned my office up,” Benning said Thursday. “I usually have these sheets spread out all over the office. I like to keep wall space available.”
Benning is an active thinker. He writes down ideas, makes lists, charts. He has a hand-written roster of his team, with age, salaries and contract status noted by the players’ names. Another poster-size sheet displays the traits he believes a Canuck should possess. But Benning’s masterpiece is a positional depth chart that includes every team in the National Hockey League, penned by Benning on feltboard and arranged by team rank. It contains the colour-coded names of more than 700 NHL players and occupies most of the south wall of Benning’s office at Rogers Arena.
It’s like what Michelangelo might have created for the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel were he a hockey nerd and not a Renaissance genius.
“This is my work space,” Benning explained. “I need to know every player in the league. This is just an example, but if I’m talking to Anaheim and (GM) Bob Murray and I say I want Jakob Silverberg or Kyle Palmieri included in the Kesler trade, and Bob says, ‘I can’t do that or I’ll have no right-wingers,’ I can say: ‘Actually, you still have Corey Perry, Palmieri, (Devante) Smith-Pelley and (Tim) Jackman.’ ”
Benning, of course, traded Kesler to Anaheim on June 27 for centre Nick Bonino, defenceman Luca Sbisa, a first-round draft pick and a swap of third-rounders, which allowed the Canucks to acquire Derek Dorsett from the New York Rangers.
It was the most important day in a titanic draft week in which Benning and team president Trevor Linden profoundly altered the Canuck landscape, making the team younger and deeper. That week began with the hiring of Willie Desjardins as head coach and was followed by free agency and the signing of starting goalie Ryan Miller and offensive winger Radim Vrbata, who will probably play this season with Henrik and Daniel Sedin.
Benning packed a year of change into 10 days. If ever someone needed a summer holiday, it was Benning.
“I put some pressure on myself because I know... that’s one of those times in the year you can get stuff done,” Benning said. “I understood I had a window. I’m glad we were able to do the things we did because it pushed up the curve for us to have success.I finally got time to benchmark the Raspberry Pi, Pi 2 and Banana Pi Pro for media server tasks. It is similar to my last comprehensive benchmarks comparing the Raspberry Pi and Banana Pi. Despite not much changing besides the CPU and RAM in the Pi 2, many people insisted my old benchmarks were not relevant. In the interest of science I have conducted the same tests with the Pi 2. Read on to see how well it did compared to its old brother the Raspberry Pi 2 and yellow 2nd cousin the Banana Pi.
Here is a quick summary of the specs of the Raspberry Pi 2 vs Banana Pi and Pro, notably the Banana Pi models have a faster processor and DDR3 RAM, SATA and Gigabit ethernet. The Banana Pro has the same specifications as the Banana Pi but has Wifi on-board so these benchmarks are applicable for both Raspberry Pi Alternatives made by LeMaker. I refer to the Banana Pro as Banana Pi Pro throughout this post.
Pi Unit Processor RAM RAM Bus Network WiFi USB SATA Cost Raspberry Pi 3 1.2 GHz ARMv8
Quad Core 1 GB DDR2 450 MHz 100 Mbit Yes 4 No $35 Raspberry Pi 2 900 MHz ARMv7
Quad Core 1 GB DDR2 450 MHz 100 Mbit No 4 No $35.00 Raspberry Pi 700 MHz ARMv6
Single Core 512 MB SDRAM 400 MHz 100 Mbit No 4 No $25 Banana Pi 1 GHz ARMv7
Dual Core 1 GB DDR3 432 MHz Gigabit No 2 Yes $36.99 Banana Pi Pro 1 GHz ARMv7
Dual Core 1 GB DDR3 432 MHz Gigabit Yes 2 Yes $45.00
Raspberry Pi 2 vs Banana Pi Pro Benchmarks – Do SATA and Gigabit Still Matter?
This post shows a series of benchmarks displaying the significance of SATA and Gigabit for using microcomputers as media servers. It contains a series of tests for the Banana Pi and Banana Pi Pro including the following
CPU tests
RAM
iperf for network performance
USB and SATA FTP because transferring files is normal for a NAS or media server
USB and SATA SAMBA transfers because many users share media files to XBMC
Equipment Used
I used these pieces of equipment for the tests
Software Used
I used Bananian on the Banana Pi Pro because it has the lowest memory footprint of the debian-based distros available.
For the Raspberry Pi I used Minibian because it has a low memory footprint for a Raspbian-based distro.
The Raspberry Pi 2 had the latest Minibian installed with updates.
Filezilla was used for FTP tests. Robocopy was used for copying from SAMBA shares.
All tests were repeated 5 times and |
Europe that have served as referenda on nationalism, which Soros opposes, and globalism, which Soros favors.
In Italy, center-left prime minister Matteo Renzi announced his resignation last December after an “extraordinarily clear” defeat in a constitutional referendum that was seen as a victory for populist and anti-EU forces in the country. Italy’s populist 5Star Movement has continued to pose a threat to the political establishment in Italy.
An OSF spokesperson reached over the phone declined to elaborate on the emailed statement, and hung up the phone when pressed further on OSF’s political involvement in Europe.
Geert Wilders’ PPV party — which Soros specifically targeted in 2014 — came in second place in the Dutch elections last month, falling short of expectations.
In France, one of the five countries targeted by Soros in 2014, Marine Le Pen is likely to make it past the first round of voting on April 23 to the run-off election on May 7.
As a populist candidate opposing mass immigration and wary of Islamic extremism, Le Pen is exactly the kind of candidate that Soros poured money into opposing in 2014.
Viktor Orban, Hungary’s populist prime minister, is set to sign a bill that would prohibit foreign funding of universities in Hungary, including the Soros-funded Central European University. The bill is believed to be an attempt at limiting Soros’ influence in Hungary.
Orban has previously railed against the “trans-border empire of George Soros.” (RELATED: U.S. Interfered In Macedonia’s Political Process, Documents Show)
The leaked documents were posted last summer by DC Leaks, the same organization that posted the personal emails of former secretary of state and retired Gen. Colin Powell. U.S. intelligence agencies believe DC Leaks has acted as a front group for Russian hackers. OSF has previously confirmed the documents’ authenticity.
The documents initially became public in the summer of 2016.
Only a handful of outlets, led by The Daily Caller, covered the leaks, which revealed: OSF secretly paid staffers to Moldova’s pro-EU prime minister — funneled the money through a German nonprofit in order to skirt Moldovan laws; OSF funded opposition research on critics of radical Islam; OSF tried to influence Supreme Court rulings with well-funded PR campaigns; and an OSF-funded campaign to influence Pope Francis, among other things.
Some of the documents, all of which can be found here, are yet to be thoroughly analyzed.
Establishment media outlets like the New York Times — which periodically runs editorials bemoaning the influence of money in politics — ignored the leaks altogether. (RELATED: If You Only Read The New York Times And Washington Post, You Have No Idea The Soros Leak Happened)
“We couldn’t find a single story on the New York Times, CNN, Washington Post, CBS News or other major news sites that even noted the existence of these leaked documents, let alone reported on what’s in them,” an Investor’s Business Daily editorial said last summer.
“Indeed, the only news organization that appears to be diligently sifting through all the documents is the conservative Daily Caller, which as a result has filed a series of eye-opening reports.”
Follow Hasson on Twitter @PeterJHassonGary McKinnon says he acted out of curiosity, not malice Lawyers for a Briton accused of hacking into secret military and Nasa computers are asking the home secretary to ensure he is not jailed in the US. Glasgow-born Gary McKinnon, 42, who last month lost his appeal against extradition, could face life in jail if convicted of accessing 97 computers. His lawyer Karen Todner said his human rights would be breached if he did not return to the UK after a trial. The Home Office said his case was "receiving consideration". A spokesman said: "Further representations have been received today from solicitors against Mr McKinnon's surrender to the USA which are receiving consideration." 'Biggest ever attack' Unemployed Mr McKinnon, from Wood Green, north London, was said to be "distraught" after losing his extradition appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. He has admitted breaking into the computers, but says he sought information on UFOs and only got in because of lax security. The US government, however, insists he committed a malicious crime - the biggest military computer hack ever. They say he stole passwords, deleted files and left 300 computers at a US navy weapons station unusable immediately after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Clearly it is time to re-think summary extradition when US prosecutors threaten to 'fry' a non-violent computer hacker
James Welch, Liberty Ms Todner said she had written to the Home Office asking for an intervention on her client's behalf. She said: "We have requested that the home secretary obtain an assurance from the United States government that Mr McKinnon be returned to the UK immediately on receiving a sentence in the US, should he be extradited. "It is standard practice for both the Dutch and Israeli governments to seek this assurance on behalf of their nationals who face extradition to the United States. "In light of Mr McKinnon's being diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, it would seem to be highly appropriate that the home secretary obtains this assurance." 'Non-violent' Mr McKinnon was arrested in 2002 but never charged in the UK. He first lost his case against extradition at the High Court in 2006 before taking it to the highest court in the UK, the House of Lords. His lawyers want his case to be tried in Britain, arguing that the alleged offences were committed on British soil. James Welch, legal director of human rights group Liberty, said: "Clearly it is time to re-think summary extradition when US prosecutors threaten to 'fry' a non-violent computer hacker. "It is a shame that the Court of Human Rights will allow his extradition even as they consider whether US extradition measures were fair." A demonstration in support of Mr McKinnon will take place outside the Home Office on Tuesday.
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StumbleUpon What are these?Following a report released by Danwatch in January, Denmark’s third largest pension fund, Sampension, moved to exclude four publicly traded companies from their portfolio due to their investments in illegal Israeli settlement activities. The move is a major win for the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which has increasingly come under fire in recent years as Israel and its allies have pushed to squash growing popularity with new legislation and political pressure on both public and private institutions.
Danwatch’s report, Business on Occupied Territory, found that Sampension with $46.1 billion under its management, was the Danish pension fund that had been investing the largest sums of money in companies that do business in or around illegal Israeli settlements.
Ana Sanchez, speaking on behalf of the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), the largest Palestinian coalition that leads the global BDS movement for Palestinian rights, welcomed the move, telling Mondoweiss it represents “the latest indicator of the mounting pressure on businesses that are deeply complicit in Israel’s violations of Palestinian rights to stop profiting from Israel’s military occupation and apartheid.”
“All pension and investments funds must divest from Israeli and international companies that are involved in Israel’s human rights violations not just in response to the BDS call issued by Palestinian civil society but also in compliance with UN principles and guidelines on business and human rights,” Sanchez said.
According to Danwatch, Sampension chose to revise its investment guidelines following the report. In accordance to its new guidelines, Sampension excluded four Israeli companies from its portfolio.
The four companies excluded due to their involvement in settlement activity are all listed as companies targeted by the BDS movement. They were identified as two Israeli banks, Hapoalim and Leumi, the German construction company, HeidelbergCement and Bezeq, Israel’s largest telecommunications company, which owns telecommunications equipment installed within settlements, providing the illegal communities with telephone and data signals.
Sampension shared a press release after the move, explaining the shift.
“During 2017, Sampension has expanded its policy and practice for responsible investments in several areas,” the report read. “The focus areas are climate change, human rights and the pursuit of active ownership.”
Director of Investments in Sampension, Henrik Olejasz Larsen, said the four companies were excluded from their investment portfolios due to “the financing of settlements and for the extraction of natural resources and the establishment of infrastructure for telecommunications in the occupied area.”
In addition to the four Israeli companies already blacklisted on Sampension’s portfolio, the company has stated it is now “initiating a dialogue” with another six companies about possible business activities in Israel’s settlements, according to the most recent Danwatch report.
Banking
Denmark’s largest bank, Danske Bank, also a BDS target, confirmed to Danwatch that it still holds investments in Hapoalim and Leumi, despite reports of the bank’s blacklisting of Hapoalim in 2014.
Last month Israel’s banks came under fire, as Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a report criticizing Israeli banks for continuing to allow investments and business exchanges with industries that support illegal Israeli settlements, in contravention of international law.
Israeli banks, such as Leumi, one of the banks that Sampension blacklisted, told HRW they are required by Israeli law to provide services to settlements, since Israeli banking, consumer, and anti-discrimination law, dictates that banks cannot reject customers based on their place of residence.
However HRW found that Israeli banks “do not have to provide financial services that involve settlements, such as financing construction projects or mortgages for settlement properties, when the grounds for refusal are not the place of residence of the customer but rather the business and human rights considerations stemming from the location of the activities.”
HRW called on banks to use the legal loophole to divest from any investments involved in settlement activities.
Natural Resources
HeidelbergCement, one of the four companies moved to Sampension’s blacklist, is the world’s largest cement producer and a major manufacturer of aggregates and ready-mix concrete, with around $1 billion in revenue, according to Who Profits, a research center dedicated to exposing companies involved in Israeli settlement activity.
The German cement company owns three plants and one aggregates quarry in the occupied West Bank through Hanson Israel, Heidelberg’s local branch.
One of the quarries operates on Palestinian land from the village of al-Zawiya.
“The quarry exploits occupied Palestinian natural resources for the needs of the Israeli construction industry,” Who Profit documented. In addition, once the natural resources, dug up from West Bank land, are turned into building material, they are directly supplied to settlements for building and expanding illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.
“Materials of stone and gravel extracted from Palestinian land have been providing the raw material needed for the Israeli expansionist construction industry,” Who Profits documented. “Without which the construction sector could not have thrived economically, generating profit for many Israeli companies.”
Last month, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) released a report revealing that the Palestinian economy was performing “far below potential.”
The report documented that the primary cause of the problem was the “continuing loss of land and natural resources to settlements and the annexation of land in the West Bank.”
According a report released by The Rights Forum, a research center focused on Israel and Palestine, natural stone, or “white oil” is one of Palestine’s most important resources, with the industry providing at least 15 to 20 thousand Palestinian jobs, with an annual contribution of $250 million to the Palestinian economy — however the report found that the stone’s potential value was up to $30 billion.
HRW found that companies such as HeidelbergCement are in direct violation of international humanitarian law “which requires that such natural resources should only be used for the benefit of the (Palestinian) population of the occupied territory.”This week, baseball is celebrating all that Derek Jeter has accomplished over his two decades in the major leagues.
One glaring O-fer on his résumé, though: He’s never been ejected.
And here we thought Jeter’s character and professionalism were unquantifiable. Turns out, they are: Jeter’s 2,744 games without being ejected rank sixth all-time, according to research through retrosheet.org.
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The full list:
Stan Musial — 3,026
Willie Mays — 2,992
Brooks Robinson — 2,896
Robin Yount — 2,856
Tony Perez — 2,777 (ejected once as a manager in 2001)
Derek Jeter — 2,744
Of course, the five players ahead of Jeter are enshrined in the Hall of Fame.
Jeter’s place in that company confirms much of what we believe about him anecdotally: Even during an era in which HD television replays intensified the second-guessing of umpires and strained their relationships with managers and players, Jeter perpetually kept his cool.
And despite being hit by 170 pitches in his career, Jeter never was tossed for an aggressive reaction toward the mound. Composure was woven into his pinstripes.
So perhaps the umpires themselves are best qualified to speak about Jeter’s class.
Tim McClelland has been behind the plate for 53 of Jeter’s games — the most of any active or retired umpire, according to STATS LLC. McClelland, 62, joined the major-league umpiring staff in 1983 but is out this season due to a back injury.
When asked about his interactions with Jeter over the years, McClelland wrote in an email to FOX Sports: “I have a lot of admiration for Derek and what he has accomplished both on and off the field. I would say that Derek is the one player that I respect most for the way he plays the game and carries himself, again, on and off the field. He has represented himself, the Yankees, and the game of baseball with honor, admiration, and dignity.”
Jeter’s closest brush with an ejection might have come in a 7-6 loss to the Blue Jays on July 6, 2009, during The Captain’s final world championship season. Even that “incident” — if we’d be so bold to describe it as such — revealed Jeter’s integrity and the deep respect umpires have for him.
He was caught trying to steal third base with none out in the first inning — surprising on its own, since Jeter violated baseball’s bromide never to make the first out of an inning at third base. On replays, it appeared possible that he slid around Scott Rolen’s tag. But Jeter’s issue seemed not to be with the call itself, but rather the explanation third-base umpire Marty Foster offered for it.
From Bryan Hoch’s story on MLB.com:
… It wasn’t the call that rankled the captain. It was the reasoning he received from third-base umpire Marty Foster, who said that Jeter was out simply because the ball had beaten him. “I was just baffled by the explanation,” Jeter said. “I was told I was out, because the ball beat me, and he didn’t have to tag me. I was unaware they had changed the rules... I’ve seen everybody make mistakes on calls before, but I was baffled by the explanation.”
Yankees manager Joe Girardi was ejected for arguing with Foster after the play. Hoch’s account noted that an interview request for Foster was referred to crew chief John Hirschbeck.
Surprisingly — under the circumstances — Hirschbeck complimented Jeter during the interview.
“In my 27 years in the big leagues, he’s probably the classiest person I’ve been around,” Hirschbeck said, according to Hoch. “It would make his actions seem appropriate if that’s what he was told.”
See? Derek Jeter truly is as universally respected as you’ve always heard.Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-La.) condemned the Supreme Court on Friday following its ruling legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide.
“The Supreme Court is completely out of control, making laws on their own, and has become a public opinion poll instead of a judicial body,” the 2016 contender said in a statement.
“If we want to save some money, let’s just get rid of the court,” Jindal added.
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Friday’s historic 5-4 ruling ensures that states recognize same-sex marriages under the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
Jindal later said that the ruling fundamentally redefined the institution of marriage.
“Marriage between a man and a woman was established by God, and no earthly court can alter that,” he added.
He also argued that protecting same-sex marriage would open the door to discrimination against people of faith who oppose its practice.
“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 and the Left will now mount an all-out assault on religious freedom guaranteed in the first amendment,” Jindal said of the Democratic 2016 front-runner.
“Regardless of your views on marriage, all freedom-loving people must pledge to respect our first amendment rights,” he added.
Clinton praised the Supreme Court's landmark decision on Twitter Friday morning.
“Proud to celebrate a historic victory for marriage equality – & the courage & determination of LGBT Americans who made it possible,” she wrote.
Justice Anthony Kennedy served as the swing vote, siding with the court’s more liberal members.
“It is demeaning to lock same-sex couples out of a central institution of the nation’s society, for they too may aspire to the transcendent purposes of marriage,” Kennedy wrote in his 34-page decision.
Chief Justice John Roberts, in his dissenting opinion, argued that the ruling had “nothing to do” with the Constitution.
He said the majority had bypassed the voters and lawmakers.
“Indeed, however heartened proponents of same-sex marriage might be on this day, it is worth acknowledging what they have lost, and lost forever: the opportunity to win the true acceptance that comes from persuading their fellow citizens of the justice of their cause,” Roberts wrote.
Jindal formally launched his 2016 Oval Office bid earlier this week, becoming the 13th candidate formally vying for the GOP nomination.
This story was updated at 3:16 p.m.The catarrhines (Old World monkeys – Cercopithecidae, and apes – Hominoidea) evolved colour vision, possibly to detect the best leaves and fruit. They also exhibit a great diversity of facial patterns and hues.
Charles Darwin was very interested in primate colouration, writing about it in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals and in an article published in Nature in 1876.
Further work on the subject remained thin on the ground until the start of this century.
Dr James Higham, from New York University, US, says digital photography and sophisticated computer applications have allowed scientists to finally quantify the huge variety of primate features.
His team has carried out in-depth investigations of specific species, including looking at facial colouration in drills and rhesus macaques, as well as sexual swellings in olive baboons.
Male drills (Mandrillus leucophaeus) differ significantly from females, being three times heavier with larger canine teeth and extremely bright sexual skin coloration. Researchers examining the reasons for this discovered that colour is a status symbol for males, with the strongest hues reserved for higher ranked individuals.
“Though interesting, in many ways these traits resemble other more typical mammalian traits in that they seem to be a result of male-male competition,” Dr Higham says.
Mammals have evolved lots of weapons, such as antlers, horns and large canines, aimed at improving male success in fights with other males.
In contrast, birds and other clades have evolved ornamental features such as colorful crests, feathers and patterns, aimed at attracting females.
Mandrills' (Mandrillus sphinx) bright red colour has been shown to be both related to rank and attractiveness to females independently.
Even more surprising are Rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta), which display red skin colouring around the face, as well as the genital and hind-quarter areas, but do not follow the usual mammalian pattern of sexual adornments at all.
This is much more like the mate choice ornaments exhibited by birds than the typical mammalian trait
In 2003 a UK-based research team found that females preferred darker red faces, suggesting that colour indicated quality.
Dr Higham’s team followed up this research to show rhesus macaques colouring is not related to male dominance rank, rather it appears to be much more driven by female mate choice.
“An ornament shown by males to attract females and used in mate choice is extremely interesting," Dr Higham says.
“This is much more like the mate choice ornaments exhibited by birds than the typical mammalian trait.”
More recently a team led by Dr Constance Dubuc showed that darker skin colouring in rhesus macaques was linked to reproductive success, in both males and females, and also that the deeper reds were passed down through the generations.
“Showing that colouration is heritable and related to measures of reproductive fitness are essential elements of showing that the signal is under selection,” adds Dr Higham.
“But it’s very hard to do as it requires measures for a large number of individuals combined with an extensive genetic parentage database.”
Dr Higham’s team has also studied the differences that occur between species, pioneering the use of human facial recognition technology on non-human faces.
They tested Oxford zoologist Jonathan Kingdon’s suggestion that the guenons' (Cercopithecini) variety of facial appearances was due to their need to identify their own species and avoid mating with others.
They found that guenons' looks have evolved to become more distinctive from relatives living close by, backing up Mr Kingdon’s explanation, which had stood unsubstantiated since the 1980s.
Dr Higham is now hoping to find out exactly which features are the most useful in telling species apart. His team is also collaborating on projects investigating other Old World monkeys – including perhaps the most interesting face of all – that of the black and white snub-nosed monkey.Millions of people from around the world are currently experiencing very different childhoods. Some are living in abject poverty, lacking basic food and sanitation, while others are more fortunate by being born in a country where those things are guaranteed and usually taken for granted.
When photographer James Mollison was asked to come up with an idea for engaging with children’s rights, he found himself thinking of his bedroom: how significant it was during his childhood, and how it reflected what he had and who he was.
And with that, he made it his mission to create Where Children Sleep – a collection of stories about children from around the world, told through portraits and pictures of their bedrooms.
Bilal, 6, Wadi Abu Hindi, The West Bank
Indira, 7, Kathmandu, Nepal
Ahkohxet, 8, Amazonia, Brazil
Dong, 9, Yunnan, China
Anonymous, 9, Ivory Coast
Alex, 9, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Bikram, 9, Melamchi, Nepal
Tzvika, 9, Beitar Illit, The West Bank
Douha, 10, Hebron, The West Bank
Joey, 11, Kentucky, USA
Lamine, 12, Bounkiling village, Senegal
Rhiannon, 14, Darvel, Scotland
Risa, 15, Kyoto, Japan
Netu, 11, Kathmandu, Nepal
Inside the book, each pair of photographs is accompanied by an extended caption that tells the story of each child.
“It occurred to me that a way to address some of the complex situations and social issues affecting children would be to look at the bedrooms of children in all kinds of different circumstances”, James Mollison says on his website.
“From the start, I didn’t want it just to be about ‘needy children’ in the developing world, but rather something more inclusive, about children from all types of situations.”
We think he did an incredible job of doing just that. If the phrase ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ was ever true, then the pictures above say more than anyone ever can.🔊 Listen to Article
By Catherine J Frompovich
By now, it’s probably safe to assume that most of the world’s population has heard about the fraudulent vaccine research that’s been an apparent ongoing scientific ‘end run play’ in the USA since the clandestine Simpsonwood Meeting in June of 2000 to prove that vaccines do not cause, nor are they to be correlated with causing, autism [1,2,3] despite a CDC whistleblower, epidemiologist William Thompson, PhD, [4] stating for the record that CDC scientists actually discarded MMR vaccine research and data indicating the negative impact of vaccines on very young black boys, including autism [5].
If that weren’t enough, there are other vaccines that cause dramatic health adverse reactions all over the world, which U.S. health consumers deliberately are not permitted to know due to Big Pharma’s obvious media control and censorship. However, the vaccine safety advocacy group SaneVax [6] has been tracking, reporting on vaccines ‘science’, and also telling the tragic personal stories of damaged vaccinees regarding the three HPV (human papilloma virus) vaccines Gardasil®, Cervarix®, and Gardasil 9®.
In response to the growing number of adolescents becoming seriously ill after receiving HPV vaccines worldwide, in late April 2016, SaneVax released an open letter challenging the European Union’s EMA (European Medicines Agency) official statement regarding HPV vaccine safety. One feature of that SaneVax challenge is a set of questions composed with the assistance of various European experts addressing the three HPV vaccines science, safety, efficacy, toxicity, benefit versus risk ratio, foreign DNA in the vaccines, and other issues. Here is the link to those questions.
One clear problem about the Gardasil vaccine, few knew, was the Australian government’s not knowing about the misrepresentation on the “Gardasil Product Information Safety Trail Data” regarding “product information stating erroneously that saline had been used in one controlled safety trial for under 16-year olds.” That ‘misspeak’ rightfully was brought to the Australian Government’s Department of Health attention; subsequently they acknowledged it along with a correction request made to the vaccine maker, Merck, Sharpe and Dohme Australia, according to the Department of Health’s September 3, 2015 letter to Dr Deirdre Little.
Isn’t it interesting how scientific facts either get lost or messy like spaghetti?
One of the SaneVax questions asked, as part of a seven-page query, is most disturbing:
“As far as we know health professionals have not been warned to look for the risk of leukaemia among vaccinated adolescents as suggested in the assessment report referred to below (*). What actions (if any) have been undertaken to determine whether or not HPV vaccines could cause or trigger this condition in certain pre-disposed individuals?”
Nevertheless, a powerful feature of the SaneVax challenge includes 15 pages of co-signers to the open letter (of which I am one) from concerned persons in numerous countries, who back SaneVax in the questions they’ve asked. That strategic action indicates the scope of concern about the damage HPV vaccines do to those who receive them, especially without prior fully informed consent, e.g., the vaccine package insert adverse reactions and contraindications information. How can the EMA disregard what’s going on with HPV vaccines?
In the open letter to the EMA, SaneVax points out a recent study regarding “Adverse events following HPV vaccination, Alberta 2006-2014” that
“Despite the fact that this study uncovered information indicating 1 in 10 Gardasil users were either admitted to a hospital or an emergency room within 42 days of injection, the conclusion was ‘Rates of AEFI after HPV immunization in Alberta are low and consistent with types of events seen elsewhere.’”
Rather squirrelly scientific interpretations and reporting, I’d say!
The science and medical literature regarding HPV vaccines, as with ALL vaccines, are skewed in favor of vaccines per se, their Big Pharma manufacturers and what’s called “consensus science,” rather than the actual FACTS of “science-based medicine.” This article highlights those ‘scientific liberties’ or ‘editorial privileges’ plus SaneVax’s most impressive and laudable undertaking to prod the EU’s EMA to “come clean” and be transparently accountable to healthcare consumers.
References:
[1] https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2014/08/22/breaking-cdc-whistleblower-thompson-in-grave-danger-now/
[2] http://www.activistpost.com/2016/04/why-vaxxed-was-shot-down-at-tribeca-up-close-and-personal.html
[3] http://www.naturalnews.com/053790_MMR_research_data_William_Thompson_vaccine_safety_science.html
[4] http://healthimpactnews.com/2015/obama-grants-immunity-to-cdc-whistleblower-on-measles-vaccine-link-to-autism/
[5] http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4546421/rep-bill-posey-calling-investigation-cdcs-mmr-reasearch-fraud
[6] http://sanevax.org/
Catherine J Frompovich (website) is a retired natural nutritionist who earned advanced degrees in Nutrition and Holistic Health Sciences, Certification in Orthomolecular Theory and Practice plus Paralegal Studies. Her work has been published in national and airline magazines since the early 1980s. Catherine authored numerous books on health issues along with co-authoring papers and monographs with physicians, nurses, and holistic healthcare professionals. She has been a consumer healthcare researcher 35 years and counting.
Catherine’s latest book, published October 4, 2013, is Vaccination Voodoo, What YOU Don’t Know About Vaccines, available on Amazon.com.
Her 2012 book A Cancer Answer, Holistic BREAST Cancer Management, A Guide to Effective & Non-Toxic Treatments, is available on Amazon.com and as a Kindle eBook.
Two of Catherine’s more recent books on Amazon.com are Our Chemical Lives And The Hijacking Of Our DNA, A Probe Into What’s Probably Making Us Sick(2009) and Lord, How Can I Make It Through Grieving My Loss, An Inspirational Guide Through the Grieving Process(2008)
Catherine’s NEW book: Eat To Beat Disease, Foods Medicinal Qualities©2016 Catherine J Frompovich coming in Summer 2016The Simplified Spelling Board was an American organization created in 1906 to reform the spelling of the English language, making it simpler and easier to learn, and eliminating many of what were considered to be its inconsistencies. The board operated until 1920, the year after the death of its founding benefactor, who had come to criticize the progress and approach of the organization.
Founding [ edit ]
The Simplified Spelling Board was announced on March 11, 1906, with Andrew Carnegie funding the organization, to be headquartered in New York City. The New York Times noted that Carnegie was convinced that "English might be made the world language of the future" and an influence leading to universal peace, but that this role was obstructed by its "contradictory and difficult spelling".[1] Carnegie committed $15,000 per year for five years to get the organization off the ground.[2]
The initial 30 members of the Board consisted of authors, professors, and dictionary editors, among them Supreme Court Justice David Josiah Brewer, President Nicholas Murray Butler of Columbia University, Dr. Melvil Dewey (inventor of the Dewey Decimal Classification), Dr. Isaac K. Funk (editor of The Standard Dictionary), former United States Secretary of the Treasury Lyman J. Gage, United States Commissioner of Education William Torrey Harris (and editor-in-chief of the 1909 Webster's New International Dictionary), publishing magnate Henry Holt, professor Calvin Thomas, and author Mark Twain.[1] Offices were obtained at the Metropolitan Life Building at 1 Madison Avenue, and Brander Matthews was selected as the board's chairman.[2]
Charles E. Sprague of the Union Dime Savings Institution, the board's first treasurer, noted that the group was careful to keep the word "reform" out of its name and gave the word "believe" as an example of a word that would benefit from elimination of its unneeded "i", stating that "If believe were spelled 'beleve', I think it would be a good change."[3]
On March 13, 1906, The New York Times editorialized in support of the Simplified Spelling Board's efforts, noting that 90% of English words are "fairly well spelled", but that "a vast improvement could be effected by reducing to some sort of regularity the much-used tenth that makes most of the trouble".[4] An editorial in the following day's edition noted that opponents of the board's efforts had suggested that the language be kept as is, only taught better, but that the members of the board would respect the language's history in its improvement efforts without hiding or distorting it.[5] Brander Matthews, the board's chairman, emphasized that the board's primary mission in simplifying the language was to eliminate unneeded letters, noting that "[s]implification by omission – this is its platform; this is its motto".[6] Isaac Funk wrote to The Times on March 20, 1906, emphasizing that the board's first aim was "a conservatively progressive evolution, aiming chiefly at the dropping of silent letters", accelerating a process that had been going on for centuries. This would be followed by the use of a phonetic alphabet developed by the American Philological Association and including the 40 basic sounds used in English. Phonetics would be taught to children in nursery school or kindergarten.[7]
First 300 words [ edit ]
The board's initial list of 300 words was published on April 1, 1906. Much of the list included words ending with -ed changed to end -t ("addressed", "caressed", "missed", "possessed" and "wished", becoming "addresst", "carest", "mist", "possest" and "wisht", respectively). Other changes included removal of silent letters ("catalogue" to "catalog"), changing -re endings to -er ("calibre" and "sabre" to "caliber" and "saber"), changing "ough" to "o" to represent the long vowel sound in the new words altho, tho and thoro, and changes to represent the "z" sound with that letter, where "s" had been used ("brasen" and "surprise" becoming "brazen" and "surprize"). Digraphs would also be eliminated, with the board promoting such spellings as "anemia", "anesthesia", "archeology", "encyclopedia" and "orthopedic". [8]
The board noted that the majority of the words in their list were already preferred by three current dictionaries: Webster's (more than half), the Century (60%) and the Standard (two-thirds). In June 1906, the board prepared a list of the 300 words designed for teachers, lecturers and writers, which was sent out upon request.[9]
In June 1906, the New York City Board of Education received a report from the Board of Superintendents recommending adoption of the 300-word list, and would pass on the recommendation to the Committee on Studies and Textbooks for approval.[10]
In August 1906, President of the United States Theodore Roosevelt had supported the plan, signing an executive order at his home in Oyster Bay, New York, mandating the use of reformed spelling in his official communications and messages to Congress.[11] Prof. Matthews stated that he had received no advance notice of the President's order and had been taken by surprise when it was issued.[12]
Roosevelt tried to force the federal government to adopt the system, sending an order to the Public Printer to use the system in all public federal documents. The order was obeyed; among the many documents printed using the system was the President's special message regarding the Panama Canal.[13]
The New York Times noted that the New York State Commissioner of Education thought the state would not support the board's proposal as "he did not believe that the State educational department should tell the people how they must spell". By August 1906, The board reported that over 5,000 individuals had pledged to use the words on the initial list, with another 500 to 600 agreeing to use some of the words, but objecting to others.[2]
The press on both sides of the Atlantic had a field day with the "reform spelling crusade", and editorials and cartoons abounded. While the London press viciously mocked the executive order, the board received a significant spike in interest in the word list following Roosevelt's edict.[14]
In response to mounting criticism from British newspapers, the board announced the additions of James Murray, the Scottish lexicographer and primary editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, along with Joseph Wright, an Oxford University professor of comparative philology and editor of the English Dialect Dictionary. Combined with the earlier naming of Walter William Skeat, editor of the Etymological English Dictionary, the board could claim it had the three top English language dictionaries from both the United States and United Kingdom on its side.[12]
The Supreme Court entered the fray and directed that its opinions should be printed in the old style.
Finally, Congress had the last word when Representative Charles B. Landis of Indiana, Chairman of the House Committee on Printing, introduced a resolution on December 13, 1906: "Resolved, That it is the sense of the House that hereafter in the printing of House documents or other publications used by law or ordered by Congress, or either branch thereof, or emanating from any executive department or bureau of the Government, the House printer should observe and adhere to the standard of orthography prescribed in generally accepted dictionaries of the English language." The motion passed unanimously. The President let the Public Printer and the Nation know that the old style was reinstated.[15]
Roosevelt ultimately decided to rescind the order. Brander Matthews, a friend of Roosevelt and one of the chief advocates of the reform as chairman of the Simplified Spelling Board, remonstrated with him for abandoning the effort. Roosevelt replied on December 16, 1906: "I could not by fighting have kept the new spelling in, and it was evidently worse than useless to go into an undignified contest when I was beaten. Do you know that the one word as to which I thought the new spelling was wrong – thru – was more responsible than anything else for our discomfiture?" Next summer Roosevelt was watching a naval review when a press boat marked |
AP, and SMEP protections. Pettersson's exploit uses hardcoded offsets for the calls of interest to avoid KASLR, while Konovalov reads dmesg to pluck out the kernel's text address. SMAP/SMEP are either bypassed by using kernel memory directly (Pettersson) or by explicitly disabling the features (Konovalov).
A possible fix
Cook's patch would add a canary field to struct timer_list just prior to the function field. When a timer is initialized, the canary would be set to a value calculated by XORing the addresses of the timer and the function, along with a random number that only the kernel would know. The idea is that the canary value would also be overwritten if the function pointer is. So, before calling the function when the timer expires, the canary would be recalculated and compared with the stored value; if they differ, the function pointer has been changed and will not be called. A warning will be logged as well.
Unfortunately, Cook soon realized that his patch was incomplete. He had addressed timers that were set up using the setup_timer_*() macros and the add_timer() function, but missed many static timer initializations that use DEFINE_TIMER(). He promised a revised version of the patch to handle that case.
But it turns out that will require some extensive refactoring of the timer code, he said in response to an email query. That is a bigger job than he expected, but does provide a nice cleanup, he said. He may also have to weaken the canary for the static timers, he said in the patch followup. As with many cross-subsystem patch sets that change code across the tree, getting something like that into the mainline may be difficult. Cook outlined some of the problems he and others have encountered trying to do so in a ksummit-discuss thread back in June.
As the two exploits showed, though, the problem is real. Some kind of solution that would simply eliminate that class of vulnerabilities would be welcome. Whether Cook's canary can be that solution remains to be seen, however.
Comments (12 posted)
MAINTAINERS
The kernel's development community is large, to the point that it is often far from obvious who a given patch should be sent to. As the community has grown, it has developed mechanisms for tracking that information centered on a text file called. But now it would appear that this scalability mechanism has scalability problems of its own.
The MAINTAINERS file sits at the top of the kernel's source tree; it is a plain-text file with a number of fields describing how various kernel subsystems are managed. For example, the following entry was consulted for a recent article on device-tree issues:
OPEN FIRMWARE AND FLATTENED DEVICE TREE M: Rob Herring <robh+dt@———> M: Frank Rowand <frowand.list@———> L: devicetree@vger.kernel.org W: http://www.devicetree.org/ T: git git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/robh/linux.git S: Maintained F: drivers/of/ F: include/linux/of*.h F: scripts/dtc/ F: Documentation/ABI/testing/sysfs-firmware-ofw
This entry says that the flattened device-tree subsystem has two maintainers (the " M: " fields), Rob Herring and Frank Rowand. The relevant mailing list ( L: ) and web site ( W: ) are given, as is the subsystem's Git tree ( T: ). The F: lines describe the files and directories that are considered to be a part of this subsystem. The file can be read in a text editor, but it is often consulted by way of the get_maintainer.pl script, which reads a patch and outputs a list of addresses to which the patch should be sent.
This file is over 14,000 lines long in current kernels and contains entries for over 1,700 subsystems in the kernel. Those subsystems are ostensibly listed in alphabetical order but, as Randy Dunlap noted in a patch posted in July, many of the entries are not in the right place. His patch sought to improve the situation, but that is where the real trouble started.
In a community as large as the kernel, changes to subsystems happen on a frequent basis. If the relevant maintainers are paying attention, those changes result in patches to the MAINTAINERS file — on the order of 100 patches in each development cycle. Needless to say, a certain number of those patches will conflict with each other, and Linus Torvalds gets to clean up the mess. When Dunlap's patch inevitably resulted in a merge conflict, Torvalds proclaimed his frustration with the MAINTAINERS file. Perhaps, he asked, there would be some way to split it up?
His original suggestion was to spread the maintainer information through the kernel source tree, like the kernel configuration file was split up starting in 1.3.36. He later suggested that the maintainer information could, in fact, live in the Kconfig files with the configuration options, though that idea did not get far. Regardless of the exact scheme used, he explained, splitting up the maintainer information would make resolving conflicts into a less frustrating task.
The advantages of a less frustrated Linus Torvalds are evident to most kernel developers, so interest in improving the MAINTAINERS file is relatively high. Joe Perches suggested splitting the file into a top-level MAINTAINERS directory; that would keep the information easy to find and easy for scripts to work with. And that would indeed appear to be way things are headed.
That leaves the question of how the file should be split. Yet another suggestion from Torvalds was to split the file by mailing list, so that all entries pointing to the same list would end up in the same file. But Perches came back with a script that splits the file by directory hierarchy instead. The result is 54 files in the MAINTAINERS directory with names like arch_arm64, drivers_gpu_drm, or filesystems. Any subsystem without enough entries to justify its own file ends up in MAINTAINERS/MAINTAINERS.
Torvalds tried it out but chose not to go with the result. He had a few quibbles with how the split is done, but concluded that "*some* of it looks really nice". But perhaps the concern that really stopped things was a familiar one: making this change will create merge conflicts with any subsystem tree containing changes to the MAINTAINERS file. The most likely solution to that problem is to make the change immediately after the 4.14-rc1 release. Torvalds has not committed to doing so, but it does seem likely that the MAINTAINERS split is coming in the relatively near future.
Comments (6 posted)
While the best way to avoid performance problems associated with page faults is usually to avoid faulting altogether, that is not always an option. Thus, it is important that the kernel handle page faults with a minimum of overhead. One particular pain point in current kernels comes about in multi-threaded workloads that are all incurring faults in the same address space. Speculative page-fault handling is an old idea for improving the scalability of such workloads that may finally be approaching a point where it can be considered for inclusion.
Memory-management performance with multi-threaded workloads is often bounded by the ability to acquire the mmap_sem reader/writer semaphore, which serializes access to the data structures describing a process's address space. The handling of page faults, in particular, requires mmap_sem, so a process with a large number of threads generating faults will see contention. Speculative page faults are an attempt to alleviate this contention by doing lockless reads of a process's virtual memory areas (VMA) without holding mmap_sem.
The speculative page-fault patches first appeared in 2009 and have been discussed and improved upon intermittently by various kernel developers through the years, but this work has not found its way into the kernel. Laurent Dufour has recently revived this effort by resubmitting the patches with fixes and improvements of his own, and an active discussion took place on the linux-kernel mailing list on its inclusion. Notably, Dufour reports a 20% speed improvement loading a 2TB database with the speculative page fault code.
As noted above, the mmap_sem semaphore can be a point of significant contention for multi-threaded workloads. In particular, page-fault handling requires access to a process's VMA structures that describe its memory layout, and that access requires mmap_sem. Even when only read locking is required (as is the case for page faults), frequent access to mmap_sem leads to cache-line bouncing and poor performance. The idea behind speculative page faults is to increase memory-management performance by avoiding the use of the mmap_sem in page-fault handling. Doing so requires a way to perform a lockless walk of the VMAs; that, in turn, means facing a number of problems that mmap_sem is explicitly there to prevent.
The first of these problems, naturally, is that the VMA describing the area where a fault occurs may, if mmap_sem is not held, change during the handling of the fault. The strategy taken to address this problem is to do as much work as possible that doesn't depend on the state of the VMA, then checking to see if anything has changed before changing the process's address space directly. So, for example, a free page can be allocated and its data read in from disk independently of the address space, but actually putting that page into the address space requires a consistent view of the VMA.
The kernel has a longstanding mechanism for this kind of access: the seqlock. So the patch set adds a seqlock to the VMA structure, along with the code to increment its sequence count everywhere that the VMA is changed. The speculative fault-handling code can then record the sequence number before doing any work and verify that the number has not changed at the end. If the sequence number does change, the VMA has been changed and the speculative work was done in vain; in this case the attempt fails and the fault is retried in the old-fashioned way.
The second problem is a bit trickier; without mmap_sem, a VMA may disappear entirely while a fault is being handled. This situation is avoided by using read-copy-update (RCU) to keep VMA structures around while a fault is being handled. SRCU (the sleepable variant of RCU) is used to serialize VMA updates and accommodate lockless reads of the VMA. SRCU is required because a number of fault-handling operations can sleep.
When handling a page fault speculatively, the kernel will do a lockless page-table walk and grab the finer-grained page-table lock. Then it does a srcu_read_lock() to do a VMA lookup, and checks the write-sequence count of the VMA. It will need to use the VMA to find the page that the address faulted on, but to do this it needs to drop the page table lock to honor locking order rules. Once the page is found, the VMA is validated again by repeating the page table walk, obtaining the page-table lock, and validating that the VMA sequence number did not change. If it didn't, the page is installed in the page table, and the page-table lock is released.
Another pitfall with speculative page-fault handling has to do with translation lookaside buffer (TLB) invalidation. Various actions, such as unmapping a memory area, can call for a TLB invalidation; that is handled by sending inter-processor interrupts (IPIs) to tell each CPU to invalidate its own TLB. The unmap path can lock specific page-table entries and perform the invalidation while that lock is held. The speculative fault-handling path, meanwhile, will attempt to take the page-table lock it needs with interrupts disabled. Should that attempt happen on a page-table entry that is held by the unmap path, the processor will spin in a loop with interrupts disabled, meaning it will never receive the TLB-invalidation IPI. The result is a deadlock, a situation that is even worse for performance than mmap_sem contention. Once this problem is understood the solution is straightforward: use a "trylock" operation to acquire the lock in the speculative path, and fall back to traditional fault handling if it fails.
The first speculative page fault patches were posted in 2009 by Hiroyuki Kamezawa. The ensuing discussion led Peter Zijlstra to create his own implementation based on the idea of using RCU to enable lockless reading of the VMA structures. Zijlstra's implementation had some issues of its own; no code was merged, and the discussion stalled and fizzled out. The idea was revived again by Zijlstra in 2014, because many of the issues blocking the progress of previous attempts had been solved. However, the discussion fizzled out again, and there was no push for merging the code. In June, Dufour forward-ported Zijlstra's patches and added some of his own. One of the problems Dufour addresses with his patches is the TLB invalidation issue.
Despite the two previous abandoned speculative page fault implementations, the idea is useful enough for another attempt to be made at trying to get this code merged into the kernel. Dufour's database-loading speed improvements led Michal Hocko to ask if there were any other tests or benchmarks that were run, such as kernbench or other highly threaded workloads. In response, the August 8 posting (linked above) includes a number of results from different benchmarks, showing modest to significant improvements depending on the test.
At this point, it would appear that the significant issues with this patch set have been addressed. Given that speculative page-fault handling shows significant improvements for some workloads, one might not be faulted for speculating that there is a reasonable chance that this work will be merged in the relatively near future — a mere eight years after the initial idea was floated.
[Thanks to Peter Zijlstra for answering my questions about this work.]
Comments (1 posted)
The startup time for the Python interpreter has been discussed by the core developers and others numerous times over the years; optimization efforts are made periodically as well. Startup time can dominate the execution time of command-line programs written in Python, especially if they import a lot of other modules. Python startup time is worse than some other scripting languages and more recent versions of the language are taking more than twice as long to start up when compared to earlier versions (e.g. 3.7 versus 2.7). The most recent iteration of the startup time discussion has played out in the python-dev and python-ideas mailing lists since mid-July. This time, the focus has been on the collections.namedtuple() data structure that is used in multiple places throughout the standard library and in other Python modules, but the discussion has been more wide-ranging than simply that.
A "named tuple" is a way to assign field names to elements in a Python tuple object. The canonical example is to create a Point class using the namedtuple() factory:
Point = namedtuple('Point', ['x', 'y']) p = Point(1,2)
p.x
p[0]
namedtuple()
namedtuple()
namedtuple()
_source
namedtuple()
The elements of the named tuple can then be accessed using the field names (e.g.) in addition to the usualmechanism. A bug filed in November 2016 identifiedas a culprit in increasing the startup time for importing the functools standard library module. The suggested solution was to replace thecall with its equivalent Python code that was copied from the _source attribute of a class created with. Theattribute contains the pure Python implementation of the named tuple class, which eliminates the need to create and execute some of that code at import time (which is whatdoes).
There are a few problems with that approach, including the fact that any updates or fixes to what namedtuple() produces would not be reflected in functools. Beyond that, though, named tuple developer Raymond Hettinger was not convinced there was a real problem:
I would like to caution against any significant changes to save microscopic amounts of time. Twisting the code into knots for minor time savings is rarely worth it and it not what Python is all about.
Nick Coghlan agreed with Hettinger's assessment:
Caring about start-up performance is certainly a good thing, but when considering potential ways to improve the situation, structural enhancements to the underlying systems are preferable to ad hoc special cases that complicate future development efforts.
Hettinger closed the bug, though it was reopened in December to consider a different approach using Argument Clinic and subsequently closed again for more or less the same reasons. That's where it stood until mid-July when Jelle Zijlstra added a comment that pointed to a patch to speed up named tuple creation by avoiding some of the exec() calls. It was mostly compatible with the existing implementation, though it did not support the _source attribute. That led to a classic "bug war", of sorts, where people kept reopening the bug, only to see it be immediately closed again. It is clear that some felt that the arguments for closing the bug were not particularly compelling.
After several suggestions that the proper way to override the bug-closing decisions made by Hettinger and Coghlan was to take the issue to python-dev, Antoine Pitrou did just that. According to Pitrou, the two main complaints about the proposed fix were that it eliminated the _source attribute and that "optimizing startup cost is supposedly not worth the effort". Pitrou argued that _source is effectively unused by any Python code that he could find and that startup optimizations are quite useful:
[...] startup time is actually a very important consideration nowadays, both for small scripts *and* for interactive use with the now very wide-spread use of Jupyter Notebooks. A 1 ms. cost when importing a single module can translate into a large slowdown when your library imports (directly or indirectly) hundreds of modules, many of which may create their own namedtuple classes.
In addition, the _source attribute is something of an odd duck in that it would seem to be part of the private interface because it is prefixed with an underscore, but also that it is meant to be used as a learning tool, which is not typical for Python objects. The underscore was used so that source could be used as a tuple field name but, as Hettinger noted, it probably should have been named differently (e.g. source_ ). But he is adamant that there are benefits to having that attribute, mostly from a learning and understanding standpoint.
Ever the pragmatist, Guido van Rossum offered something of a compromise. He agreed with Pitrou about the need to optimize named tuple class creation, but hoped that it would still be possible to support Hettinger's use case:
The cumulative startup time of large Python programs is a serious problem and namedtuple is one of the major contributors -- especially because it is so convenient that it is ubiquitous. The approach of generating source code and exec()ing it, is a cool demonstration of Python's expressive power, but it's always been my sense that whenever we encounter a popular idiom that uses exec() and eval(), we should augment the language (or the builtins) to avoid these calls -- that's for example how we ended up with getattr(). [...] Concluding, I think we should move on from the original implementation and optimize the heck out of namedtuple. The original has served us well. The world is constantly changing. Python should adapt to the (happy) fact that it's being used for systems larger than any of us could imagine 15 years ago.
As might be guessed, a pronouncement like that from Van Rossum, Python's benevolent dictator for life (BDFL), led Hettinger to reconsider: "Okay, then Nick and I are overruled. I'll move Jelle's patch forward. We'll also need to lazily generate _source but I don't think that will be hard." He did add "one minor grumble", however, regarding the complexity of the CPython code:
I think we need to give careful cost/benefit considerations to optimizations that complicate the implementation. Over the last several years, the source for Python has grown increasingly complicated. Fewer people understand it now. It is much harder to newcomers to on-ramp. [...] In the case of this named tuple proposal, the complexity is manageable, but the overall trend isn't good and I get the feeling the aggressive optimization is causing us to forget key parts of the zen-of-python.
That tradeoff between complexity and performance is one that has played out in many different development communities over the years—the kernel community faces it regularly. Part of the problem is that the negative effects of a performance optimization may not be seen for a long time. As Coghlan put it:
Unfortunately, these are frequently cases where the benefits are immediately visible (e.g. faster benchmark results, removing longstanding limitations on user code), but the downsides can literally take years to make themselves felt (e.g. higher defect rates in the interpreter, subtle bugs in previously correct user code that are eventually traced back to interpreter changes).
Van Rossum's pronouncement set off a predictable bikeshedding frenzy around named tuple enhancements that eventually moved to python-ideas and may be worthy of a further look at some point. But there was also some pushback regarding Hettinger's repeated contention that shaving a few milliseconds here and there from the Python startup time was not an important goal. As Barry Warsaw said:
[..] start up time *is* a serious challenge in many environments for CPython in particular and the perception of Python’s applicability to many problems. I think we’re better off trying to identify and address such problems than ignoring or minimizing them.
Gregory P. Smith pointed to the commonly mentioned command-line utilities as one place where startup time matters, but also described another problematic area:
I'll toss another where Python startup time has raised eyebrows at work: unittest startup and completion time. When the bulk of a processes time is spent in startup before hitting unittest.main(), people take notice and consider it a problem. Developer productivity is reduced. The hacks individual developers come up with to try and workaround things like this are not pretty. [...] In real world applications you do not control the bulk of the code that has chosen to use namedtuple. They're scattered through 100-1000s of other transitive dependency libraries (not just the standard library), the modification of each of which faces hurdles both technical and non-technical in nature.
The discussion (and a somewhat dismissive tweet from Hettinger [Note: Hettinger strongly disclaims the "dismissive" characterization.]) led Victor Stinner to start a new thread on python-dev to directly discuss the interpreter startup time, separate from the named tuple issue. He collected some data that showed that the startup time for the in-development Python 3.7 is 2.3 times longer than Python 2.7. He also compared the startup of the Python-based Mercurial source code management system to that of Git (Mercurial is 45 times slower) as well as comparing the startup times of several other scripting languages (Python falls into the middle of the pack there). In the thread, Pitrou pointed out the importance of "anecdotal data", which Hettinger's tweet had dismissed:
[...] We are engineers and have to make with whatever anecdotes we are aware of (be they from our own experiences, or users' complaints). We can't just say "yes, there seems be a performance issue, but I'll wait until we have non-anecdotal data that it's important". Because that day will probably never come, and in the meantime our users will have fled elsewhere.
Python has come a long way from its roots as a teaching language. There is clearly going to be some tension between the needs of languages geared toward teaching and those of languages used for production-quality applications of various kinds. That means there is a balance to be struck, which is something the core developers (and, in particular, Van Rossum) have been good at over the years. One suspects that startup time—and the named tuple implementation—can be optimized without sacrificing that.
Comments (13 posted)
Page editor: Jonathan Corbet
Inside this week's LWN.net Weekly EditionWomen often complain about the glass ceiling. Friends of mine tell me their bosses only promote from within the old-boy network. Studies show that women in the U.S. still get just 77 cents for every dollar men are paid, even with increasing gender parity in higher education.
And how many of the people running the biggest 500 companies are women? In 2009 only 15 were, among them Carol Bartz Carol Bartz at Yahoo!, Indra Nooyi Indra Nooyi at PepsiCo and Ursula Burns Ursula Burns at Xerox. They are exceptions in the male-dominated ranks of C-level executives.
I will be honest. In my career, I have tended to promote more men than women. I have even generally given men higher salaries. Why? Am I sexist? Do men do a better job? The answer is a resounding no to both.
Actually, it is mostly women's fault. They simply don't ask for raises or promotions as often as men do.
My organization conducted interviews with hundreds of American, European and Chinese women, and most said they felt that if they worked hard and showed they were valuable to the company, they would get promoted. They also said they feared they could be fired if they appeared too pushy, especially in a downturn.
But the reality is that promotions rarely happen just because you're there and you're good. You need to tell people how good you are. This is especially true at more junior levels, where it can be harder to get noticed and there is more competition for plum positions.
Male or female, you have to not only earn that promotion but also make your bosses know they need to give it to you. Bosses tend to promote not just valuable people but people who push to move up the ladder. After all, good leaders know that they do best if they're flanked by good lieutenants. They want to give opportunities to people who want to grow with the organization and not flee to the competition.
Undeniably there are toxic corporate cultures where women are treated terribly. Stay away from those places. Corporate culture is hard to change. The rot starts at the top.
Our research also suggests, perhaps surprisingly to some, that most men have nothing against working for a female boss. Only a minority of men told us they would object. In fact, many said they'd prefer a female boss, because of the greater likelihood she'd understand the need for work-life balance (which I wrote about in "Enforce The No-BlackBerry Rule").
If a major obstacle to getting promoted is yourself, what should you do about it? Here are two tips for women--or anyone starting a career, for that matter.
First, you can't get what you don't ask for, so ask for a promotion and a raise, even in a downturn. Most bosses won't fire you for saying you'd like to move ahead. Have you ever heard of anyone being let go for asking for a promotion, except during a political battle for the top spot? Very often bosses don't even think about who should be advanced and who shouldn't. They're busy juggling too many things. You have to sell them on the idea of promoting you.
How? Don't go into the room threatening, saying give me a promotion or I'll leave. That's an old sleazy salesman's trick. Instead, take a long-term approach. Arrange a meeting to discuss what you can do over the next three to six months to earn a promotion and a raise. Prepare three to five talking points that highlight what you've already done. Try to pick talking points that show how you've generated revenue and demonstrated leadership.
After explaining to your boss what you've accomplished (he or she may be surprised), ask what you need to do now. After the boss tells you, make sure you live up to those new expectations. If after a few months you don't get that raise, it may be time to look elsewhere.
Second, women should not use overt sexuality to get ahead. Occasional mild flirting may have its place, but to be taken seriously, focus on business. Look professional and attractive but not sexy. The same goes for men. Guys who dress too flashily likewise aren't taken seriously--except in the entertainment world.
Looks do matter in the business world, as Laura Sinberg recently wrote for Forbes. But you want to be remembered for your business ability, not for how you look in a short skirt. The latter hardly gets you taken seriously as a business executive.
Promotions are tough to ask for, especially when you're concerned about fitting in. But any woman who wants to rise high in the business world should consider being more aggressive in seeking out promotions and increased responsibility. Approach your boss with a plan, make your case and make sure that no one forgets you are a strong business mind. Before long there will be far more than just 15 women at the top.
Shaun Rein is the founder and managing director of the China Market Research Group, a strategic market intelligence firm. He writes for Forbes on leadership, marketing and China. For more from Shaun Rein, click here.Bolsover Castle: From Fortress to Fantasy by Elaine Walker Bolsover Castle appears as a surprise from whichever way you approach. Coming off the M1 motorway at junctions 29 or 30, you drive through reminders of Derbyshire's industrial heritage to find a castle from a fairytale looking down at you from its high vantage point. If you approach through Bolsover town itself, on the A632 from Chesterfield, the castle appears as you round a corner, the backdrop to a row of modern houses. While it may echo the honey-coloured limestone of the surrounding area, its towers and turrets make it seem from another time and place, scarcely associated with its location. This is in some ways true. Bolsover Castle, pronounced locally as 'Bozer', was in its glory days the fantasy creation of William Cavendish, Earl, Marquis and later first Duke of Newcastle, whose main residence was the nearby Welbeck Abbey. The two houses were distinguished by practicality and beauty and one guest in 1668 wrote that William had 'Welbecke for use and Bolser for sighte'. The beauty of Bolsover made this the place he chose to entertain his guests, a pleasure palace where the finer points of art and culture could be enjoyed by the nobility of the 17th century. William was a man famed for his elaborate self-presentation and loyalty to the crown, which came together in theatrical entertainments for the king and queen, one written especially for their visit to Bolsover. A love of the arts and desire for a high place at court meant that William was frequently troubled for cash, but this never stopped him in his pursuit of beauty and position. Bolsover Castle is a nutshell version of the pleasures of one man's life, and a day spent within its walls offers not only the enjoyment of a lovely building, but also an insight into a fascinating man. The castle began life in the 12th century as a fortification belonging to the Perevel family, most likely similar in design to their nearby castle at Castleton, the ruins of which may be still be seen. Bolsover changed hands a number of times until its materials were stripped and sold during the 14th century. It remained in a sorry state until it became a favourite project of Sir Charles Cavendish in 1608, and later his son William. Following his father's example, through his youth and maturity William devoted himself to developing this most beloved of his residences and it is his mark that is largely stamped on the castle you can see today. The practicalities of your visit are easily dealt with. There is a choice of parking close to the castle and toilets are available before you enter the Visitor Centre, a well designed and comfortable building offering souvenirs, information and refreshments. Bolsover Castle belongs to English Heritage, so members gain free admission, while an adult ticket for nonmembers is £6.50 with concessions from £4.90 down to £3.30 for children. The price includes a comprehensive audio tour, which provides interesting historical and architectural information, while activity sheets are available for younger visitors. The castle is also available for civil weddings, corporate hospitality and educational visits. It is a site that is under constant improvement and development and is very visitor friendly, although disabled accessed is limited in parts by the 17th century design. A visit to the castle begins with entry through the imposing gateway, which leads to a fine view of the Great Court, with the main house, the Little Castle, appearing over the outer wall of the garden. Nearby, a detailed model of the site as it was in the 1660s shows that the gate you have passed through was once the rear entrance, with the formal approach being along the South Drive. A gate in the walled garden leads up a wide drive in a direct line to the door of the Riding House. This use of aligned doorways is a feature of the site that illustrates a fashion of the 17th century. Being able to see through a doorway to another and yet another beyond showed that the owner could afford an extensive range of rooms and buildings. The Riding House itself (shown below) was evidence of status and a cultured taste during a time when the passion for horsemanship as an art was flourishing. William's Riding House, one of the earliest to be built in England, was a state-of-the-art design and was said to be'more extraordinarie, than are to bee seene in Europe' by his contemporaries. Still used on occasions for demonstrations of 17th century horsemanship, filming and Riding for the Disabled, the Riding House is a jewel of its kind, and the finest surviving example in this country. The building recalls a part of the equine history that may be traced through to today's dressage. William wrote two books on horsemanship, the first and only significant British contributions to the development of the art. His Riding House at Bolsover underwent detailed restoration in 1999/2000 and there is still some debate over its actual date of construction. Building was likely to have begun in the 1630s but there was a complete renovation in the 1660s, after the deprivations of the Civil War. From the Riding House, visit the interpretative centre in the old stables, where there is a charming model of the little castle for children to play in and some interesting features and information on the building. Sadly, the information on horsemanship is not very accurate, but overall, it is nevertheless very attractive and imaginative. Beyond the Riding House Range, the shell of the Terrace Range looks out over wonderful views of the surrounding countryside. The Terrace Range was built in the 1630s and represents one of William Cavendish's many financial risks in his quest for court position. It was designed and built with a view to entertaining King Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria, a plan which was fulfilled in 1634. Poet and playwright Ben Jonson was commissioned to write an entertainment for the royal couple, called Love's Welcome. The whole event, though greatly enjoyed by the King, left William deeply in debt. Long derelict, the Terrace Range offers an insight into the construction of such a building, as you can look down through the missing floors to see the layout and design. You will also see more of the aligned doorways and enjoy some wonderfully quirky views of doorways framed within doorways, with the Little Castle or the Riding House glimpsed as the distant focal point. The ingenuity of design, by the famous Smithson family of architects, makes the whole site a real pleasure, as there is both style and wit in its composition. From the Terrace Range, visit the Little Castle. Like the Riding House, the Little Castle has undergone considerable restoration in recent years. The attention to detail extends to the mixing of paint from authentic materials of the 17th century. The colours were chosen from analysis of the scrapings from the layers of many years so that the colours you see today are those William himself would have chosen and approved. Although William's love of Bolsover Castle led to constant development and change throughout his lifetime, it was almost destroyed during the Civil War and only the swift intervention of his devoted brother prevented compete demolition. William spent 16 years in exile on the Continent as one of the most hated enemies of the Parliamentarians, but on his return after the restoration of Charles II, he applied himself diligently to its renovation. As you move through the Little Castle, you travel from earthly to heavenly concerns, as each room is decorated with a specific focus in mind. The labours of Hercules are introduced with his statue over the main entrance, and go on to form the decoration of the Hall. A philosophical concern of the 17th century was the reconciling of pleasure to virtue and the decoration of the Little Castle may be seen as an allegory illustrating this dilemma. William's earthly pleasures -- the love of horses, music and art -- may be seen in both the main decoration and also in details such as the leaping horses that decorate the pillars in the Pillar Parlour. The romping female nudes in the Marble Closet recall another of his interests, while the music held by the cherubs in the Heaven Room comes from a song about Robin Hood. As William was responsible for the overseeing of Sherwood Forest on behalf of the King, and Welbeck Abbey was located in the forest, this becomes yet another reference to him. The Heaven room is one of two closets that lead off William's own bedroom, and illustrates spiritual concerns with scenes from the life of Christ. The other closet is the Elysium room, decorated with Classical scenes of the pagan heaven of gods and goddesses. The two closets seem to offer the ultimate choice of virtue or pleasure while a banner in the Elysium room offers the cautious reminder that 'All is But vanitie.' While the upper rooms and kitchens below ground level are not decorated, their emptiness draws attention to the beautiful design features such as the octagonal lantern that lights the top storey of the house and the functional channels for water in the beer cellar and the sculleries. A video in the beer cellar adds to the information of the audio tour and is enjoyable for children as well as adults. Before leaving the kitchens, you might like to spare a sympathetic thought for the staff that had to prepare the meals and then carry them up the three staircases to the rooms above! The walled gardens are neat and attractive, with small fireplaces arranged in the perimeter wall to provide heat for the growing of tender fruits and vines. In the centre, a decorous nude stands on her fountain, surrounded by satyrs and lustful mythical beasts and overlooked from the balcony of the Elysium room. While the bathing lady is generally considered to be Venus, goddess of love, another possible interpretation is that she is Bathsheba. Any gentleman who should spy on her from the balcony above plays the part of King David, for whom the dilemma between pleasure and virtue had significant results. The fountain has undergone considerable restoration and some of the statues, like Hercules, have been reconstructed from fragments. A ramble around the courtyard leads at last back to the visitor centre, where the cafe is open from April to October, with a drinks machine available out of |
, but it’s a cool benefit if you’re going against certain decks.
Uther’s got a lot of tools at his disposal. Are his allies up to the task of sweeping evil from the land? Find out on Thursday!
Miss some of BlizzPro’s earlier previews? Take a look at those and other Hearthstone articles here. Have a question about Hearthstone or just want to talk deck ideas? Drop me a line at @RobertAWing on Twitter, or at ZenStyle@BlizzPro.com.The city of Kanpur in the north Indian state Uttar Pradesh is famed for its leather industry, meeting national and international demands for superior quality leather.
The industry, which employs thousands and earns a lot of revenue, however, has a notorious side to it.
It is a source of hazardous pollution that, environmentalists say, is gradully killing the city.
Each day, the tanneries pump out about 30 crore litres of polluted water into the adjacent Ganges river. The city's water treatment unit, however, has a capacity of treating 17 crore litres per day.
Kanpur also generates 400 tonnes of solid waste.
The rampant pollution has contaminated ground water sources. There are reports of increasing deformaties among new born babies. Farmers complain their fields are turning toxic.
This photo-essay portrays the tragedy that has overtaken Kanpur.
Text by Sudhiti NaskarWho says you can't spend your bitcoin for goods and services?
1 2 3 4 5 large boardroom b bitcoin 4 seater1 enterprise_offices 322879j_19.
End
-- Director of Coworkingspace.ca Leo Coholic proudly announced that "I believe we are are first Office facility in Toronto and quite possibly the country to have transacted a deal in bitcoin. Why is this significant?It shows that bitcoin can be used for real tangible goods and services. There is a role for this crypto currency in unglamorous transactions such as real estate rental." The transaction occurred today and went without a wrinkle. "I really think that crypto currencies will add to the diversity of payment options that we have. In fact I would further speculate that it will add liquidity in areas where tradition fiat currency just doesn't seem to be getting: In the world of startups and early stage companies that will be the engines of growth and job creation in this country. Something I would add, that the quantitative easing moves by central bankers have thus far not been able to do." Coholic asks "how many great ideas did not get anywhere because they just not get funded? Look to crowdfunding sites to see how many ideas have gotten traction where bankers, VC, and even government have passed on them." He continues "we have a very progressive 14,000 square foot facility here in Toronto, a facility that we hope will become a hive of Bitcoin activity. From apps developers to miners. Let's bring on innovation and hope that some industry leaders may emerge from here"[First, thank you for your patience with the light blogging recently. Most of my limited spare time has been consumed by a project that must take a higher priority than this site. That project has been perpetually at the verge of completion for weeks now, but should be done soon.]
North Korea’s fourth nuclear test in January was a watershed in sanctions law and policy. Until then, the U.S. and the U.N. had mostly pretended to have tough sanctions against North Korea. Until then, South Korea’s policy was to subsidize and sanction the same government at the same time. Since March, with Congress’s passage of H.R. 757, the closure of Kaesong, the U.N.’s approval of Security Council Resolution 2270, and President Obama’s signature of Executive Order 13722, it has been at least plausible to claim that on paper, there are tough sanctions against North Korea. Whether reality will conform to the law will depend on political will, and the political will of many U.N. member states will depend on whether they believe the U.S. has the political will to use its own secondary sanctions against them if they flout the U.N. sanctions.
Here, the signs continue to be mixed. Almost as soon as Congress moved forward with H.R. 757, and even before the Security Council approved UNSCR 2270, big Chinese banks began to freeze North Korean accounts and close down the branches of North Korean banks. North Korea’s mineral exports to China have, at the very least, dropped sharply, and the drop-off in trade across the Yalu River has emptied office buildings in Dandong. Companies are scrambling to cleanse their supply chains of gold from the Central Bank of the DPRK. Elsewhere, I’ve written extensively about China’s hit-and-miss compliance with shipping sanctions, although the latest reports tell us that there are leaks, and that some designated North Korean ships are approaching Chinese ports with their transponders switched off.
This should be a topic of discussion between U.S. and Chinese diplomats.
Unfortunately, there is little publicly available evidence that the Obama Administration is making the same diplomatic effort to get countries to enforce the sanctions that the Bush Administration did between September 2005 and February 2007. It has now been two months since the U.S. government designated anyone under its North Korea sanctions programs, with the splashy launch of Executive Order 13722. Already, election season is consuming Washington’s attention. Political appointees who should be visiting Brussels, Shanghai, Windhoek, and Cairo to deliver veiled warnings act like they’re busy packing their files and job-hunting. If the administration wants to leave its successor more leverage than it had, it must show the world that it hasn’t lost its interest in implementing U.N. Security Council Resolution 2270.
Fortunately, South Korea has done much to fill this void. Park Geun-hye, ably aided by Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se, has followed her closure of Kaesong, and her lobbying of the European Union to implement sanctions, by lobbying France, Germany, Mexico, India, and even Iran. At least some of this has been effective. Park’s visit to Mexico seems to have played some role in its decision to finally seize the Mu Du Bong, although that action was also held up by questions of legal authority that UNSCR 2087 had already answered clearly and explicitly. India, which had shown signs of cozying up to North Korea, is now promising to implement UNSCR 2270 faithfully. (The outreach to Iran was admirably bold of her, and probably for the consumption of American audiences, but it’s unlikely that Park can offer Iran a replacement for what it really wants from North Korea.) The things Park doesn’t do well are obvious enough, but Park has proven herself a very skillful diplomat. It’s fair to say that she and her Foreign Minister have put our State Department to shame.
Meanwhile, implementation of the most important element of the sanctions — the financial sanctions — is finally beginning in earnest. We have just hit UNSCR 2270’s 90-day deadline for banks worldwide to close the correspondent accounts of North Korean banks. The EU has published strong new regulations implementing the resolution (h/t), and has also just announced a new round of designations, freezing the assets of 18 individuals and one entity, “mostly high-ranking military officials involved in agencies responsible for North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic weapons programs.” This will add pressure on the Obama Administration to follow. (Note to the EU: you’d send a clearer message if EU development funds weren’t being used at Polish shipyards that employ North Korean slave labor.)
Switzerland, which is not an EU member, has also just announced a new round of sanctions to implement 2270:
Measures in the financial sector include freezing assets and a ban on providing financial services. The group of people affected will now be widened. Any funds that are connected to North Korea’s nuclear or missile programmes have been affected, as have the finances of the country’s government or the Korean Workers’ Party. The cabinet said that an exception has been made for the funds of diplomatic representations. The sanctions mean that Swiss banks cannot open any branch or subsidiaries in North Korea, and existing banks and even accounts will have to be shut down by June 2. The same is also true in reverse – North Korean banks operating in Switzerland will have to leave. An existing ban on exporting luxury goods will now include more products, and goods that would “increase the operational capabilities” of North Korea’s army are banned. Any imports or exports will be checked at a customs point for the prohibited products, and exports to North Korea will require advanced authorisation from the State Secretariat of Economic Affairs (Seco). [SwissInfo]
This could be very important. For years, Switzerland had been one of North Korea’s most promiscuous suppliers of luxury goods, and was also rumored to be a haven for large regime slush funds — perhaps as much as $4 billion — under the control of former Ambassador to Switzerland and master money launderer Ri Chol. North Koreans in exile had called on the Swiss government to freeze those assets. Let’s hope that that’s what just happened.
Even Russian banks are showing signs of compliance.
Radio Free Asia said in a report posted on its website that Russia’s central bank recently ordered other local banks and financial institutions to halt transactions with North Korea. The central bank also said that transactions of bonds held by North Korean individuals, organizations and other groups subjected to United Nations’ sanctions should be banned immediately. In addition, Russian financial institutions should close any accounts deemed to be linked to Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs, the report said. [Yonhap]
Kudos to South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se for exercising more global leadership than I’ve seen from a middle power in my memory. Even as the U.S. looks punch-drunk, the South Koreans are fighting above their weight.
“A perception has taken hold in the international community that sanctions and pressure of a different kind compared to the past should be applied to get the North to change and seek denuclearization,” Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se said in a speech at a forum. “In the last couple of days, Switzerland the European Union took their own sanction measures. Our government will keep leading the international community’s pressure on the North from all possible directions going forward,” he added. [Yonhap]
Although the Obama Administration isn’t showing much strength now, a key test will come in July, when under section 304 of the NKSPEA, the President will have to report back to Congress on which North Korean officials, to include Kim Jong-un himself, will be designated for human rights abuses. Already, the State Department is saying that it will “identify and sanction those responsible for human rights abuses in North Korea.” It also offered these welcome words.
“The reason that that provision is in the executive order is to make it possible for us first to develop the evidence and second to act on it. The principle of accountability is a feature of U.N. Security Council Resolution 2270 as well,” Russel said. “I think that the prospect of officials being held to account for systemic abuses of universal human rights is a serious one and that is one way in which we and the international community can keep faith with the North Korean people.” Russel also said he believes that North Korean people, when they are eventually liberated, will “ask who stood by them” and the U.S. is firmly committed to be among the supporters for them. On Monday, Amb. Robert King, special representative for North Korean human rights issues, made a similar remark. “We’re looking at the issue of how we might identify individuals that meet our legislative requirements to apply sanctions against individuals and there are a whole range of issues that we’re looking at. People involved in abductions will be one that we are looking at,” he said. [Yonhap]
A designation triggers the freezing of assets, which will further increase the financial pressure on the regime. And if, as now seems likely, Hillary Clinton is elected this fall, her words (and those of her advisors) offer Kim Jong-un no encouragement that this pressure will ease anytime soon. That’s good, because it will likely take between one and two years before Pyongyang starts to show signs of serious financial distress. It will take careful attention and patience to build the pressure needed to change Pyongyang without war. The greater challenge will be to maintain the determination to keep that pressure in place until Pyongyang shows that it will meet the hard conditions set forth in section 402 of the NKSPEA. Until Pyongyang is prepared to accept that level of basic transparency, no deal it signs will be worth the paper it’s printed on.
~ ~ ~
Update: The UK and Swiss governments have published guidance for their banks on their new sanctions regulations, here and here, respectively. Also, here’s more information about Russia’s sanctions implementation rules.Britain is operating a secret listening station at its embassy in Vienna, Austria’s ORF public broadcaster has claimed.
The broadcaster has released pictures of a small shed-like structure on the roof of the Vienna embassy, which it says conceals sophisticated antennas.
The site is used by GCHQ to monitor Austrian mobile phone networks and other communications, according to the ORF.
The claim comes two years after the disclosure that Britain operates a similar eavesdropping facility at its embassy in Berlin caused a diplomatic row with Germany.
Vienna is thought to be an important location for signals intelligence because it is home to several UN agencies and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
It also serves as headquarters for the Opec oil cartel and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which has been involved in monitoring the crisis in Ukraine.
The US operates three similar eavesdropping sites at various locations around the city, including its embassy roof, according to the ORF.
The structure at the British embassy has been in place for some years, under cover as a “maintenance shed”, the broadcaster claimed.
The report comes amid a diplomatic row over allegations Germany’s BND intelligence service spied on Austria on behalf of the US National Security Agency (NSA).
Last week the Austrian government filed a legal complaint against an unnamed party over “secret intelligence to the detriment of Austria”.
Disclosures in 2013 that the NSA listened in to Angela Merkel’s mobile phone calls caused a rift between Germany and the US.
But in recent weeks Mrs Merkel’s government has been rocked by allegations that the BND spied on a number of European targets for the NSA, including senior French officials.
Britain is part of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network, together with the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and GCHQ works closely with the NSA.
A spokesman for the British Embassy in Vienna declined to comment on the latest allegations.Federal Government under internal pressure to scrap Renewable Energy Target costs for aluminium industry
Updated
A call from Federal Government backbenchers to scrap Renewable Energy Target (RET) costs for the aluminium industry is understood to have the Environment Minister's support.
Twenty-five Coalition backbenchers have signed a letter to Greg Hunt and Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane calling for aluminium production to be fully exempt from the target from next year.
The RET is designed to ensure Australia gets 20 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020. Aluminium smelting already gets a partial exemption from RET costs.
Victorian Liberal backbencher Dan Tehan is leading the charge for a 100 per cent exemption and says the industry forecasts it will be paying up to $80 million a year in RET costs by 2017.
"They are concerned that there has been a smelter that has closed in the last two years, one which is scheduled to close this year," he said.
Norsk Hydro mothballed its Kurri Kurri smelter in New South Wales in 2012, and Alcoa is closing its Point Henry smelter in August.
Mr Tehan says aluminium smelting should be treated as a special case because it uses so much energy.
"The amount of electricity they use in production means that they stand alone when it comes to the cost that the RET imposes on them," he said.
He says the industry is also important for the stability of the electricity grid.
"For instance the smelter in Tasmania uses 25 per cent of the electricity in Tasmania, in Victoria it's roughly 10 per cent," he said.
The Government says it remains committed to the RET but the ABC understands Mr Hunt believes the push regarding aluminium is sensible.
Australia on track to reach RET: Origin Energy
Falling energy demand has some predicting Australia will well exceed the 2020 target.
Origin Energy quotes figures indicating Australia is on track for 27 per cent of its energy to come from renewable sources by then.
Mr Tehan says the aluminium industry has done modelling showing Australia could still meet the 2020 target, even if it was granted a 100 per cent exemption from RET costs.
A Government-commissioned review of the RET is due soon but crucial cross-bencher Clive Palmer has dealt a blow to anyone hoping it will lead to a lower target, saying he will not support changes until after the next election.
Mr Tehan says he is particularly concerned about the RET costs the industry faces because the Portland Aluminium smelter is in his electorate.
He says the smelter employs 725 people and accounts for about 10 per cent of the electricity used in Victoria.
Portland Aluminium is a joint venture managed by Alcoa.
The company has not indicated plans to close it or cut jobs but Mr Tehan says the industry as a whole is under pressure.
"With the dollar where it is, with the aluminium price where it is, there are pressures on the sector and if we're putting additional costs on the sector as well there is the potential for the industry to be hurt... that's why I'm speaking out now," he said.
Tasmanian MPs point to Bell Bay smelter as case for exemption
Tasmania's Premier Will Hodgman has added his voice to the call to exempt Rio Tinto's Bell Bay smelter.
He argues the state's aluminium producers are a special case.
"It's critical though that Tasmania is recognised for leading the way in renewable energy, and we've made significant investments over many decades," he said.
"Equally we've got important employers in Tasmania who themselves are making considerable effort to reduce their environmental impact.
"We need to argue strongly as we're doing to have them exempted from this regime."
The petition has also been signed by Tasmanian Liberal MPs Andrew Nikolic and Eric Hutchison as well as Queensland Nationals MP Ken O'Dowd.
Mr Hutchison says the smelter in northern Tasmania is a significant employer in the state.
It uses about a quarter of the energy generated by the state's major power company, Hydro Tasmania.
"It's such an important sector; jobs are so vital in this part of the world. Anything that actually is a burden on that we should be looking to support."
The Bell Bay smelter's general manager Ray Mostgol said earlier this month energy made up about 30 per cent of smelting costs and the RET requirements were compromising the industry’s sustainability.
The smelter, which employs 500 people, has cut 20 per cent of its workforce in the past two years and reduced costs by $250 million because of historically low prices.
Mr Nikolic says the exemption would save the business about $10 million a year and should be ongoing.
"Tasmania is unique as well because the power we use in Tasmania is over 80 per cent renewable energy so from my perspective I think this should be a continuing thing in the future," he said.
But the previous Labor government's climate change adviser, Ross Garnaut, says the aluminium industry should not get a full exemption from RET costs.
"To exclude the aluminium industry from the costs of the Renewable Energy certificates but to allow them to gain from wholesale prices being lower would just be to take business entitlement to a new level," he said.
Topics: federal-government, electricity-energy-and-utilities, alternative-energy, federal-parliament, australia
First postedIt is only a matter of time before a diver dies in the waters surrounding the Astrolabe Reef, Tauranga divers warn.
Photo: SUPPLIED / Darryl Torkler
The exclusion zone was reopened earlier this week for divers and fishermen in vessels under 500 tonnes, signalling five years of salvage work on the Rena Shipwreck coming to an end.
There has since been as many as 20 boats in the area at any given time, with people diving and fishing as the Rena wreck rests in waters as deep as 56m.
Tauranga Dive director Jared Ross said shipwrecks could also pose a real risk to divers.
Weather conditions for diving in the area were not ideal most days - and it was an accident waiting to happen.
"Someone is going to get lost inside that ship, so it'll take a life. That place is only good to dive maybe two days out of one month, because of the conditions.
"It's realistically a no brainer - somebody is either going to get hurt or someone is going to lose a life."
On Thursday night the Police Dive Squad held a meeting at a local fishing club, as part of a bigger campaign around dive safety.
Senior Sergeant Bruce Adams said the squad had been doing training exercises on the reef, and warned it had real risks which should be taken seriously.
"Even for us it's a challenge.
"Obviously we're planning in case things go wrong, and in this place with its isolation you're 11 miles offshore, very exposed to the weather and conditions which could change at a moment's notice.
Mount Maunganui Underwater Club captain Russ Hawkins, who has been going to the Astrolabe Reef since 1970, helped draft guidelines for diving and fishing around the reef.
Two diving sites near the bow of the ship have been marked with orange buoys and Mr Hawkins said as long as people stayed within those sites and only dived when the ocean conditions allowed they would be safe.
"We've been to many many meetings over the last couple of years about the wreck access plan. Providing they go by the plan and use those marked buoys and the physical structure of the wreck, there should be no problem at all."
Photo: MARITIME NEW ZEALAND
Diving in the wreck's stern section, marked with yellow buoys, was not recommended due to the depths at that location, except for qualified technical divers.
But Mr Ross said that was where people would want to go.
The clear water made it hard for divers to judge their depths - and easy for them to get carried away, he said.
"The visibility out at Astrolabe on a good day is very very good, going down and seeing the top of the ship, or especially on the stern section it could trap a few people... it would be very easy to get a little bit confused on your depth, or just unaware of your depth."
There was international interest in diving the site, but he had told people to be cautious.
Senior Sergeant Bruce Adams echoed that message, and said that all possible safety measures should be taken before diving in the area, to ensure everybody gets home safely.
Photo: SUPPLIED / Sweeney Vesty
The volunteer Maketu Coastguard team had also received funding to have an onsite advisor at the reef for the initial period of its re-opening.
Maketu Coastguard president Shane Beech said there had been a lot of interest in the reef and another safety concern was the amount of traffic in the area with divers in the water.
"The dive trails themselves are very clearly marked for the divers, but again you known you have got fishermen out recreational as well and commercial fisherman, and obviously there's cray fishermen too within the area, so yeah it's a case of everybody sort of obeying by the maritime rules and all getting along together."
View safety updates on a website provided by the Astrolabe Community Trust, which was set up by the Rena's owner and insurer.I've been using Java for several years, but have never really yet felt the need for an IDE. I've toyed with Eclipse a bit, but for the most part my projects have been small enough that I've just done them in vim. At work I've begun using Java much more heavily, and have been introduced to IntelliJ IDEA. I really like it so far, and it's making me wonder how I ever made do without the awesome code completion and refactoring features of a great Java IDE. I've had a hard time finding a really good comparison of recent versions of the major IDEs (Eclipse, NetBeans and IntelliJ), so for those of you who have used a few different Java IDEs (or even those who have only used one), what are your favourite features, or the things you most missed when you switched IDEs. Which one would you recommend to someone new to the world of Java IDEs who hasn't yet developed too strong an allegiance?Hey everyone, Carlos “I am Carlos” here, I’m a producer on the skins team, and I want to share an update about Sewn Chaos Blitzcrank and Amumu. After receiving some feedback about the skins, we’ve decided to not release them going forward. Sometimes we work on things that just don’t end up hitting our quality bar. And usually, we try to cut those things well before they actually hit PBE, but in this case we were a little too late. The truth is neither Sewn Chaos Blitzcrank nor Sewn Chaos Amumu hit the quality expected of our recent skins, so we’re making the call to remove them. So what does this mean for Blitz and Amumu skins in the immediate future? Well, we’re going to head back to the lab and figure out how to give both champs the skins they deserve. And we’d like to hear your ideas for skins that would best represent these champs. We don’t have an exact timeline for when these two will have new skins come out, but we can promise that we will not forget about them. As always, thanks for having patience with us as we figure out how to approach these problems. If you have any questions, feel free to drop them below and we’ll make sure to get to them as soon as possible. Thanks, I am Carlos PS: Since we’re making this call late, you’ll likely see some of the assets attached to these skins in LCU, but they won’t be available for purchase, and we will be removing them come next patch.
Title
Body Cancel
SaveA security officer removes a student who disrupted the Israeli ambassador’s speech at the Irvine campus of the University of California (Photo: UprisingRadio.org)
A group of California academics have slammed the recent move by the state legislature to pass a bill on alleged anti-Semitism on campus.
The open letter, from California Scholars for Academic Freedom, blasts the resolution (HR 35) for posing “a clear threat to academic freedom in the University of California and the California State University systems,” undermining the First Amendment and conflating “criticism of Israel or its policies with anti-semitism.”
The letter was posted by the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, and is signed by over 30 scholars working in California.
“The driving concern behind House Resolution 35 is not anti-semitism. Indeed, HR-35 itself is fundamentally anti-semitic because it associates and conflates with Judaism an unending list of well-documented racist policies and crimes against humanity committed by the state of Israel,” the slashing letter reads. “Far from the worthy goal of fighting real anti-semitism, this resolution was written to serve the propaganda aims of the government of Israel at the expense of constitutionally protected rights of California residents.”
The pushback on HR 35 comes about two weeks after it was easily passed, with no debate, in the California Assembly. The resolution, which was drafted with the help of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, encourages colleges to ensure that “no public resources will be allowed to be used for anti-Semitic or any intolerant agitation.” Among the examples the resolution lists as being anti-Semitic is languaging describing Israel as an apartheid state; criticizing Israel of ethnic cleansing; and the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.
After HR 35 was harshly criticized by Palestine solidarity activists and free speech advocates, Assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal promised that she would introduce a bill affirming free speech rights on campus. Lowenthal’s statement was hailed by student activists and other advocates.
Meanwhile, a California State University (CSU) spokesman says that the college “supported the resolution as it serves to promote tolerance and embrace diversity on campuses.”
While much of the fight over Palestine activism has focused on the University of California, the separate CSU system has also been the site of controversy. One mathematics professor, David Klein, was targeted by the AMCHA Initiative, an Israel advocacy group focusing on college campuses, for expressing support for the BDS movement on a website hosted by CSU. After a public campaign to open an investigation into Klein, the California Attorney General rejected a request to investigate Klein.
A number of CSU scholars signed the open letter blasting HR 35, and now Klein is speaking out against his university’s support for the resolution.
“If implemented by the California State University system, California’s Assembly House Resolution 35 would prohibit on any CSU campus criticisms of the government of Israel,” said Klein, in a statement e-mailed to Mondoweiss. “The CSU administration’s support of HR-35 is not only a direct assault against academic freedom and the First Amendment, it reveals a deep-seated anti-Arab racism and antipathy toward the Palestinian people, who are the victims of Israel’s ethnic cleansing and apartheid system of laws.”Mistakes happen in every walk of life - some are just more visible than others. Like anything that happens on TV, for example. Any onscreen graphic is especially susceptible to such an embarrassing error - you can't make a typo verbally, after all. What you can do, however, is put in placeholder text to be changed before the broadcast...and then never get around to changing it.
This, it appears, happened a few days ago when former NBA player Wally Szczerbiak stopped by CBS College Sports to do some studio analysis. Szczerbiak, as is plainly evident, has a difficult-to-spell name. The Dagger's Jeff Eisenberg and Awful Announcing's Mike Vitiello surmise, and we'd agree, that whoever was responsible for the graphic meant to bear Szczerbiak's name was unfamiliar with the spelling, and that led to:
It's too bad for Szczerbiak - Vitiello notes that his name is apparently so difficult it couldn't even overcome a solid, decade-long NBA career that even included an All-Star appearance. Note to Doug Mientkiewicz: if you're thinking of doing any MLB commentary, note that you may run the risk of being referred to as a "random dude."
(And no, we can't completely ignore the possibility, raised by Eisenberg, that this is a Photoshop con job...but what a Photoshop job if it's fake. And we don't think it is.)Sonos today confirmed to The Verge that customers can now play music from Spotify on its speakers with Amazon's Alexa voice assistant. To enable Spotify, users must choose it as their preferred service inside the Alexa app. Once that's done, you can tell Alexa to play your full collection of Spotify playlists, artists, albums, and songs.
The addition of Spotify addresses one of my main gripes with the Sonos One, the company's first speaker with integrated mics for Alexa. At launch, the One couldn't play music from Spotify with voice; you had to start playing from the Sonos or Spotify app and then could use voice for skipping tracks or adjusting volume.
Related How to control your Sonos speaker with an Amazon Echo
Sonos was aware of the glaring omission and had promised to add full Spotify support by December 21st. Thankfully it didn’t take that long, and now users will have their Discover Weekly, Release Radar, and custom-made playlists just a quick "Alexa" request away. Black Friday buyers of the Sonos One won’t have to deal with the same frustration as early owners. Older Sonos speakers don't miss out on this convenience, as they can be linked with and controlled by Amazon Echo devices.
Separately, Sonos has recently been working with streaming partners to give more apps control over its hardware. Both Pandora and Tidal can now play music directly to Sonos speakers.Propaganda Due ( Italian pronunciation: [propaˈɡanda ˈduːe]; P2) was a Masonic lodge under the Grand Orient of Italy, founded in 1877. However its Masonic charter was withdrawn in 1976, and it transformed into a clandestine, pseudo-Masonic, ultraright[1][2][3] organization operating in contravention of Article 18 of the Constitution of Italy that banned secret associations. In its latter period, during which the lodge was headed by Licio Gelli, P2 was implicated in numerous Italian crimes and mysteries, including the collapse of the Vatican-affiliated Banco Ambrosiano, the murders of journalist Mino Pecorelli and banker Roberto Calvi, and corruption cases within the nationwide bribe scandal Tangentopoli. P2 came to light through the investigations into the collapse of Michele Sindona's financial empire.[4]
P2 was sometimes referred to as a "state within a state"[5] or a "shadow government".[6] The lodge had among its members prominent journalists, members of parliament, industrialists, and military leaders—including Silvio Berlusconi, who later became Prime Minister of Italy; the Savoy pretender to the Italian throne Victor Emmanuel;[7] and the heads of all three Italian intelligence services (at the time SISDE, SISMI and CESIS).
When searching Licio Gelli's villa in 1982, the police found a document called the "Plan for Democratic Rebirth", which called for a consolidation of the media, suppression of trade unions, and the rewriting of the Italian Constitution.[8]
Outside Italy, P2 was also active in Uruguay, Brazil and Argentina. Among its Argentine members were Raúl Alberto Lastiri, interim president in 1973 during the height of the "Dirty War"; Emilio Massera, who was part of the military junta led by Jorge Rafael Videla from 1976 to 1978; José López Rega, minister 1973–1975 and founder of the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance; and General Guillermo Suárez Mason.[9]
Foundation [ edit ]
[Note 1] Official transcription, made by Italian parliamentary inquiry commission, of "Piano di rinascita democratica", authored by Italian Masonic lodge "Propaganda Due" (P2)
"Propaganda" was founded in 1877, in Turin, as "Propaganda Massonica". This lodge was frequented by politicians and government officials from across Italy who were unable to attend their own lodges and included prominent members of the Piedmont nobility. The name was changed to "Propaganda Due" following World War II, when the Grand Orient of Italy numbered its lodges. By the 1960s, however, the lodge was all but inactive, holding few meetings. This original lodge, however, had little to do with the one Licio Gelli established in 1966, two years after becoming a freemason.[10]
Freemasonry in Italy had been outlawed by the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini, but it was reborn after the Second World War with American encouragement. However, its traditions of free-thinking under the Risorgimento transformed into fervent anti-communism. The increasing influence of the left at the end of the 1960s had the Masons of Italy deeply worried. In 1971, Grand Master Lino Salvini of the Grand Orient of Italy—one of Italy's largest Masonic lodges—assigned to Gelli the task of reorganizing the lodge.[11]
Gelli took a list of "sleeping members"—members who were not invited to take part in masonic rituals anymore, as Italian freemasonry was under close scrutiny by the Christian Democrats in power. From these initial connections, Gelli was able to extend his network throughout the echelons of the Italian establishment.[12]
Expulsion [ edit ]
The Grand Orient of Italy officially expelled Gelli and the P2 Lodge in 1976.[13] In 1974 it was proposed that P2 be erased from the list of lodges by the Grand Orient of Italy, and the motion carried overwhelmingly. The following year, however, a warrant was issued by the Grand Master for a new P2 lodge. It seems the Grand Orient in 1976 had only suspended, and not actually expelled, the lodge on Gelli's request. Gelli was found to be active in the Grand Orient's national affairs two years later, financing the election of a new Grand Master. In 1981 a Masonic tribunal decided that the 1974 vote did mean the lodge had factually ceased to exist and that Gelli's lodge had therefore been illegal since that time.[10]
Discovery [ edit ]
The activities of the P2 lodge were discovered by prosecutors while investigating banker Michele Sindona, the collapse of his bank and his ties to the Mafia.[14] In March 1981, police found a list of alleged members in Gelli's house in Arezzo. It contained 962 names, among which were important state officials, important politicians and a number of military officers, including the heads of the three Italian secret services.[11] Future Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi was on the list, although he had not yet entered politics at the time. Another famous member was Victor Emmanuel, the son of the last Italian king.
Prime Minister Arnaldo Forlani (whose chef de cabinet was a P2 member as well)[11] appointed a Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry, headed by the independent Christian Democrat Tina Anselmi. Nevertheless, in May 1981, Forlani was forced to resign due to the P2 scandal, causing the fall of the Italian government.[5][15]
In January 1982 the P2 lodge was definitively abolished by the Law 25 January 1982, no. 17.
In July 1982, new documents were found hidden in the false bottom of a suitcase belonging to Gelli's daughter at Fiumicino airport in Rome. The documents were entitled "Memorandum sulla situazione italiana" (Memorandum on the Italian situation) "Piano di rinascita democratica" (Plan of Democratic Rebirth) and are seen as the political programme of P2. According to these documents, the main enemies of Italy were the Italian Communist Party (PCI) and the trade unions. These had to be isolated and cooperation with the communists (the second biggest party in Italy and one of the largest in Europe), which was proposed in the historic compromise by Aldo Moro, needed to be disrupted.[11]
Gelli's goal was to form a new political and economic elite to lead Italy away from the danger of Communist rule. More controversially, it sought to do this by means of an authoritarian form of democracy.[16] P2 advocated a programme of extensive political corruption: "political parties, newspapers and trade unions can be the objects of possible solicitations which could take the form of economic-financial manoeuvres. The availability of sums not exceeding 30 to 40 billion lire would seem sufficient to allow carefully chosen men, acting in good faith, to conquer key positions necessary for |
members of the Bell AH-1 Cobra family. The weapon was also used as a pintle-mounted door gun on a wide variety of transport helicopters, a role it continues to serve in today.
US Navy designation Description Mk 77 Mod 0 Machine gun mount for the GAU-2/Mk 25 Mod 0/GAU-17 series of machine guns; deck mount applications
Users [ edit ]
Fiction and popular culture [ edit ]
A distinctive invention of fiction is the hand-held M134 minigun (especially with a chainsaw-style grip), a concept which was popularized by the 1980s-90s films Predator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day, wielded by Jesse Ventura/Bill Duke and Arnold Schwarzenegger respectively, and decades later still appears in video games and films such as Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Grand Theft Auto series, and Furious 7 (the latter where it is fired by Dwayne Johnson).[40][41][9] The popularity of these fictional miniguns is part of what coined the colloquial use of the term "minigun" to refer to Gatling-type guns of almost any description, while it is the M134's model name in particular.[citation needed]
For movie use, armorers slow down the M134 minigun's rate of fire to conserve ammo, and to allow the spinning barrels to be visible to the movie audience, with a hidden power cable for the firing scenes, and using blank ammo to ease recoil. Nonetheless the prop is still extremely physically demanding, hence the actors wielding it were physically imposing and often had bodybuilding backgrounds. Generally such depictions will totally ignore the weapon's need for external power, and sometimes even forget that it requires a source of ammunition. In practice, a man-portable M134 minigun would be nearly impossible to manage as an individual infantry weapon, and highly impractical for a human being to either carry or operate. A down-scaled version of the M134, the XM214 Microgun, never reached production status for such reasons.[40]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]
Sources [ edit ]Titanic picture of 'last lifeboat' and its bodies found month after disaster up for auction BelfastTelegraph.co.uk Pictures of Titanic's last lifeboat - which show the tragic end of three people who drifted at sea for a month after the liner sank on its maiden voyage - go to auction this week. https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/archive/titanic/titanic-picture-of-last-lifeboat-and-its-bodies-found-month-after-disaster-up-for-auction-34642676.html https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/article34642675.ece/4ed2d/AUTOCROP/h342/2016-04-20_new_20133304_I5.JPG
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Pictures of Titanic's last lifeboat - which show the tragic end of three people who drifted at sea for a month after the liner sank on its maiden voyage - go to auction this week.
The crew of RMS Oceanic discovered the boat 200 miles away from where the Belfast-built ship was hit by an iceberg.
After rowing out for a closer inspection of the wooden vessel the crew were shocked to find three decomposed bodies.
One man was still in his dinner jacket, while two firemen from Titanic's engine room were huddled under benches.
The pictures taken that day on May 13, 1912 go under the hammer this week along with a handwritten letter from an unknown Oceanic crew member recounting the gruesome details of the discovery.
The letter reads: "I crossed the Atlantic one month after the Titanic catastrophe, we picked up one of the lifeboats with... unrecognisable corpses of a passenger in evening dress and two firemen wedged below the seats.
"The arms came off in the hands of the Oceanic boarding officer.
"Women's rings were found. The bodies were buried and the prayers service read, the lifeboat then hauled on to the front deck when I cut this piece out of the boat covering."
The man in the dinner jacket was later identified as a first class passenger, Thomson Beattie (37).
Known as 'Collapsible A', historians say they believe the boat was the last lifeboat to be launched from the sinking Titanic on April 15, 1912, at 2.15am.
It's understood that Titanic first officer Murdoch and sixth officer Moody had tried to attach the boat to ropes before losing control when their deck became submerged.
Collapsible A washed off into the sea and it's estimated up to 20 people in the freezing water clambered aboard.
During the night a number of the passengers fell ill or died, with some lowered into the water to lessen the load in the unstable vessel.
One of those who perished was Swedish labourer Edvard Lindell (36). His wife Gerda (30) had also died while trying to swim towards the lifeboat. When Edvard died from exposure, he was found to be clutching a wedding ring engraved with the words 'Edvard to Gerda'. The couple had left their native Sweden to begin a new life in the United States. The ring was returned to White Star Line, which brought it home to Gerda's father Nils.
When morning came, around 12 or 13 survivors were rescued by another lifeboat, Collapsible D, who were then taken aboard the RMS Carpathia.
The remains of Thomson Beattie and the two firemen were then allowed to drift away on Collapsible A.
The extraordinary pictures and records have been held by a private collector for 20 years and will be auctioned off in Wiltshire on Saturday.
Belfast TelegraphWork at Ohau point on State Highway 1 on Thursday. The site is one of the critical parts of the rebuild.
Authorities have back-pedalled on promises to have the highway north of Kaikōura fully functional by Christmas.
The NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) on Friday reinforced the earthquake-damaged State Highway 1 would open on schedule – but only during the day,and with unsealed surfaces, lane closures and stop/go traffic control. Temporary closures could be a possibility.
The announcement is in contrast to the agency's comments in May, when it claimed the highway would open with "two lanes, and with full functionality – it won't have stop-goes".
IAIN MCGREGOR/STUFF The highway is still expected to reopen before Christmas - but only during the day and with some unsealed sections.
Earthquake recovery manager Tim Crow said they "haven't hit that visionary goal" but got as close as they could.
READ MORE:
* SH1 repairs around Kaikōura 'on track' despite slips, wet weather
* Railway from Picton to Christchurch closes again after wet start to October
* Flooded stream holds up SH1 work north of Kaikōura
"We really did strive to achieve that, but with the weather that we had... we've not been able to achieve that. But I'm really pleased with the amount of work the team has done to get it into a safe state."
SUPPLIED A 3-D model of Ohau Point as it was in December shows the scale of the damage to the highway.
He said it would take about five-and-a-half hours to drive between Picton and Christchurch when it opened. This is an hour slower than before the November 14 earthquake, but an hour faster than the alternative route.
Crow said it was important people understood the full rebuild of the highway would not be completed in December.
"This work will continue well into 2018," he said.
"We had one of the wettest winters in recent history, so it really did affect the programme, but we made the promise we would open for Christmas and we're confident we will."
Ohau Point, where the largest slip came down in the earthquake, is one of the critical points of the project.
Crow said cliff face stabilisation was complete and seawalls were being built at the site.
He said an opening date for the road would be revealed in mid-November, about a year after the quake happened.UPDATE 3.34PM: A VIDEO posted on social media just days before a British backpacker was fatally stabbed to death at a Home Hill hostel shows a young woman with dirt smeared across her forehead, singing to loud music as she drives through harvested cane fields.
A huge smile is plastered across her weary but happy face.
British national Mia Ayliffe Chung, 21, could have been any adventure-loving traveller, enjoying a working holiday in Australia.
media_camera Mia Ayliffe-Chung
But the young traveller died after she was repeatedly stabbed by a 29-year-old French man yelling “Allahu Akbar” about 11.15pm at Home Hill Backpackers on Ninth St in Home Hill on Tuesday night.
A 30-year-old man, also a British national, was critically injured and a 46-year-old local man was also wounded.
Bizarrely, a dog was also fatally stabbed by the French man.
The frenzied attack was in stark contrast to Ms Chung’s previous days working in the Burdekin.
Seemingly carefree, the young backpacker posted about close encounters with North Queensland’s creepy crawlies, the hot sun and shared photographs of her grease-covered jeans after long days of farm work.
Her Facebook profile says she has studied psychology and childcare in the UK and she normally resides on the Gold Coast.
But she has called Home Hill home for at least a week, posting regular updates since arriving.
“Day one, done! Only 87 left to do. Today we were in sugar canes. Feeling like a little Jamaican again. Saw about 5 small spiders, 4 poisonous toads and 3 geckos. Not too shabby of a day,” she wrote on August 19.
Friends of the young woman shared heartfelt messages on social media yesterday as news broke of her death.
Ms Ayliffe-Chung had previously worked at The Bedroom nightclub in Surfers Paradise but had come to the Burdekin to do rural work so she could extend her working holiday visa in Australia.
The Bedroom is planning to close tonight out of respect as her shocked colleagues come to terms with her death.
***
UPDATE 3.30PM: Forensic officers remain at the scene however the crime scene tape has been removed.
Many of the resident backpackers have descended on the local pub to offer each other comfort.
No charges have been laid and a French man accused of stabbing three people is in a stable condition at the Townsville Hospital.
***
UPDATE 2.10PM: A British man stabbed during a violent attack at a Home Hill backpackers hostel remains in a critical condition at the Townsville Hospital. A 29-year-old French man accused of stabbing three people and a dog while yelling “Allahu Akbar” is in a stable condition.
A 21-year-old British woman was killed during the frenzied attack, which occurred about 11.15pm last night.
***
UPDATE 1.30PM: Burdekin MP Dale Last has expressed his condolences and called for calm following the violent and fatal stabbing in Home Hill.
media_camera Member for Burdekin Dale Last.
“My thoughts are with the victims and their families; and also those foreign visitors who have been caught up in this incident,” Mr Last said.
“Residents and visitors to the Burdekin have nothing to fear and they should continue to feel safe in our towns.
“I have spoken with the Police Minister (Bill Byrne) this morning and am calling for calm during the ensuing police investigations.
“It’s important that cool heads prevail while the police get to the bottom of this incident and also that factual evidence is reported so as not to cause further angst and alarm within our community.”
***
UPDATE 12.45PM: The British High Commission has sent staff to Townsville.
“We are working with local authorities and providing support to the families after one British national was killed and another critically injured in an incident in Australia,” a spokeswoman said.
“Our thoughts are with the families at this difficult time.”
***
UPDATE 12.15PM: POLICE have confirmed a Frenchman accused of a stabbing frenzy at a Home Hill backpackers yelled “Allahu Akbar” during the violent incident and as he was taken in to custody.
The man was heard saying the phrase, which means God is great in Arabic, by witnesses and it was also captured by police body cameras during his arrest.
QPS Deputy Commissioner Steve Gollschewski said investigators would examine whether the comments were made as a result of extremist motives but could not yet rule out whether mental health issues or drug use were factors in the crime.
Watch August 2016 Press Conferences on @Livestream: https://t.co/CajbTS6uhJ — Samantha Healy (@samantha_healy) August 24, 2016
“While this information will be factored into the investigation we are not ruling out any motivations at this stage, whether they be political or criminal,” he said.
Police said the man did not appear to have any ties to Islamic State.
A Bristish woman, 21, was killed in the incident at Home Hill Backpackers on Ninth St and a 30-year-old British man remains in a critical condition in Townsville Hospital. No charges have been laid at this stage.
A 46-year-old local man was also injured but has since been released from hospital.
media_camera A man is helped at the scene.
A dog was also killed in the violent rampage and the French man, who suffered non-life threatening injuries, remains under police guard in Townsville Hospital.
“This is not about race or religion but about individual criminal behavior,” he said.
“He (the French man) is a visitor to Australia and appears to have no known local connections.
“There is no ongoing threat to the community.
“We are not ruling out any motivations at this stage. We wish to reassure the community - we are not looking for anyone else.
“It was a shocking attack by any standards - motivations unclear, investigation in its infancy.”
Deputy Commissioner Gollschewski confirmed the attacker shouted about Allah both “during the attack and when arrested by police”.
Police are classing it as a murder investigation, but the Australian Federal Police, Attorney General’s department and Australian Border Force have been brought in.
Deputy Commissioner Gollschewski said at this stage there was no evidence of radicalisation at this stage, but all options were being considered.
“The investigation is happening right now so we don’t have clarity,” he said.
“We could be dealing with a pure criminal act or something related to mental health or drug issues,” he said.
The AFP confirmed the French national was lawfully in Australia on a temporary visa and was not known to police.
He is understood to have arrived in the Queensland in March.
***
UPDATE 11.30am: A FRENCH national accused of killing a British backpacker and wounding another allegedly shouted about Allah during the stabbing frenzy.
Australian Federal Police are now involved in the investigation, with police expected to examine whether the man – who had been in the country several months – has any link to terror organisations.
Queensland Police Service Deputy Commissioner Steve Gollschewski and AFP Commander Sharon Cowden will update the media at noon.
***
UPDATE 10.40am: Police have revealed that two British nationals were allegedly stabbed by a French man at a backpackers hostel in Home Hill last night.
A woman, 21, was killed, and a man, 30, was treated for a stab wound to his leg.
Superintendent Ray Rohweder of the Townsville Police said officers were taking statements from about 30 witnesses.
“We are still trying to piece together what has happened,” he said. “We don’t have a motive yet.
“Police have been in contact with the British consulate who will liaise with the victim’s families.
“Police have taken possession of a knife which is believed to have been the implement used in the stabbing incident.
“A 29-year-old French National man is currently assisting police with their enquiries into the stabbing incident.”
Supt Rohweder praised the first police responders, saying the scene was a confronting one.
He said the alleged attacker complied with police requests to get on the ground and was quickly taken in to custody.
The Frenchman had been in Australia for several months, he said.
“We have also been in contact with British consular officials (regarding the two alleged victims).”
Police have been in contact with the British consulate who will liaise with the victim's families. #HomeHill — QPS Media Unit (@QPSmedia) August 24, 2016
We're working w local authorities & providing support to the families of the British citizens affected following #HomeHill attack. (1/2) — UK in Australia (@ukinaustralia) August 24, 2016
media_camera Police are investigating after two Bristish backpackers were allegedly stabbed, one to death, by a French tourist at hostel in Home Hill. A police officer is seen speaking to one of the guests.
***
UPDATE 10AM: The small rural town of Home Hill is in shock after a woman was stabbed to death and man was critically injured in an incident last night.
Burdekin Shire Mayor Lyn McLaughlin, who was briefed by police this morning, has extended sympathies to the families of the victims involved.
“This is a tragic and very sad incident to have occurred in our small, peaceful and safe community of Home Hill,” she said.
“I want to assure residents that they are safe and that police are conducting a full
investigation into what has occurred.
“As a sign of our sympathy for the victims, Council will fly its flag at Chambers at half mast
today.”
***
Forensic crews have arrived at backpackers hostel in Home Hill after double stabbing. A woman is dead, man critical. pic.twitter.com/1abyKfjd5O — Chris McMahon (@ChrisTheJourno1) August 23, 2016
EARLIER: POLICE will spend today gathering evidence after a woman was stabbed to death in Home Hill.
At around 11:15pm last night police were called to a backpacker hostel on Ninth Street following reports a person had been assaulted with a knife.
On arrival police secured the scene and took a man into custody.
A woman was found dead and another man was taken to Townsville Base Hospital in a critical condition.
Investigators believe no other people were involved in the incident.
Anyone with information which could assist with this matter should contact Crime Stoppers anonymously via 1800 333 000 or crimestoppers.com.au 24hrs a day.Here are the steps for Status of Legislation:
There is one summary for S.Con.Res.18. Bill summaries are authored by CRS.
Shown Here:
Introduced in Senate (05/19/2011)
Sets forth the congressional budget for the federal government for FY2012, including the appropriate budgetary levels for FY2013-FY2021.
Lists recommended budgetary levels and amounts for FY2012-FY2021 with respect to: (1) federal revenues, (2) new budget authority, (3) budget outlays, (4) deficits, (5) public debt, and (6) debt held by the public.
Lists the appropriate levels of new budget authority, outlays, and administrative expenses for the Social Security Administration (SSA), including the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund and the Federal Disability Insurance Trust Fund, U.S. Postal Service discretionary administrative expenses, and specified major functional categories for FY2012-FY2021.
Provides for adjustments to budgetary aggregates and allocations for: (1) continuing disability reviews and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) redeterminations for the Social Security Administration (SSA), (2) IRS tax enforcement, (3) health care fraud and abuse control, (4) unemployment insurance improper payments reviews, and (5) adjustments to support ongoing overseas deployments and other activities.
Makes it out of order to consider in the Senate any legislation that would require advanced appropriations, other than for: (1) up to $28.821 billion in new budget authority in FY2013 for programs, projects, activities, or accounts identified in the joint explanatory statement of managers accompanying this resolution; (2) the Corporation for Public Broadcasting; (3) the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for the Medical Services, Medical Support and Compliance, and Medical Facilities accounts of the Veterans Health Administration; and (4) the Department of Defense (DOD) for the Air Force Missile Procurement account for procurement of the Advanced Extremely High Frequency satellite.
Sets forth requirements for the treatment of emergency legislation.
Allows the Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee to adjust the estimate of budgetary effects of legislation that: (1) amends or supersedes the system for updating physician payments under title XVIII (Medicare) of the Social Security Act, (2) amends the Estate and Gift Tax under the Internal Revenue Code, (3) extends the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) relief for individuals, and (4) extends middle-class tax cuts under the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 (EGTRRA) and the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief and Reconciliation Act of 2003 (JGTRRA).
Permits the Chairman to make such adjustments only for points of order in specified legislation relating to: (1) pay-as-you-go, and (2) long- and short-term deficits.
Requires the joint explanatory statement accompanying the conference report on any budget resolution in the Senate to include in its committee allocations to the Committees on Appropriations amounts for the discretionary administrative expenses of the SSA and of the Postal Service.MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia’s parliament voted on Tuesday to strip the only deputy who voted against last year’s annexation of Crimea of his immunity from prosecution as a lawmaker.
State prosecutors had asked the State Duma lower house to deprive opposition deputy Ilya Ponomaryov of his immunity, opening the way for him to face possible embezzlement charges.
Ponomaryov, who is now in the United States and one of the last remaining critics of President Vladimir Putin in the chamber, says the case against him is politically motivated.
He faces an investigation over his work for a state-funded technological foundation, and has been under increased pressure since he alone in the 450-seat Duma voted against the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.
“I have already given testimony to the investigators in this case and have nothing to add,” Ponomaryov told Russia’s RIA news agency. “I myself was interested in the truth being established in this case. I had the impression it had already been done so.”
Ponomaryov, who won his seat from Russia’s third-largest city of Novosibirsk, helped organise protests against Putin in the winter of 2011-2012. Since then, the opposition says Putin has set out to silence dissent, a charge the Kremlin denies.
Ponomaryov, 39, says Russian authorities have prevented him from returning home since August, when he first went to the United States on a business trip, and blocked his bank accounts.
A physicist and businessman, he says his wife is also abroad but his children are staying with their grandparents in Russia.
While in the United States, Ponomaryov has campaigned for extending Washington’s sanctions imposed over Moscow’s role in the turmoil in Ukraine to include more Russian state officials.
The conflict in Ukraine has brought ties between Russia and the West to their lowest level since the Cold War. But Putin has whipped up nationalist sentiment at home where opinion polls show his ratings are at or near record-highs.
Putin has tightened his grip on power since the protests three years ago, leaving little room for a fractious opposition that has all but failed to challenge him during his third term.
Several prominent opposition leaders, including former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, have fled the country, while many others, like anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny, have faced court cases or jail.
Another top opposition figure, Boris Nemtsov, was shot dead near the Kremlin on Feb. 27. Supporters paid tribute to him on Tuesday, 40 days after his death, by laying flowers and lighting candles on the bridge where he was killed.ANALYSIS/OPINION:
For folks like me, a highlight of summer is the annual Security Forum put on the by the Aspen Institute. This year was no exception as current and former officials, academics, journalists and policy wonks of various types gathered for three days of panels, interviews and countless sidebar conversations.
Despite the delightful venue, there was an underlying, somber theme in the discussions that could go by the name of “security fatigue,” the reluctance of the American public, much of its political leadership and a significant fraction of the commentariat to support a more active American response to the multiple crises facing the world today.
It’s not surprising that a group with the demographics of the Aspen crowd saw this as a concerning, if not a downright dangerous, development.
Within this overall “security fatigue,” there also seems to be an identifiable “intelligence fatigue,” as well.
July was certainly a helluva month for American intelligence. It began with several National Security Agency folks testifying to a committee. But this wasn’t current NSAers talking to the House or Senate intelligence panels. It was two disgruntled, former NSA seniors testifying to the German Bundestag’s NSA Inquiry Commission.
One of them, Bill Binney, asserted that, “They [NSA] want to have information about everything. This is really a totalitarian approach. The goal is control of people.”
The other, Thomas Drake, after claiming that NSA wanted to punish Germany for harboring the 9-11 hijackers, added that NSA’s “monitoring regime has grown into a system that is strangling the world.”
This wasn’t the first time that Mr. Binney and Mr. Drake have exhibited active imaginations.
Later in the month CIA Director John Brennan had to apologize for CIA agents improperly accessing computers used by Democratic Senate staffers compiling a report on the Agency’s detention program. This was a limited (but ill-advised) search of CIA machines being used by the staffers to learn how the staffers had obtained a document that CIA had not given them. It quickly led, however, to broad charges by the likes of Sen. Mark Udall, Colorado Democrat, that “the CIA unconstitutionally spied on Congress” and leads in The New York Times editorial page about “The CIA’s Reckless Breach of Trust.”
By the way, how did Senate staffers get that document?
And then there is the Senate Democrats’ report itself whose contents leaked throughout the month with charges that CIA detentions and interrogations didn’t work, that the program was more widespread and abusive than previously reported, and that the agency lied to everyone about it.
(I’m one of a very small group of former CIA seniors who have been allowed to see a summary of the report. As a condition of my review I had to agree not to discuss the contents of the now declassified report, CIA response and SSCI Republican rebuttal until the Senate report is released. So more on this, lots more, later.)
Then, as July turned to August, the intelligence community finished redacting the Senate Democrats’ report, apparently blacking out about 15 percent of the document to protect sources, methods and identities (many of the cuts were said to be only footnotes). Even though the edits were approved by the White House, Democratic Senators shot back. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat, refused to accept the changes while others like a spokesman for Sen. Ron Wyden, Oregon Democrat, lashed out at “redactions meant to spare political embarrassment.”
On the same day as the report’s delivery to the Hill, President Obama — while warning people not to be too sanctimonious given the post 9-11 world — declared that, “We tortured some folks.”
Leave aside the vague “some folks” reference that seems to suggest that some hapless Rotarians or other innocents were mistreated, or the fact that three of the last four Attorneys General refused to characterize this as torture. The president’s seemingly casual words put him on the side of the Agency’s (now his Agency’s) harshest critics.
Mr. Brennan had a town meeting with his workforce the day before to give fair warning of the tsunami about to hit. Surely the director’s heavy message would have caused some of the officers in the “bubble” to reflect on what might await them for the things they are doing now. After all, detentions and interrogations once constituted America’s programs, not just the CIA’s. Like everything going on today, they had been authorized by the president, declared lawful by the Department of Justice and briefed to the Hill.
The American government today conducts targeted killings outside of internationally recognized theaters of conflict against folks believed to be terrorists. I support that.
But few other governments in the world do. And global public opinion is swinging hard against it. In mid-July, USA Today reported that in 37 of 44 countries polled, at least half of the respondents opposed the strikes. In the U.S., approval has dropped from 61 to 52 percent over the past year.
Several prominent members of Congress have questioned their lawfulness? What happens if one of them is elected President? It happens.
Like I said, it was a helluva month.
Part of this could well be the “security fatigue” so often referenced at Aspen. And part of the intelligence community’s peculiar issues could be chalked up to charges about excess — from metadata collection to interrogations to taking terrorists off the battlefield.
But all this may be have more to do with success than with excess. We feel safer. Probably more safe than we should.
And, as I’ve said in other fora, there has been a broad pattern in popular (or at least elite) views of American intelligence. We criticize intelligence for not doing enough when we feel in danger. And we criticize intelligence for doing too much when it has made us feel safe again.
The last month offers good evidence as to where we are in that cycle.
• Gen. Michael Hayden is a former director of the CIA and the National Security Agency. He can be reached at [email protected]
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.Image copyright EPA Image caption Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump are trading insults after the US president's UN speech
Kim Jong-un has said remarks by "deranged" US President Donald Trump have convinced him he is right to develop weapons for North Korea.
In an unprecedented personal statement, Mr Kim said Mr Trump would "pay dearly" for a UN speech where he threatened to "totally destroy" the North if the US was forced to defend itself.
Mr Trump responded that the "madman... will be tested like never before".
The two countries have engaged in ever more heated rhetoric in recent months.
Mr Kim ended his statement by saying he would "surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged US dotard with fire".
China responded to the war of words, warning that the situation was "complicated and sensitive".
"All relevant parties should exercise restraint instead of provoking each other," said Foreign Minister spokesman Lu Kang.
Russia also urged restraint, with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov describing the rhetoric between the two leaders as a "kindergarten fight between children".
"We have to calm down the hot heads," he told reporters at the UN on Friday.
North Korea has been testing missiles at an unprecedented rate, and conducted its sixth nuclear test despite international condemnation.
North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho, who had earlier compared Mr Trump's speech to "the sound of a barking dog" has warned that Pyongyang could test a hydrogen bomb in the Pacific Ocean in response to the US president's threat.
"It could be the most powerful detonation of an H-bomb in the Pacific," Mr Ri said, quoted by South Korea's Yonhap news agency.
However, he added: "We have no idea about what actions could be taken as it will be ordered by leader Kim Jong-un."
Video caption How could war with North Korea unfold?
Analysis: A test with immense risks
By North Korea analyst Ankit Panda
The prospect of a hydrogen bomb being tested in the Pacific raises a terrifying spectre - one that North Korea-watchers have mulled for some time, but which did not seem realistic until this year.
Kim Jong-un could conduct an atmospheric nuclear detonation in the Pacific Ocean.
This could mean mounting the nuclear device he showed the world before his 3 September nuclear test and firing it over Japan into the Pacific Ocean, demonstrating a credible thermonuclear capability.
Presumably, witnessing this feat would "tame" Trump into accepting the "equilibrium" that North Korea alluded to earlier this week - a state of stable nuclear deterrence.
Given the inadequacy of existing US and Japanese ballistic missile defence systems, it is far from a sure thing that such a test could be intercepted.
The risks are immense. Civil aviators and mariners in the target area may perish, given that North Korea does not offer international warning of its missile launch plans - unlike other states that routinely test ballistic missiles.
The environmental damage and fallout could be catastrophic. Moreover, should the missile fail over Japan - or prematurely detonate - the consequences would effectively guarantee a nuclear war in retaliation.
What would a nuclear test in the Pacific mean?
Mr Kim said in an English statement carried by state news agency KCNA that Mr Trump's remarks "have convinced me, rather than frightening or stopping me, that the path I chose is correct and that it is the one I have to follow to the last".
He said "now that Trump has denied the existence of and insulted me and my country in front of the eyes of the world and made the most ferocious declaration of a war in history", North Korea would consider the "highest level of hard-line countermeasure" to make Mr Trump "pay dearly for his speech".
Image copyright Reuters Image caption The Pacific island of Guam is home to the US Air Force's Andersen air base
Experts say this is the first time a North Korean leader has made a direct address to an international audience.
The statement came shortly after the country's delegation arrived in New York for the UN General Assembly. Analysts say that for this reason it merits serious and thorough consideration.
Hours later, Mr Trump responded in a tweet: "Kim Jong Un of North Korea, who is obviously a madman who doesn't mind starving or killing his people, will be tested like never before!"
In an interview with news network ABC on Friday, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson took a more measured approach.
"We are quite challenged but our diplomatic efforts continue unabated," he said, adding that the "strongest economic sanctions ever" placed against the country were still being tested.
Video caption Trump: 'Rocket Man's suicide mission'
Earlier, Mr Kim's comments had prompted swift criticism from the Japanese government.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said in a news conference on Friday: "North Korea's remarks and behaviour are provocative to regional and international security, and they are absolutely unacceptable."
North Korea has fired two ballistic missiles over Japan in the past month, raising regional tensions even further.
Mr Trump on Thursday signed a new order boosting sanctions against North Korea, where the US treasury would target firms and financial institutions doing business with Pyongyang.
He said: "For much too long North Korea has been allowed to abuse the international financial system to facilitate funding for its nuclear weapons and missile programs."
The UN Security Council had approved new rounds of sanctions earlier this month aimed at starving North Korea of fuel and income, which were in response to Pyongyang's much-condemned sixth nuclear test on 3 September.With Maurice Richard headlining a who's who of hockey, the Montreal Canadiens had an outstanding power play for years. But when Bernie "Boom Boom" Geoffrion perfected his slapshot from the point, the NHL was forced to take action. With Richard, Jean Beliveau and Dickie Moore up front and Doug Harvey and Geoffrion on the points, the Canadiens often scored two or even three goals during a single minor penalty, so the rules were changed to allow the penalized player back on the ice after a power play goal was scored.It was "Boom Boom's" dynamic shot that became his trademark. He perfected the now-common slap shot. Firing little discs of frozen rubber at speeds upwards of 100 mph put fear into the hearts of enemy goaltenders as never seen before.Geoffrion claimed he was the originator of the slap shot, although others such as Bobby Hull and Andy Bathgate are also recognized as such. As a kid Geoffrion would practice the wild swinging motion by banging pucks on a cold outdoor rink endlessly. By the time he was a junior in Laval he was dubbed Boom Boom by sportswriter Charlie Boire of the Montreal Star. One boom was for the sound of his stick striking the puck; the second was for when his rocketing shot hit the boards.Geoffrion was more than just a heavy shooter. His all-out style of play and unquenchable desire to win enabled him to win the Calder Trophy in 1952 and the Hart Trophy in 1961. He led the league in scoring twice and was name to the First All Star Team in 1961 and the Second in 1955 and 1960. The fact that he made three post-season All Star teams is actually quite amazing. Geoffrion was a right winger in the same era as Maurice Richard and Gordie Howe.One of the years Geoffrion led the league in scoring he was actually booed by his own fans. That was 1954-55, the only year Rocket Richard was on schedule to win the scoring championship. However the Rocket was suspended late in the season and Geoffrion surpassed him to win the scoring derby. Geoffrion was widely criticized for not forgoing the extra points and let Richard win his only scoring title.Habs coach Dick Irvin once said "When Maurice Richard hangs up his skates, (Geoffrion) will take over his place as the greatest player in the NHL." Irvin was bang on, at least in the first year without Richard. That was 1960-6. Bernie will be forever known as the second player to record 50 goals in one season. In addition he added 45 assists for 95 points, then just one shy of the NHL record. The 50 goals of course equaled Richard's lofty mark. Unfortunately for Montreal, that year was the first time in 6 years that the Habs didn't win the Stanley Cup.Geoffrion never came close to reproducing the 60-61 season in the next three years. Injuries played a role in his lack of success, but insiders suggested he was hurt most by the fact that Jean Beliveau was named captain of the Canadiens instead of him. His slump from his great year made the Canadiens begin to look for a replacement, which they found in a young speedster nicknamed "The Roadrunner" - Yvon Cournoyer.Geoffrion retired in 1964 to take a coaching position in the Habs farm system, with the understanding that he would be able to move up the ladder and one day coach the NHL team. However Geoffrion and the Habs would have a falling out shortly after.Following his fallout with the Habs, Boom Boom made a less than spectacular two year comeback in 1966 with the New York RangersGeoffrion scored 371 goals in 14 seasons with the Montreal Canadiens in the 1950s and 1960s and another 22 goals in a two-year comeback with the New York Rangers from 1966 to |
may be awarded the right to take trade actions such as raising tariffs or withdrawing market access from New Zealand goods or services, if the New Zealand government does not change our rules (often involving a change of law) to bring them into line with the panel’s interpretation of the WTO’s rules.
This is an unequal confrontation. A hundred million dollars worth of trade sanctions against New Zealand would be far more serious than a hundred million dollars worth of sanctions against the USA, which would barely notice it because of its much greater size. We will look at how the WTO’s rules apply to privatisation shortly. The international arbitration tribunals come into play in enforcing trade and investment agreements New Zealand has signed with Thailand, Singapore, Chile, Brunei, Hong Kong and China. They are appointed by the parties to the dispute and unless the parties allow it, they are generally held in private. The public may not even be aware of the existence of a dispute.
The most obnoxious of these provisions, which applies to an investment agreement New Zealand has had with Hong Kong since 1995, and is the subject of negotiations just beginning with the US, Chile, Singapore, and Brunei, allows private investors to challenge New Zealand laws in international tribunals in the World Bank, United Nations, or elsewhere (depending on the agreement). There are a growing number of cases that have been made public which frequently concern privatisations which have gone wrong, at least ten of them concerning water privatisations. Awards against governments extend into hundreds of millions of dollars. Governments in South America have faced numerous claims, and some of them are now withdrawing from these arrangements, though they may still be subject to existing agreements for many years to come. Argentina, which had to take drastic action in the interests of its people during its recent financial crisis, has been subject to hundreds of millions of dollars of claims as a result. In Europe, Poland has faced large investor claims when public opinion forced the Government to stop part way through privatisations.
The International Agreements
International agreements signed by successive New Zealand governments in the last two decades form the legal framework for the formal enforcement mechanisms I’ve just described. Some of the agreements have no enforcement mechanism and function largely by bringing pressure on the governments involved. These include the Closer Economic Relations agreement with Australia and agreements signed in the OECD, which are intended to limit government options in policy areas, including investment and services, that contribute to pressures to privatise, or to encourage further privatisation once it has begun. The International Monetary Fund has rules that are intended to limit our options in regard to international payments and capital movements. As long as we do not have to borrow from the Fund, it is difficult for it to enforce these, but like the OECD, it is a powerful mechanism for bringing pressure to bear on New Zealand governments, via signals to international investors and other governments.
The principal agreement with enforcement mechanisms relating to privatisation is the World Trade Organisation. New Zealand has also signed trade agreements with Thailand, Singapore, Chile and Brunei, and is negotiating several others. These include one virtually completed with China (which is still secret), and an extension of the Singapore/Chile/Brunei (the P4) agreement into investment and financial services. The US has joined the P4 negotiations, raising the stakes considerably.
GATS
The main agreement in the WTO that affects privatisation is the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). The bilateral and regional trade agreement provisions on services are modelled on the WTO agreement, though often strengthening it further. So I will describe the WTO GATS agreement rather than go into detail on the services provisions in the others. In addition the bilaterals and regionals have provisions on investment, competition and government procurement which heighten the pressures.
Services are important because virtually all government operations concern services rather than the production of goods. The defenders of the GATS agreement assert that it does not mandate privatisation, and that is true. However it quite deliberately creates leverage for private service providers to expand their involvement in the provision of public services. The way it works is that governments make commitments to open up specific service sectors of the economy to foreign suppliers. New Zealand has made some of the widest commitments covering professional services, telecommunications, broadcasting and other audiovisual services such as film making, construction, retail and wholesale distribution, financial services, tourism, and much of the transport sector including rail. It also included private education. There have been some additions since then in the bilaterals and regionals. Further areas have been offered in the current glacial negotiations in the WTO.
Once commitments have been made, in those sectors the Government may no longer limit the number or size of suppliers, give preference to local suppliers, or apply economic needs tests (such as preventing a private delivery company from cherry picking the most profitable postal services which may threaten the viability of the publicly owned Post Office which still has to carry the most expensive services). Preference may not be given on the basis of the supplier being not for profit or Government owned. The Government may still use subsidies (or Government funding) but where private New Zealand companies receive such funding, foreign ones are entitled to it on terms that are at least as favourable.
So as public services, or parts of them, are privatised through arrangements like PPPs, or services are provided by subsidising private service providers rather than directly funding public ones, foreign providers of the committed services are immediately entitled to enter into those markets. It becomes very difficult to roll the privatisation process back. Indeed, it gives a green light to the kinds of corporations I have described to grab those markets as we saw in the disastrous and tragic electricity privatisations of the 1990s.
There is an exception in the GATS providing that it does not apply to “services supplied in the exercise of governmental authority”. These are defined as services “supplied neither on a commercial basis, nor in competition with one or more service suppliers”. This Article is portrayed by defenders of GATS as exempting public services from GATS rules. But as more and more of the services become privatised through PPPs and similar arrangements, or where, as in health and education, public services coexist with private hospitals and educational institutions, the exception becomes less and less operational.
Public health and education are not among the services New Zealand has made commitments to in GATS. However the nature of PPPs and PFIs is to divide these services up into areas in which commitments were made. If a private corporation runs the cleaning, catering, delivery, transport, car parking, engineering and architectural services of a hospital or university, these are not covered by education but by many other sectors which may be subject to GATS. Jane Kelsey estimates that a PFI hospital would involve a minimum of 60 other subsectors including Professional, Computer and related, Real Estate, Rental leasing, Communications, Construction, Distribution, Environmental, and Financial services. The cat may therefore be out of the bag: once contracting out of those supposedly ancillary public services begins, it will be very difficult ever to return them to the public sector except on the basis of a competitively neutral tender against the private sector – or if the private contractor defaults on a contract because there is not enough profit to be made on it. Effectively a PFI hospital or school would be a private institution where the necessary health or educational professionals work. Any concept that those other services are not ancillary but essential to the integrated running of the whole institution would have disappeared.
PPPs and PFIs, and any relationship in which the Government pays some entity to perform public services, transforms the provision of public services into one of Government “purchase” of services – known in the trade jargon as Government procurement. The WTO has a voluntary agreement on Government procurement which New Zealand is not a member of. However the bilateral and regional agreements do typically cover Government procurement, including services. So even if services are not covered by the GATS or similar provisions, once this transformation into a “purchase” has been engineered, it may fall under a Government procurement agreement which again usually requires suppliers of the other signatories to the trade agreement to be given at least as favourable treatment in bidding for this work as any New Zealand party. Again, this can lock in a privatised arrangement.
Investment & Financial Services Agreements
In addition, the bilateral and regional agreements typically cover investment. New Zealand also has two investment protection agreements with Hong Kong and China. We have yet to see how they will be dealt with in the China Free Trade Agreement. If you remember the failed 1990s’ proposal for a Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) in the OECD, you will have some idea of the nature of these provisions. At their worst they allow private foreign investors to challenge the actions of governments directly, giving them an extraordinary status not allowed to the citizens or companies of the country itself. I have already given some examples of how these are being used to force governments to either continue with unpopular and expensive privatisations or pay hundreds of millions of dollars to the corporations in supposed compensation.
As I mentioned, negotiations have begun to extend the agreement New Zealand already has with Singapore, Chile and Brunei to include investment and financial services (which includes banks, insurance, and other important parts of the economy). The US has been allowed to join the negotiations, which the Government is hoping will be the first step towards a full free trade and investment agreement with the US (a forlorn hope in fact, because of increasing opposition to such agreements in the US Congress, and particular sensitivity over our agriculture imports). However even if limited to investment, the US is likely to be arguing for investor-State disputes procedures similar to those that have led to the outcomes I have mentioned. Its published assessment of what it regards as New Zealand “trade barriers” also indicates that it will aiming to demolish our overseas investment rules that provide a degree of control over sales of land – and as from very recently, strategic assets on sensitive land – to overseas parties.
Finally, these agreements now often include provisions on competition, a comparatively new area which some major powers would like to see introduced into the WTO. The danger of such provisions is that the service corporations see them as a means to force open services which are normally reserved for public provision, providing them substantial new sources of income. These agreements should be seen for what they are: an exercise in wielding power, in order to bring about economic policies favourable to private commercial interests in general, and the economic interests of the most powerful economies of the world in particular. Privatisation is one of those policies.WA Liberal leader Mike Nahan yet to move party on from big election loss
Posted
On the day Mike Nahan was appointed as the new leader of the WA Liberals he promised his party had learned from its brutal election loss and would act quickly to become an effective opposition.
But two months later it still is not clear what has actually changed, aside from the face of the leader and the size of the much-diminished partyroom.
Policies cited by many as big factors in the Barnett government's defeat — most notably the Perth Freight Link — continue to be backed by the party's new leadership, while little has been put forward in the way of new ideas.
The Perth Freight Link project sparked a sustained series of protests right up until the state poll, but rather than ditching the contentious project, Dr Nahan decided to double down — even repeatedly urging the McGowan Government to break its key election promise to abandon the project.
Dr Nahan has also continued to push for the sale of Western Power and argue against key projects Labor took to the election, including aspects of its Metronet public transport system.
Labor has accused the Liberals of living in denial and refusing to accept the election result.
"Regardless of what the Liberal Party may want to do, it does not get to have a simulated reality," Treasurer Ben Wyatt told State Parliament last week.
"It does not get to treat all this as some sort of Matrix-style 'I'll swallow the blue pill and wake up in the bed when everything's all okay'."
Barnett yet to respond to internal attack
Something else which has surprised both political watchers and some Liberal MPs is the continued presence of former leader Colin Barnett.
Several of his colleagues conceded in the wake of the election that Mr Barnett was not the best person to lead the party to the poll.
Mr Barnett offered little in the way of a response to that criticism, or for the party's disastrous showing at the poll, which saw the Liberals reduced to just 13 seats in the 59-member Lower House.
When approached by media last Tuesday, Mr Barnett told journalists to leave him alone, but returned to the spotlight two days later by using his first post-election speech in Parliament to warn Labor risked taking the state back to the WA Inc era.
"One thing that is clear to me is that the preconditions for what happened in the 1980s and the early part of this century, exist today," Mr Barnett said.
"The preconditions of a particular government, a Labor government, a particular characteristic of the business community of the time, and a typical characteristic of the media of the time, are today replicated in Perth."
The comments led to Premier Mark McGowan comparing Mr Barnett to former federal leaders Tony Abbott and Mark Latham, and weren't particularly well-received by some of Mr Barnett's own colleagues.
Dr Nahan however did come Mr Barnett's defence, saying if the Premier chose to ignore the comments, he did so at his own peril.
"Colin was sitting on the opposition benches during the WA Inc years, prosecuting the case for a royal commission into the commercial activities of the then government and other matters," Dr Nahan said.
"The parallels between the first months of the Burke and the scandal-ridden Gallop-Carpenter governments and the first two months of the McGowan Government in relation to cuts and politicisation within the public sector are undeniable."
Message sent, but evidence of receipt unclear
Either way, the comments did little to help Dr Nahan and the Liberals move forward on their task of making the party competitive in opposition.
When Dr Nahan took the leader's job, he said his party had been sent a "very big message" by the electorate and the Liberals had received it.
But if anything significant has changed within the party since then, it is yet to become apparent.
Topics: government-and-politics, liberals, state-parliament, waCharles Krauthammer is possibly the most influential conservative political writer in the United States. A 2009 National Review cover story called him the leader of the opposition in the age of Obama. “Krauthammer is revered by colleagues on the right and widely respected by those on the left,” reports a profile of Krauthammer in Politico, which is even more laudatory than the 2009 Politico Krauthammer profile, which called him a “coherent, sophisticated and implacable critic” of the Obama administration.
The most recent source of the revered Krauthammer’s implacable opposition is the Senate’s rule change to disallow judicial filibusters. In his weekend column, Krauthammer calls this a “disgraceful violation of more than two centuries of precedent” and “authoritative lawlessness,” among other terrible things.
Before we go on, let me reveal a couple professional secrets here. Intellectual consistency is a basic value for political commentators. You want to be sure your strongly held views are the product of an actual philosophy, because the temptation to see events through the prism of partisan bias is strong. The hard way to do this is to try to think about the issue in a way that’s abstracted from the positions of the parties at the moment, imagining what you’d think if their positions reversed. The easy shortcut is to check whether the parties actually did hold opposite positions on this issue, and Google what you wrote at the time.
I tried it for Krauthammer. Here he was in 2005, pleading with Senate Republicans to change the rules to forbid judicial filibusters:
Democrats are calling Frist’s maneuver an assault on the very essence of the Senate, a body distinguished by its insistence on tradition, custom and unwritten rules. This claim is a comical inversion of the facts. …. They must either stop or be stopped by a simple change of Senate procedure that would do nothing more than take a 200-year-old unwritten rule and make it written. The Democrats have unilaterally shattered one of the longest-running traditions in parliamentary history worldwide… What the Democrats have done is radical. What Frist is proposing is a restoration.
Notice that Krauthammer in both cases believes that the position of the Republican party at that moment is not only correct but obviously correct. To have opposed the nuclear option in 2005 or to have supported it in 2013 is disgraceful and radical, and anybody possessed of the slightest respect for our democratic institutions must have supported it in 2005 and opposed it in 2013.
When I wrote about the nuclear-option fight, I tried really hard to consider the procedural question apart from what each side wanted, but I also Googled myself as a backup, so I could be sure that my current position — that the filibuster is a bad idea in general, that it does make sense for the minority party to veto extreme judicial nominees who get lifetime tenure, but that blocking any candidate at all is too fair — lines up with my old one. Writing columns about politics isn’t that easy of a job, but one part of the job that is really easy is “not being a giant partisan hack.” There’s an easy way to cheat! Use it!
In other hack news, last year the American Action Forum, an influential conservative think tank, wrote a post decrying Obamacare for discouraging high-deductible health insurance plans. High-deductible plans, wrote the AAF, are wonderful in every way. They “make a lot of sense for many health care consumers and they make a lot of sense for the healthcare system, as they encourage the use of lower cost care settings, more transparent pricing from providers, and serve as an affordable insurance product that still protects against catastrophic expenses.”
Sadly, the post predicted, they would likely disappear under the boot of Obamacare, and then we will all be sorry: “It will shock no one when aggregate healthcare spending increases as a result of HDHP’s going nearly, if not entirely, extinct.”
But it turns out that high-deductible insurance has not disappeared under Obamacare. The law actually gives insurers a lot of flexibility, and most of them have determined that consumers would rather have low insurance premiums and high deductibles. So the flip side of the much lower-than-expected premiums available in the Obamacare exchanges is that the plans often charge high deductibles. But since this is exactly what conservatives have always wanted, they should be happy!
Yet somehow the AAF is not cheering the news. Today the American Action Forum explains that the availability of high-deductible plans under Obamacare is more evidence of how terrible the law is:
Under the ACA, however, enrollees will pay exponentially more for their coverage, only to receive plans carrying unaffordable deductibles. Significantly increased out-of-pocket costs, combined with hospitals’ fears over uncompensated services, will force some to finance the costs of their care, a financially risky choice.
Having a reasonably coherent view of policy questions seems like an important part of the job of being a think tank.THE HEAVENS—Following a 8-7 victory over the Cleveland Indians that clinched the team’s first World Series title since 1908, sources confirmed Wednesday that millions of intoxicated Chicago Cubs fans are currently rioting across Heaven.
Moments after watching the game’s final out from above Earth, massive throngs of intoxicated Cubs fans—most of whom went their entire lives without ever seeing the team win a World Series—poured out all over the eternal city, where they reportedly continued drinking heavily as they cheered, hugged strangers, and loudly played golden harps in celebration of their long-awaited championship.
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“Let’s go, Cubbies!” screamed Susan Leitch, who died of cardiac arrest in 1997 at the age of 70, before joining hundreds of fellow deceased Chicago fans as they repeatedly sang the chorus of “Go Cubs, Go!” “World Series champs! Finally!”
“Woo!” continued Leitch as she drunkenly stumbled over her feet and broke out in a fit of laughter.
According to reports, after one fan managed to affix a large “W” win flag to the top of the Pearly Gates, a large mob of Cubs fans began violently shaking the gateway as they chanted third baseman Kris Bryant’s name for nearly an hour. Sources confirmed that the gold-paved streets were quickly littered with empty beer cans, cigarettes, spilled food, and other refuse, while a number of inebriated fans were also seen urinating against the sapphire, emerald, and diamond–encrusted walls that protect the sacred realm.
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In addition to firing a slew of Roman candles upwards into infinity, a pack of belligerent fans reportedly succeeded in rocking the Throne of God back and forth until the seat of the Almighty Father tipped over onto the ground, after which several men and women began jumping up and down atop it.
Many witnesses also reported seeing at least one fan hunched over and vomiting over the side of a cloud.
“We did it!” shouted former Chicago resident Arnold Mathis, a victim of the 1918 flu pandemic, after climbing up the Tree of Life and bouncing on one of its branches. “I can’t believe we actually did it!”
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“Everybody’s getting fucked up tonight!” added Mathis. “I’ve waited my entire afterlife for this!”
Some of the festivities reportedly began getting out of hand when a group of Cubs fans lit the Ladder of Divine Ascent on fire, and shortly thereafter, several teenagers dumped an entire pitcher of beer on the head of an archangel as he attempted to fly through the raucous crowds. Numerous men were later seen stripping off their shimmering Heavenly robes and streaking through God’s Kingdom.
However, reports also confirmed that dozens of small children were celebrating peacefully while sitting on the shoulders of their parents or grandparents, with many wearing youth Cubs jerseys bearing the names and numbers of Ron Santo, Billy Williams, Ryne Sandberg, and Jake Arrieta.
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According to sources, the championship celebrations are expected to continue for much of eternity.
“Cubbies! The curse is over, baby!” said longtime fan and father of three Andrew Horton, slurring most of his words as he adjusted his Cubs hat underneath his halo. “I just fuckin’ [unintelligible], you know? Man…[unintelligible].”
“Cubbies!” Horton added.
At press time, sources within Heaven confirmed that hundreds of disorderly Cubs fans had been apprehended and sent to Hell.The previous thread had more than 100 comments. It can get tough to carry on conversations at that point, so I decided to post a short thread with a couple of misc thoughts and some links.
In regard to the ongoing Vick discussion. I previously wrote that Vick isn’t a great QB. That doesn’t mean he hasn’t done some special things. Vick was the first visiting QB to win a playoff game at Lambeau Field (2002). He carried the 2004 Falcons to the NFC title game. He is the only QB to rush for 1,000 yards in a season.
The problem with trying to quantify Vick is that for so much of his career he didn’t fit the standard QB mold. In his 5 years as the full time starter in Atlanta, Vick never threw for 3,000 yards. He only attempted more than 400 passes once. In a full season with the Eagles, Donovan McNabb never attempted fewer than 443 passes. You cannot look at just TD passes, QB rating and completion percentage to figure those guys out. They were playing 2 very different versions of football.
It isn’t accurate to label Vick as just a mediocre QB any more than it is accurate to say he’s great. Vick is highly talented, but highly erratic. In Atlanta, they weren’t able to develop him as a passer, partly due to coaching, but also due to Vick’s failure to embrace football the way he should have. By his own words, he was the last in the building and the first out. That changed when he came to Philly and he’s grown quite a bit as a passer.
The problem is that Reid took things to the other extreme. He had Vick throwing too much. Vick simply isn’t meant to drop back 35 to 40 times a game.
We’re trying to take what we know of Vick based on 2001-2012 and project how he’ll do in 2013. Don’t do that.
If the Eagles had hired some other NFL coach, I’d say you’re right to focus on Vick’s past. I don’t care if the offense switched to even a run-heavy attack. Vick with another NFL coach would have likely been Vick.
Instead, Chip Kelly came to town. Chip is bringing a new offense and style of play to the NFL. We’ve never seen Vick in this offense or anything close to it. Think about the changes Vick had to deal with. He had the fly swatter devices at practice. He had to give up the long ball and focus on quick screens. Vick had to compete for the starting job for the first time since college. Kelly messed with his head in a lot of different ways. And Vick responded the right way.
Old Vick might show up in the fall, but the guy we’re seeing now is a Vick I’m not familiar with.
Some of you got into a debate on 2010 vs 2011. Let’s get one thing straight. The O-line was a mess in 2010. Mike McGlynn wasn’t good at C. Nick Cole was awful at RG. Winston Justice was erratic at RT. Even Jason Peters was a notch below where he is now. Vick played really well despite the fact he had a porous OL. In 2011 Howard Mudd came to town. He turned Jason Peters into the best LT in the league. Mudd got Evan Mathis off the street and turned him into a stud. Rookie Jason Kelce had a good year. Todd Herremans moved to RT and thrived. Danny Watkins at RG was the only erratic player up front. That OL was dominant at times.
The other debate about when “defenses figured Vick out” is tricky. The Giants blitzed DBs a ton in the Miracle at the Meadowlands and it worked great for 3 1/2 quarters. Vick unleashed some voodoo on them in the final 8 minutes. The next week the Vikings blitzed Antoine Winfield over and over and Vick had a bad game. Teams continued to blitz Vick in 2011. The results were up and down. You might remember Quintin Mikell strip-sacking Vick in the season opener. The Bills had success with blitzers. Dallas had no luck with blitzers. You can’t say defenses figured Vick out, but you also can’t say Vick figured out blitzers.
Enough of my yapping.
* * * * *
Jimmy Bama did a hilarious post on Vick winning the QB competition. You’ll like this. Jason Kelce as a Wookie is priceless.
Sheil Kapadia offered up some thoughts on Vick being named the starter.
Tim McManus, All-American pretzel eater, wrote about how Vick thinks being pushed really helped him. I do think Kelly getting Vick out of his comfort zone was important.
Jeff McLane offers his thoughts on the situation.
Les Bowen wrote a fascinating piece on the fact that Vick has been a rejuvenated QB before. Caveat emptor.
* * * * *
I promise we’ll get to other players on Wednesday.
_Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the 19-year-old suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings (pictured above, at left), has been charged as a civilian, not an enemy combatant, and will face trial in federal court, according to White House Press Secretary Jay Carney. The charges were announced moments ago during the White House's daily press briefing, as the Boston.com Metrodesk reported. The US Attorney for the District of Massachusetts just tweeted the specific charges as "conspiring to use weapon of mass destruction against persons and property in U.S. resulting in death."
Dzhokar Tsarnaev charged with conspiring to use weapon of mass destruction against persons and property in U.S. resulting in death — U.S. Attorney MA (@DMAnews1) April 22, 2013
The charges were read to Tsarnaev in his hospital bed at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, according to Reuters. Tsarneav remains in serious condition, as per the latest update from the FBI following his confrontation with police in the Boston suburb of Watertown, Massachusetts late Friday before his capture.
The charges were read to Tsarnaev in his hospital bed
The US Justice Department described the charges in more detail on its website, spelling out two counts and noting that Tsarnaev faces a maximum penalty of multiple life sentences in prison, or death if convicted under the federal statutes. Massachusetts state law does not provide for the death penalty, but a federal conviction would. As the Justice Department noted:
Tsarnaev is specifically charged with one count of using and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction (namely, an improvised explosive device or IED) against persons and property within the United States resulting in death, and one count of malicious destruction of property by means of an explosive device resulting in death. The statutory charges authorize a penalty, upon conviction, of death or imprisonment for life or any term of years.
In court documents unsealed today, the FBI describes in even more detail the timeline of the attacks, the immediate aftermath, and their pursuit of Tsarnaev and his older brother, Tamerlan, 26, who died Friday morning from injuries sustained during a clash with police. The FBI states that security camera footage from the Boston Marathon indicates the Tsarnaev brothers arrived at the Boston Marathon together before spitting up to set the bombs, detonating them, and then departed separately. Here are some of the key details revealed in the FBI's testimony:
Unsealed court documents reveal key details collected by the FBI
The suspect matching the description of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev left his backpack, allegedly containing the explosives, on the ground just four minutes before the first bomb went off at 2:49 PM EST, then appears to be "manipulating his phone" and "approximately 30 seconds before the first explosion... lifts his phone to his ear as if he is speaking on his cell phone, and keeps it there for approximately 18 seconds."
After the first explosion, Tsarnaev "virtually alone among the individuals in front of the [Forum] restaurant, appears calm." The Forum was the site of the second explosion.
The remains of the explosives were analyzed and described as follows:
"A preliminary examination of the remains of the explosive devices that were used at the Boston Marathon revealed that they were low-grade explosives that were housed in pressure cookers. Both pressure cookers were of the same brand. The pressure cookers also contained metallic BBs and nails. Many of the BBs were contained within an adhesive material. The explosives contained green-colored hobby fuse."
Regarding the suspects' alleged carjacking around midnight on Thursday, April 18th, the carjacker — alleged to be one of the Tsarnaev brothers, namely Tamerlan — approached the car and tapped on the window. When the driver rolled it down, he reached his arm in, opened the door and entered the car holding a gun. The FBI quotes the carjacking suspect as telling the driver: "Did you hear about the Boston explosion? I did that," then adds this description of what happened:
"The man [carjacking suspect] removed the magazine from his gun and showed the victim [driver] that it had a bullet in it, and then re-inserted the magazine. The man then stated, 'I am serious.'"
After that, the report states that the carjacking suspect forced the driver over to another location to pick up another man, alleged to be Dzhokhar, before both men put something in the trunk of the car. The two men later forced the car driver to hand over his ATM card. The two men briefly exited the car in an attempt to withdraw money from an ATM in Cambridge, Massachusetts, when the car's original driver escaped by fleeing on foot.
The FBI affidavit goes on to state that the stolen car was identified by police in Watertown, Massachusetts. When they tried to pull it over, they reported the following: "Did you hear about the Boston explosion? I did that"
"As the men drove down Dexter Street in Watertown, they threw at least two small improvised explosive devices ("IEDs") out of the car. A gun fight ensued between the car's occupants and law enforcement officers in which numerous shots were fired. One of the men was severely injured and remained at the scene; the other managed to escape in the car. That car was later found abandoned a short distance away, and an intact low-grade explosive device was discovered inside it. In addition, from the scene of the shootout on Laurel Street in Watertown, the FBI has recovered two unexploded IEDs, as well as the remnants of numerous exploded IEDs."
The IEDs thrown out of the car are reported to have "similarities" to the explosives used in the bombings at the Boston Marathon and "at least one of the exploded IEDs at the scene of the shootout indicate that a low-grade explosive had been contained in a pressure cooker."
The FBI searched Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's dorm at Dartmouth yesterday and "seized from his room, among other things, a large pyrotechnic, a black jacket and a white hat of the same general appearance as those worn by 'Bomber Two' at the Boston Marathon on April 15th, 2013, and BBs."
Tsarnaev's injuries at the time of his arrest were "apparent gunshot wounds to the head, neck, legs, and hand."
It's still unclear when — or if — the government plans to read Tsarnaev his Miranda rights, which are generally required for evidence gathered during questioning to be used in court. While American citizens always retain their familiar Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights (to remain silent and have an attorney present regardless of circumstance), prosecutors generally aren't allowed to use any statements made in custody before the Miranda warning is read.
Tsarnaev, however, has been held in custody and questioned without being Mirandized, reportedly answering questions in writing because his injuries prevent him from speaking and raising questions about how and when the government might use any information gathered against him at trial. The Obama administration has held since at least 2011 that the so-called "public safety" exception to the Miranda rules can be expanded to cover questioning terrorists, and the White House's Jay Carney reiterated that stance today, saying that "it is a fact" that the public safety exception allows for extended interrogation without a Miranda warning.
Update: The full transcript of Tsarnaev's first hearing has been posted by The New York Times. In the transcript, we see that Tsarnaev was read his Miranda rights. By agreement of all the lawyers involved in the case, the next court date appears to be set for May 30th.
Nilay Patel and Sean Hollister contributed to this report.Hillary Clinton took questions at a news conference on an airport tarmac in New York on Thursday, one night after a presidential forum on national security issues.
Here are the highlights:
• In an opening statement, Mrs. Clinton said that Donald J. Trump had “bizarrely” praised President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia at the forum on Wednesday, when he suggested that he preferred Mr. Putin’s leadership qualities to those of President Obama. “That is not just unpatriotic and insulting to the people of our country, as well as to our commander in chief, it is scary,” she said.
• Asked why she is not “running away” with an election against someone viewed so unfavorably, Mrs. Clinton said she had always expected a close race. “I feel we’re in a strong position,” she said, adding that she was taking nothing for granted.
• Responding to the suggestion from some Republicans that she had not smiled enough at the forum, Mrs. Clinton said she was “talking about serious issues last night.” Asked if she was held to a double standard because she is a woman, she said: “I’m going to let all of you ponder that last question. I think there will be a lot of Ph.D. theses and popular journalism writing on that subject for years to come.”Loneliness 'forced elephant to speak Korean'
Updated
An Asian elephant probably learnt to mimic words in Korean because he felt lonely during his youth, researchers say.
Koshik was the only elephant living at the Everland Zoo in South Korea for about five years in his youth, and had only people for company during an important bonding and development phase.
It is unclear why Koshik started mimicking human speech, but cognitive biologists Angela Stoeger and Tecumseh Fitch of the University of Vienna suggest in research published in the journal Current Biology that it might be related to his experiences as a juvenile.
"We suggest that Koshik started to adapt his vocalisations to his human companions to strengthen his social affiliation with them, something that is also seen in other vocal-learning species and in very special cases, even across species," Ms Stoeger said.
There have been reports of elephants imitating the sound of truck engines, and a male elephant living in a zoo in Kazakhstan has been reported to say words in Russian and Kazakh, but that case was never investigated by scientists.
Koshik made headlines a few years ago by attracting tourists with his unusual ability, but the researchers have now run tests where they asked native Korean speakers to write down what they heard when listening to recordings of the elephant.
They found that by sticking his trunk in his mouth to help form the sounds, he has a vocabulary of the five Korean words for "hello", "sit down", "no", "lie down" and "good".
"This is really remarkable if you consider the huge size of the elephant and the long vocal tract and other anatomical differences.
"For example he has got a trunk instead of lips, and this elephant is really matching the voice pitch of his trainers."
Unfortunately, there is no evidence that Koshik understands the meaning of the words he is using.
ABC/Reuters
Topics: animals, human-interest, animal-science, korea-republic-of, asia
First postedKids at Cody High School spoke out to 7 Action News asking for help bringing attention to problems in their building.
“Its like playing dodgeball,” said Phillip Bryant, a senior at the school.
He is talking about what it is like to sit in a classroom where ceiling tiles randomly fall. He says it happens every week. One even hit him in the head.
“I know students who went to the hospital because they had a head injury,” said Jonice Sylvester, a Cody High student.
The school district tells 7 Action News there is no incident report on record that reflects the allegation made at the Detroit Institute of Technology College Preparatory at Cody. Administrators have not been made aware of any instance where a ceiling tile has fallen on a student.
Teachers back up the students stories and sent pictures of damaged ceilings to us.
"The District is aware and is mitigating the roof leaks at Cody. The building tiles loosen and fall from time to time and when it happens we replace them. When there is a problem reported the District responds and makes an effort to make the necessary repairs,” said Michelle |
1952 Republican convention some time.
Note, by the way, that I am not saying that any or all of these things should be done. In fact, there are things that can be done, but probably should not be done (and yes, I am deliberately not saying what those things are). I am, merely saying that the Republican party is going to have an open convention where the front-runner will have less influence over the larger process than the candidate in second place. This would be fascinating to watch, if it was happening in some other country.
Moe Lane
PS: There’s going to be one heck of a battle to see how quickly the first Presidential ballot can take place, I suspect. Actually, we might as well end that sentence after ‘battle.’ There’s going to be a brawl. Possibly a riot. Things might even burn.A Tennessee man was arrested earlier this month after allegedly assaulting his girlfriend over suspicions that Mitt Romney was her lover, the Knoxville News Sentinel reports.
Forty-year-old Lowell Turpin had confronted his live-in girlfriend, Crystal Gray, after spotting a photo of a man who he did not recognize on her Facebook page. Gray quickly explained the photo was of presidential contender Mitt Romney.
According to a police report obtained by the Smoking Gun, Turpin was upset Gray was "attempting to communicate with friends" through her account and began “smashing the laptop against the wall." He then struck Gray on "the right side of her face, near her mouth, with a closed fist.”
The report, provided by Anderson County Sheriff Deputy Bradley Prewitt, stated that Gray had accused Turpin of having physically abused her in the past.
Turpin was arrested on domestic assault charges in connection with the July 22 incident. According to rawstory.com, Turpin was still being held in Anderson County Jail as of Monday.
The exact photo of Romney that incited Turpin's rage has yet to be identified.
For more on Mitt Romney, click through this slideshow of the Republican presidential nominee's 'Greatest Hits':Canadian pop-rock band the Barenaked Ladies teases its upcoming album, Fake Nudes, with the gentle track "Sunshine." It's the band's second full-length album this year, following a well-received collaboration with a cappella ensemble the Persuasions back in April, and the band has international tour dates booked well into next year."'Sunshine' is about recognizing that sometimes we just need a change of scenery," wrote lead vocalist Ed Robertson. "It’s easy to get wrapped up in your own head, and things make sense to you if you never say them out loud to the people who matter the most. Tyler [Stewart, drums] says it’s my best song. I don’t know about all that, but I am very proud of it.”Fake Nudes is due out November 17 and can be ordered from various retailers Want to premiere an album or song on AllMusic? Drop us a line: nyyzhfvp_cerff@nyyzhfvp.pbzLeaked Documents Reveal Soda Giant Coca-Cola Is Pushing Amnesty, TPP
Hillary and Bill Clinton have a Coke and a smile — and lots of cash
Leaked WIkileaks emails during the campaign revealed a cozy relationship between Coca-Cola and Hillary Clinton’s inner circle including political favors and late-night appeals. The company donated at least $4.3 million to the Clinton Foundation between 2004 and 2010.
Now, the soda giant is set to face a new round of scrutiny. Lobbying filings revealed that Coca-Cola has been quietly pushing for amnesty and TPP on Capitol Hill, putting it odds with millions of conservative Americans.
It appears that Coca-Cola is doubling down with a new lobbying push for more low-skilled immigrants, displacing American jobs and settling policy scores that its CEO started fighting several years ago.
Coca-Cola has had a long history of open advocacy for amnesty and close ties with liberal Democrats.
In 2014 the company aired a pro-amnesty Super Bowl ad that set off a furor among conservatives. The ad showed Americans of different races and ethnicities singing “America, the Beautiful” in a variety of different languages in a not so thinly veiled push for Amnesty on the part of Coca Cola.
CEO Muhtar Kent has also been pushing the amnesty line with a flurry of letters and op-eds over the years.
The company caved to a pressure campaign led by a Soros-backed group targeting Trump, scaling back its years-long sponsorship of the Republican National Convention. Coca-Cola declined to sponsor the Republican National Convention to the same level of $600,000.00 as they did in 2012.
CEO Muhtar Kent was a Clinton campaign donor and was even considered a potential VP choice.
In a Senate lobbying report filed earlier this year shows The Glover Park Group LLC, represented Coca-Cola and is listed as their client. The filing shows the group has focused on “advocating comprehensive immigration reform.”
And in another lobbying report filed in July representatives lobby for the very unpopulary TPP agreemment: “Issues relating to support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and the Environmental Goods Agreement.”
The country voted against these policies two weeks ago. Will Coca-Cola change their direction too?Anyone who has had the pleasure of visiting Scotland will attest to the fact that the temperamental northern climate can be a real challenge. It’s one that photographer Martin Parr and his wife Susie took on with aplomb when they regularly holidayed in Shetland, Barra, Lewis, Islay and the islands of Orkney between 2004 and 2010. Their travels there are now recorded for posterity in a newly released photo-book entitled Remote Scottish Postboxes, a documentation of the tomato-red structures that permeated the couple’s muted surroundings.
“When you are in the middle of nowhere, in a bleak landscape and in wild weather, these little postboxes are strangely comforting,” Susie Parr explains in the book’s introduction. “They are a strong symbol of our cultural heritage; a sign that other people are around, that life is going on, and that you are connected to the world.” The result of their collaboration – in keeping with her husband’s signature whimsy – is a perfect antidote for the Monday blues, when one might be feeling just as gloomy as the drizzly vistas of the Scottish isles.Forget hashtag diplomacy. Sen. John McCain said if he were president, he would send U.S. troops to Nigeria to rescue the more than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped by an Islamist rebel group, regardless of whether he had the permission of the Nigerian government.
“If they knew where they were, I certainly would sent in U.S. troops for a rescue,” McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, said Tuesday. “In a New York minute I would.”
According to McCain, a United Nations bylaw permits U.S. troops on the ground in Nigeria because the kidnapping is a crime against humanity.
“That gives any nation the license, if they can, to stop a crime against humanity,” McCain said. “It’s the same reason we should have, if we could have, gone in and freed people at Dachau or Auschwitz.”
A reporter then asked McCain whether lawmakers would agree with sending troops to another country.
McCain said President Obama could act without the permission of Congress, just as Ronald Reagan did in 1983 when he decided to send U.S. troops to Grenada.
“If we rescued these young girls,” McCain said. “It would be the high point of the president’s popularity.”
McCain is among the most vocal critics of Obama’s foreign policy strategy, suggesting his approach has been weak and misguided, allowing adversaries to strengthen their hand.
Before calling for a U.S. military rescue of the kidnapped schoolgirls, McCain was mocking Obama for sending Ukraine a shipment of food by rented truck in order not to anger Russian President Vladimir Putin by flying the supplies in with U.S. military aircraft.
“Whatever we do, we don’t want to provoke Vladimir,” McCain taunted. “You can’t make this up.”Senator Leahy Hands Republicans A Gift By Giving Them Credit For Delaying Vote On PIPA/SOPA
from the do-these-people-have-no-clue? dept
We've noted how intellectual property issues are historically non-partisan. Sometimes, that's good, because it means that debates on the issues don't fall into typical brain dead partisan arguments. Sometimes, it's bad, in that it basically means both Republicans and Democrats are generallyon IP issues... happy to give industries greater and greater monopoly rights for no good reason. However, we noted an interesting thing happening on the way to the collapse of PIPA and SOPA: the Republicans were first to come together as a party and decide to speak out against these bills, recognizing the groundswell of public interest. That resulted in Republican leadership coming out against the bills, and Republican Presidential candidates all rejecting the approach in the bill. The Democrats, who have traditionally been considered more "internet friendly," simply couldn't bring themselves to go against Hollywood and unions -- two regular allies.However, as many more net savvy Democrats have explained, this appears to be a major miscalculation on the part of Democratic party leadership -- potentially losing an entire younger generation of voters to the Republicans. Already, mutliple strategists have been suggesting that the Republican Party use this as a chance to cozy up with Silicon Valley, despite its typically "blue" leanings (though, generally with a strong libertarian bent). It certainly appears that the Republicans are ready to do just that. House majority leader, Eric Cantor recently tweeted about meeting with Sergey Brin The Democratic leadership, however, still doesn't seem to recognize the importance of the tech community and the wider internet. Rather than learning anything from what happened last week, PIPA sponsor Senator Leahy is actually trying to blame the Republicans for killing PIPA. It's (yet again) an amazingly tone deaf response. It's as if he's pushing the internet and the tech community right into the Republicans' arms. Perhaps he's making a bet that those constituencies don't matter as much as Hollywood... but that seems like a pretty risky bet to make.
Filed Under: copyright, democrats, patrick leahy, pipa, politics, protect ip, republicans, sopaImage copyright Arran Sinclair
An Iron Age broch recreated in Lego goes on public display this week.
At a height of 40cm and covering an area of about 1.2 m sq, the roundhouse and a surrounding landscape are made of 10,000 pieces.
Brick to the Past, a team specialising in historically-themed Lego models, built it for the Caithness Broch Project.
Image copyright Arran Sinclair
The model and the Lego landscape it is set in goes on display at Thurso's Caithness Horizons Museum on Friday. It will be exhibited until 16 October.
Caithness Broch Project's Kenneth McElroy said: "This is a fantastic piece of work, and it's been very hard to resist playing with it.
"We hope that the Lego broch will encourage people to learn more and enjoy Caithness' fascinating and under-investigated archaeological past."
Image copyright Arran Sinclair
He added: "We'd also like to thank Santander's Discovery Foundation for making this broch possible."
The ruins of what were some of Scotland's oldest and most formidable structures can be found in the Highlands and Orkney.
Caithness has more broch sites than anywhere else in Scotland. Caithness Broch Project was set up to raise awareness of the remains of more than 180 of the ancient buildings in the area.
Image copyright Dan Harris
There are also impressive ruins of brochs in Glenelg in the north west Highlands, while evidence of what is thought to be a rare example of a broch in an urban setting has been uncovered in Stirling.
The stone-built houses have been excavated by archaeologists at Thrumster, near Wick, and near Dunning in Perthshire.
Image copyright Dan Harris
Dan Harris, of Brick the Past, said: "We love history and believe that Lego offers a great way of engaging both young and old in the subject.
"So when Caithness Broch Project approached us we jumped at the chance to work with them.
"Because of the broch's round but tapered shape, this is undoubtedly the most challenging model I have ever built, but it's been a fascinating subject and great fun to make."
Image copyright Arran Sinclair
All images are copyrighted.On Friday, January 14, 2011 07:34:04 am Jonas P. (zimbatm) wrote:
this is a general census to get developer feedback. Please post the
issues you encounter when developing in ruby. This can range from
syntax issues, to library support, documentation, or anything that is
a roadblock when developing in ruby.
In no particular order…
I wrote a long post because I don’t have time to write a short one. To
summarize:
RubyGems:
Play nice with other package managers
Better installers for end-users
gems/rvm/bundler confusion
Library management:
Better namespacing
Better handling of monkeypatching
Multithreading:
Threads are too primitive
Actors would be cool, but have issues
Wish list:
Lisp-style Macros.
Ruby-in-Javascript.
And now the rant:
Right now, Rubygems is both the biggest win and the biggest blocker for
newbies. I haven’t been keeping track, so I find I now have to learn RVM
and
Bundler just to keep up with the best practices for deploying a Rails
app. And
how do these interact with the system Ruby? If I install a system
package that
depends on a particular version of Ruby, will it get the version it
expects,
or will it get my default RVM version?
Unfortunately, I don’t have a good answer for this, and I don’t really
know
much about the solutions that do exist, but nearly every one I’ve tried
has
been very messy in many ways. Installing gems to my home directory is
just not
a good idea.
Another thing that I’d like to see more work on – though I think
alright
solutions exist, especially for JRuby – is the ability to distribute
Ruby
clients. It seems like there are two solutions, one for developers, and
one
for end-users. The developer solution is to build it as a gem, but it’s
not
reasonable to ask an end-user to install Ruby, Rubygems, and then your
gem.
The end-user solution is to build it as a giant monolithic file which
includes
all relevant gems. Surely there’s a middle ground – a nice, intuitive
installer, but one which actually sets up a system Ruby and Rubygems for
the
user, so that multiple programs don’t have to separately download and
install
the same libraries.
And Rubygems itself – while it seems it’s capable of understanding
reverse
dependencies, I want to be able to automatically clean stuff that I
don’t need
anymore. Gemfiles are kind of a decent start, but I’m thinking something
along
the lines of “manual” vs “automatic” in Debian, or even better, Gentoo’s
/var/lib/portage/world. In particular, I want to be able to install a
gem just
to see what it does, and if I don’t like it, uninstall that gem and then
clean
up every gem that was only installed because it was depended on.
RVM’s gemsets are kind of cool, but they seem to be a workaround for not
having that functionality. The only other reason to have them seems to
be when
developing a gem.
One more thing about gems: How do we know what a good gem is? I love how
decentralized it is now, at least in theory, but occasionally it means I
need
to go through two or three gems and try each of them before I find
either that
none of them does what I want, or some oddly named and maybe
semi-obscure gem
is perfect.
Moving away from rubygems and installation, and to semantics…
A bit more namespacing would be awesome. The current practice of just
dumping
something you hope is appropriate into the global namespace of constants
is
bad enough. It’s worse when we start monkey-patching other stuff.
I don’t know how big a problem this actually is. It doesn’t seem to
actually
cause problems in practice, so maybe I’m overreacting. Still, I like how
Perl
and Python handle this, where there’s a difference between loading a
library
and importing it into your namespace.
Namespacing constants aggressively shouldn’t be too much of a burden, as
Ruby
has the same shortcuts JavaScript does. Take JRuby. Sure, you can do
this:
import java.util.PriorityQueue
But you can also do this:
pq = java.util.PriorityQueue
That’s locally-scoped, which means you aren’t polluting any namespace
past the
end of the current block. Or you could do something like:
module MyMod
PQ = java.util.PriorityQueue
…
end
In both of these cases, you aren’t affecting anything else in the same
runtime. But if you ‘import’ it globally, you’ve declared it, well,
globally.
Point is, I don’t think we should be afraid to do stuff like this,
though we
could use just a bit of sugar to make it easier:
module FooCo
module LibFooVersion213
class Foo
…
end
end
end
Ok, yes, people will get sick of typing that, but again:
foo = FooCo::LibFooVersion213::Foo
Problem solved.
Monkey-patching is harder. Is there a way we can scope things like
Activesupport’s hacks? Stuff like:
‘bird’.pluralize
5.days.ago
foo.should be_valid
I love these things, but I wish there was a way I could declare them to
be
only available in a certain context or scope. This seems like it needs
some
language support to be really effective – we could fake it now by
mixing them
in and out of the core classes as needed, but that would affect any
other
threads, so it kind of defeats the purpose if you’re using
multithreading.
Essentially, the idea here is that when multiple libraries inevitably
end up
using the same name for something, we should be able to work around it.
When
they don’t, we don’t want it to be a burden. (I think JQuery is a
perfect
example of this done right.)
Let’s get some proper multithreading, to start with. It’s 2011. There is
really no excuse for a GIL. Either drop it or mainstream COW GC –
otherwise,
JRuby becomes the only real option for multicore on Ruby.
How about some higher-level threading constructs, too. There are a few
gems
which add interesting ideas… However, there are limits to what you can
do
with Ruby as it is, and these are partly due to the fact that it’s not
Erlang.
Again, I’m not sure of the best way to do this, but…
We have objects, and objects can, in principle, completely encapsulate
their
state. We’ve actually got that implemented properly – just look at
send,
method_missing, the fact that we need accessors, etc. This would be a
perfect fit for the actor model, and it’s something I tried to do once,
but
never really finished – but essentially, why not “just” make all Ruby
objects
actors?
Aside from performance issues, but I was going to do a proof-of-concept
and
ignore those…
Well, I didn’t quite finish it, but one problem I ran into in the design
phase
is the fact that there’s entirely too much Ruby code which wouldn’t work
at
all with this kind of design. For example:
foo.a += 1
Sure, you can override foo.a and foo.a= and either add a giant mutex, or
push
them off to a separate thread. Either way, you’re still going to have a
race
condition between getting the value of a and setting it again. Something
like
this might work:
foo.increment! :a
If you were to view each object as an actor, and each method call as a
message, stuff like that works very, very well. I still want to finish
my
idea, because I think you could get a lot of mileage out of new objects
which
were designed from the start to be actors. I think you could do that
without a
lot of language overhead. I had a proof-of-concept partly done.
But that still doesn’t change the fact that this will never work:
foo.some_hash[:a] += 1
Even after you make sure foo is an actor, and the some_hash it returns
is some
sort of proxy object that serializes all access, you still have the race
condition between the call to [] and the call to []=.
I think that this kind of problem is exactly the kind of thing Ruby
should be
concerned with. The typical Ruby battle cry has been “Hardware is
cheaper than
programmers!” Well, alright, here’s a machine with a few thousand cores.
How
is Ruby going to handle that? Can the language itself be fixed, or does
there
need to be a new one that combines the best of Ruby with the best of
(say)
Erlang? (In other words, is something like Reia the way forward?)
I don’t know, but while it’s sort of workable now, it’s probably the
single
language flaw that keeps me up at night.
There is one other that just annoys the purist in me…
Is there any way we can get anything like Lisp sexps? As I understand
it, we
have a few Ruby parsers, but nothing standardized to the point where I
can ask
the runtime itself to give me a parse tree for a given expression. The
closest
I could find was various implementation-specific things and ruby_parser,
which
is cool but buggy, missing a few of the 1.9 features.
But that I can live without. My rationale is, pretty much any syntactic
ugliness can be worked around with a preprocessor if it’s really
bugging me
(see lazibi), and Ruby is pretty anyway. It’s semantic ugliness that’s
tricky.
Ruby doesn’t have GOTO, it doesn’t have pointers or malloc, it’s done
away
with pretty much every bit of low-level nastiness associated with
single-
threaded programming – but the Thread system makes me feel like I’m in
C
again, where the slightest mental mistake could lead to my entire
program
screwing up in unimaginably arcane ways.
A final point: Browsers are getting fast enough that we should be able
to do
Ruby in Javascript. And not a server-side implementation, either – I
want the
equivalent of JRuby. But this isn’t really a limitation of Ruby, it’s a
limitation of browsers that we’d be working around. The above rants are
things
I actually feel are broken about Ruby as it is today.Study looks at geophysical limits to global wind power
Critics knock lack of economic feasibility and land area requirements
With many oil fields on the decline and the push towards green energy in full swing, new studies show that all of modern human civilization could be easily powered by wind energy if the necessary infrastructure — approximately four million wind turbines — were in place.
The power of wind is all around us, strong at ground level and even more powerful in the upper atmosphere, yet it remains an elusive power source given its unreliability. Reports on the potential of wind as an energy source vary with their optimism, but a paper released this week in Nature Climate Change insists that the Earth produces enough wind to power the globe 100 times over.
While that number may not be currently achievable, it is a worthy goal. Humanity consumes about 18 terawatts of electricity per year, with wind power producing about 4.1 percent of that amount, leaving lots of room for growth in the wind industry.
“We were looking at the geophysical limits of what the Earth could handle,” says Kate Marvel, a researcher at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and co-author of the paper. “We didn’t necessarily restrict our study to what was feasible.”
To put what’s possible into context, a 2008 report by the United States Department of Energy estimated that, even with billions of dollars in investment, wind has the potential to account for no more than 20 percent of U.S. electricity creation by the year 2030. Even still, that much lower number would depend on a continued dropping in the price of harnessing the wind and vastly increased production of turbines and other wind farm equipment.
Potentially years away from being well-exploited but surrounding us at all times, the power of the wind is promising in its ability to produce clean and cheap energy for public consumption, but its development into a viable source of electricity will depend heavily on political and economic factors, especially in these uncertain times. As the study concludes: “[I]t seems that the future of wind energy will be determined by economic, political and technical constraints, rather than global geophysical limits.”NB: This letter is fictional with regard to the particulars, but with regard to the nature of the sins described, it is unfortunately not at all fictional. Consider it a composite portrait, with no particular man in mind. At the same time, if any individual husband recognizes himself in the portrait and humbles himself, I would thank God and say that this was kind of the point.
Dear Kevin,
You were probably expecting this letter, but so there will be no misunderstanding, I still wanted to begin by explaining why I was writing. We have spoken off and on over the years about the problem of anger in your home, and you have consistently said that your wife was simply misunderstanding and/or misrepresenting you. You have described what you do as simply being “firm,” or “stern,” while she has called it anger, sometimes through tears. You have said that your wife must have been affected by feminism or something, and that you were simply trying to exercise a masculine leadership in the home that doesn’t mollycoddle the kids. And because it has always come down to did too/did not, and no external witnesses, the most I could do is exhort you generally.
But having witnessed your outburst at your family last Sunday, I believe I am finally in a position to address the issue with you directly. You were probably expecting to hear from me because of how the outburst started in front of some others at the church picnic, but also, as it happened, I was walking through the parking lot about fifteen minutes later, and though I didn’t hear all of what happened, I know that I heard quite enough. From what I heard, it is manifestly apparent to me that if your wife has been misrepresenting you, it has actually been in the direction of trying to protect your reputation. It is clear to me that everything she has been saying about your anger is true, and then some. The kind of anger on display in what I heard was not a momentary irritation or annoyance, but was rather a manifestation of settled character, and what was manifested there was vile.
And that is why I am writing. This letter is not a substitute for meeting together with me. I simply wanted to describe the situation for you beforehand so that you would have time to reflect, so that our visit afterward can be as fruitful as possible.
Some of what I am going to say will seem hard or harsh to you because for years you have used anger to keep any real criticism far away from you. So while I know it will seem hard, please know that every word here is written with your best interests in mind.
Another way of putting it is that these words will seem hard because they are so late in coming. Angry husbands are a problem to others, to their wives and children particularly. But I want to set everything in its proper context. Angry husbands are a problem to others, but we need to start by remembering that angry husbands have a problem. That problem is that apart from true and genuine repentance they are going to Hell.
“For which things’ sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience: In the which ye also walked some time, when ye lived in them. But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth” (Col. 3:6–8).
“And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice” (Eph. 4:30–31).
The settled habit of mind that I heard on display the other night is utterly inconsistent with inheriting the kingdom of God. The reason is that you are not just dealing with anger, although that is bad enough. When someone gives way to ungodly anger, the sin is destructive and bad. But when it is rationalized, when it is not repented, when the angry person does not humble himself before those he has wounded, sincerely seeking their forgiveness in true humility, the problem is overweening arrogance and pride. The episode of anger is like putting stain on a piece of wood — but refusal to repent in humility is like putting a defiant sealant on it. The pride is the thing that is truly diabolical. And when you have been getting angry for years, as you plainly have, and have never once humbled yourself to your family because of it, and have constantly defended your behavior in repeated conversations with your pastor, then it is apparent that your pride has you by the throat and will not let you go.
In the Colossians passage, it says that the wrath of God comes on the children of disobedience. The children of disobedience are identified by their clothing, by what they wear every day. And what they wear every day is bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, malice, and evil speaking. All of that is plainly characteristic of your heart, your mind, and your mouth, and I need to tell you plainly that you can’t wear that stuff and go to Heaven. And apart from true heartfelt repentance, you are not going to Heaven. The apostle speaks plainly — take those filthy clothes off, and put on Christ.
I used the example of pride as a sealant. The Ephesians passage also speaks of the Holy Spirit as a seal of the day of redemption. Because this is what He is doing it is absolutely necessary for everyone who calls himself a Christians to put away bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking.
“Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these... hatred, variance, emulations, wrath...envyings... and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God” (Gal. 5:19–21).
Shall not inherit the kingdom of God. So this is the necessary context for everything I am saying. Your soul is in dire peril. Jesus once said that there is no profit for a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul. That being the case, how much more of a bad bargain is it for a man to gain everything he is demanding in his world, in his home, through bluster, browbeating and bullying, and to then lose his own soul right there in his own living room? What comes out of your mouth smells like sulfur and damnation.
Now pride cannot be challenged without excuses and rationalizations coming to mind, so I want to briefly touch on a few that are likely to occur to you.
You may want to justify your outbursts of anger at your family because you think they are only the recipients of your anger, not the cause of it. You may blame your boss, or the long commute, or idiotic co-workers. You think you just come home a little “grumpy” because of these other problems, and you expect (and demand) sympathy from your family. When you don’t get it, you flare up at them, and feel entirely justified. They don’t know how hard you work, they don’t know the pressure, they ought to be more understanding. But the people you have to deal with at work display only a fraction of your irrational cruelties. You have scalded your family countless times, and are then “honestly” puzzled by how cautious they are around you.
You might think that your anger episodes are perhaps a “problem,” to be sure, now that I mention it, and that you do need to work on it sometime. But your silences are likely as much trouble as your outbursts. Your family is being forced by you to live on the slopes of a volcano, and it doesn’t have to be erupting all the time for them to be in a state of fear all the time. To change the metaphor, when you blow up you leave a crater that is fifty feet across, lip to lip, and then you make some symbolic pacific gesture (which is very non-verbal) like throwing an extra carton of ice cream into the shopping basket “for the kids.” This is the equivalent of throwing a couple of spadefuls of dirt at this yawning, smoking crater... and even then you miss the crater. Your episodes of anger are not a periodic problem; they are a manifestation of the fact that you are an angry man all the time, and your family is forced to treat your anger as a constant. They treat it as a constant because they are not fools — it is a constant. You are a constant. The problem is not what you occasionally do. The problem is what you are, and you successfully communicate what you are even when you are sitting on the couch saying nothing. You are either exploding like a bomb, or ticking ominously like a bomb. The only way for your family to be restored is for you to humble yourself and repent.
And last, there is a reason why angry men often seek out conservative churches. You want to be able reject “softness,” and you hate the unsound doctrine of “squishy” pop evangelicalism. When you first came to our church, you explicitly told me that you were looking for a church with “standards,” a church that was willing to resist the effeminacy of our age. You were attracted to the fact that we still practice church discipline. As I recall, your first Sunday with us happened to be that day we were disciplining a woman for deserting her husband for another man. You commended me, as I recall, and said that it was refreshing to encounter a church with some discipline. Well, we do practice discipline, but you need to know we discipline for fits of rage, and not just for adultery. We discipline husbands, not just wives.
And speaking of our effeminate age, when it comes to standards, you need to know that angry, bitter, resentful husbands in conservative churches are quite adept at giving liberals one of the few reasonable points they have. That reasonable point is that conservative standards are often abused by hypocrites in order to provide a scriptural veneer for old-fashioned bullying. On this matter, you are not with us — you are working for the other side, confirming as many of their caricatures as you can.
As I said at the beginning, I know that this will be taken by you, at least initially, as sharp, hard, and harsh. And so it is — but you should think of it as a surgeon’s knife. Please know that we love you, and we want you to be free. Not only do we want you to be free, but we want your family to be delivered. You were given to them so that your hardness could be a shield for them. You are called to be hard for them, not hard on them.
Let’s set up a time to talk.Written by : SMTV24x7
New Delhi July 31: A politician has received a shock.
Arun Jaitley Union Finance Minister has opposed the Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's plea in the Delhi High Court.
CM has filed the plea seeking details of the minutes of meetings held during 1999-2014 of the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA).
Kejriwal took this action in a pending defamation suit filed by the union minister against him and five other AAP leaders.
Union Minister has demanded Rs 10 crore as damages from them for allegedly leveling "defamatory" allegations with regard to irregularities in DDCA during Jaitley's tenure as its President.
He has also said that filing the fresh petition will delay the case and there are no reasons for filing the petition and it should be dismissed immediately.
Meanwhile, Ram Jethmalani former lawyer, in this case, has a written an open letter in this issue and has said that you have cheated me and asked me to insult him in the court but now you are denying the facts and its a shame on your part to do such things.This short article is in need of work. You can help Sega Retro by adding to it.
The Sega Pri Fun (プリ ファン) (Printer Fun-Fun) is a Japanese add-on printer for the Sega Saturn and Sega Pico. It uses a video-in interface to make pictures approximately 4 x 6 inches from the Saturn itself. It uses a single roll of thermal dye that makes very good pictures for such a process. It can be used in conjunction with the Saturn Freeze Card that freezes the Saturn so you can take a picture. The unit also accommodates sticker sheets.
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ReferencesWhat If Your Child Says, 'I'm In The Wrong Body'?
Dr. Norman Spack at Boston's Children's Hospital has worked with 30 transgender youth and their families to get through the difficult phases of adolescence. One treatment includes a controversial medication that blocks puberty until he or she decides whether or not to transition to the other |
she started her campaign because of Donald Trump — in particular, the sexually aggressive comments he made in the infamous video.
"Something just really changed for me with the Trump tapes," she says. "It's just a basic human decency thing."
But Coulter has no qualms about targeting Ivanka Trump. She says the first daughter has not only stood by her father, but has even become part of his team. This despite controversial policies like his executive order on immigration and refugees.
"If you align yourself with highly divisive figures, It's going to hurt your brand. It's not rocket science," says Coulter, who runs a boutique marketing agency.
Shannon Coulter in San Francisco started the Grab Your Wallet boycott campaign targeting retailers carrying Trump merchandise. (Shannon Coulter)
Ivanka Trump did denounce her father's lewd comments, saying they were "clearly inappropriate and offensive."
But otherwise she has continued to stand by him.
Race and gender expert Andrea Davis says because Ivanka Trump has done nothing to set herself apart from her father, she will continue to be judged based on his actions.
"She hasn't given us any other way of identifying her outside of him," says the York University professor.
"There's no way really in which she has challenged, or even just articulated a set of political ideas, feelings, thinking about the world that we can see is distinct from him."
Advancing or suppressing women?
Critics have also chastised the female boycotters for targeting a woman who stands for female empowerment.
Pirro praised Ivanka Trump as a successful entrepreneur who has championed women's rights.
She said the feminists who "purport to advance strong, independent women are the very ones rallying to suppress another who epitomizes every quality they claim to champion."
Many women who are boycotting Ivanka Trump's brand claim she is closely tied to her father and his policies. (Rick Wilking/Reuters)
But Davis says women aren't obligated to spare Ivanka Trump's line from the boycott simply because she's female.
For many women, Ivanka Trump doesn't represent their interests or beliefs, says Davis. "So it's quite a stretch to then ask that they side with her and take a position simply based on gender when there's so many other things at stake."
As Toronto writer Rachel Giese recently wrote in a column for Chatelaine magazine, increasingly, "women aren't buying Ivanka Trump's fake feminism — or her shoes and purses, for that matter."EMPIRE, MI - Bright sunshine, blue sky and wispy white clouds - it was a perfect day at the beach. A spectacular, wintery, cave-tastic day to explore the frozen formations of Lake Michigan. On a summer day, sand castles grab the glory. But on Saturday, Feb. 28, ice caves ruled. Cars filled the parking lot at Empire's public beach, and dozens of explorers ventured onto the ice. It was slick in spots - this is ice, after all. The wise ones wore crampons, sharp-toothed cleats that attach to the bottom of your boots. The rest of us just watched our step. On the frozen lake, hummocks of ice towered like sand dunes. Openings yawned wide, creating ice caves that looked as solid as rock and downright cozy. In others, overhangs stretched out, showing off icicles that glinted in the sun. Two ice dunes looked as if they had been smashed together. Between them ran a jagged crevice about a foot wide and a couple of stories high. Beneath one ice hummock ran a tunnel, a tiny passageway just big enough for a small but intrepid explorer. At the top of another hill, there was a wide, deep hole lined with sandy ice. Many of the ice dunes are dotted with rounded boulders. Some stretches of the lake lie as flat and smooth as an ice rink. In other spots, it looked as if rolling waves had been suspended mid-roll. In the clear stretches, we saw what was beneath the ice - more layers of ice. About 100 yards out, a jagged wall stood guard. Slabs of ice had been broken and slammed against each other. Every now and then, a crack rang out. A little reminder: This is a lake, and the lake is alive. On the north end of the beach, Shalda Creek trickled in. The narrow patch of open water evoked images of summer. In less than three months, it will be Memorial Day. We will dip our toes in the water and the kids will dive in, and we will look out over a vast expanse of blue. But for now, the Big Lake belongs to winter. Icy, snowy, beautiful winter. And it's still a perfect day for the beach.
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Sue Thoms covers health care for MLive/The Grand Rapids Press. Email her at sthoms1@mlive.com or follow her on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
Dec. 11, 2017, 11:04 PM GMT / Updated Dec. 12, 2017, 12:21 AM GMT By Tim Stelloh
The Treasury Department on Monday released a brief one-page analysis of the Republican tax plan — despite Secretary Steve Mnuchin’s earlier claims that “over 100 people” within the department were working on a detailed analysis.
"We are pleased to release an analysis demonstrating the revenue impact of the administration's economic agenda," Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs banker, said in a statement Monday.
The analysis, from the department's Office of Tax Policy, claims that the GOP plan would raise $1.8 trillion over the next decade — though that projection was dismissed in a statement Monday as "nothing more than one page of fake math" by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and is at odds with estimates from Congress’ own nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation.
In an interview with CNBC’s John Harwood earlier this year, Mnuchin said that the department’s work on the Republican tax plan would be “completely transparent.”
Related: Senate passes Republican-backed tax bill along party lines
“It will be scored by the joint tax group,” he said. “It will be scored by outside groups. It will be scored by the Treasury department. We have over 100 people working on this, and it will be a completely transparent process.”
But in a report last month, The New York Times found that the Office of Tax Policy had largely been sidelined from the type of process that Mnuchin described.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, right, and his wife Louise Linton, hold up a sheet of new $1 bills. Jacquelyn Martin / AP
In a 12-page analysis released last month, the Joint Committee on Taxation found that the Senate plan would raise $408 billion in revenue and add $1 trillion to the deficit after accounting for economic growth.
The Treasury analysis assumes that the economy will expand at 2.9 percent — a growth rate that could theoretically keep the national debt from rising.
Related: Winners and losers in the Senate tax bill
Mnuchin has previously said the plan will “pay for itself,” but in Monday’s analysis, the department attributed more than half of its projected revenue to changes in how corporations are taxed.
The Senate plan, however, would lower the corporate tax rate from 35 to 20 percent.
Related: Republicans are breaking four big promises in the Senate tax bill
"It's clear the White House and Republicans are grasping at straws to prove the unprovable and garner votes for a bill that nearly every single independent analysis has concluded will blow up the deficit and generate almost no additional economic activity to make up for it," Schumer said in his statement.In a moment reminiscent of last year’s shaving-cream pie attack on Rupert Murdoch at a Parliamentary committee hearing, an unwelcome guest infiltrated the Leveson Inquiry into UK media ethics today. This time, it was former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair testifying and the attack was a verbal one. An antiwar protester burst in shouting, “The man is a war criminal!” before being forcibly removed. Blair, who supported the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, and who told the inquiry there was nothing odd about speaking with Murdoch three times before the war, was unruffled.
Related: UK Editor Arrested In News Corp Scandal
Earlier in the day, Blair said that as a politician, running afoul of a media group “means you are then effectively blocked from getting your message across.” Blair gave evidence as to his relationship with Rupert Murdoch and the relationship of politicians and the media in general. He avidly courted the News Corp chief from his early days as head of the Labour Party. After Blair paid a visit to Australia in 1995 in what he said was a “very deliberate and very strategic” move to curry favor, Murdoch famously said, “I suspect we’ll end up making love like two porcupines – very carefully.” Murdoch’s Sun newspaper backed Blair in all of his runs at office.
Related: Rebekah Brooks First Person Charged In News Corp Scandal
Blair told the inquiry today that having close ties to the media is “essential and crucial.” But, he said he never felt under pressure with relation to commercial interests from the Murdochs or anyone else. Rather any pressure he felt was political. “With any of these big groups, you fall out with them and you watch out… It’s very important not to see this simply about the Murdoch media.”
Although Blair is close to Murdoch, he also contended that the idea of “coziness” while he was in office is inappropriate. “These relationships matter, you’re bound to have close interaction. But it’s not the closeness that’s the problem, it’s the imabalance that comes into it… You know if you are pursuing a course you believe in and they don’t belive in it or you are in a big fight. That’s something you have to take into account before you decide to go in a particular direction. It’s hard to distinguish what is wrong from what is inevitable,” Blair said.
Related: Andy Coulson Testimony Shifts UK Media Inquiry Focus To David Cameron
Blair also maintained that during his tenure, the government made more policy changes that went against Murdoch interests rather than for. He explained he chose not to pursue a review of cross-media ownership because he had other things to focus on early in his time at Number 10 Downing Street.
Speaking to the issue of press reform, Blair said, “In the end… what I think is wrong is when a section of the media… they will go after you… and that is not journalism. That’s an abuse of power. And it’s not necessary.”Let me start by saying that the products featured in this post were provided to me free of charge from The Spice Lab Gourmet Salt Collection. This in no way will influence the review to follow and all opinions are my own.
The Spice Lab Gourmet Sea Salt – The Chili Head Salt Collection – Review and Giveaway
When I was younger I was under the impression that there was only one type of salt, the traditional table salt that is found in almost every cupboard, restaurant and kitchen in the world. I, like many people, thought that there were limited variations on the salt widely available. I am still in the early stages of learning how to cook, and am beginning to branch out into the flavorful world of addition of flavors, enter The Spice Lab. I was given the opportunity to review their Chili Head Collection and thought this was a good way to play with a staple of cooking.
The Spice Lab is a woman owned business based in Pompano Beach, Florida and boasts over 180 different salts from over 30 countries and has the largest selection of sea salts available from a single source. The salts come in test tubes, in either 5, 6, or 11 sets, with a handcrafted wooden base that is American made from recycled shipping pallets, Colorado pine, sustainable bamboo bases among other discarded wood.
The items offered are plentiful, creative and include salt plates, wooden spoons, salt collections and even bath salts. The Spice Lab has received numerous awards including the Silver Sofi Award, The Gourmet Retailer’s Editors’ Choice Award, Scovie and Hot Pepper Awards, 2014 Suppliers Achievement Silver Award for Most Creative New Entry Designed for Business Gift Use, as well as becoming one of Oprah’s Favorite Things in 2013 (the Himalayan Salt Shot Glasses)
The Chili Head Collection by The Spice Lab comes with 4 different types of salts. The set I received had No. 117 Jalapeno Pepper Sea Salt, No. 112 Smoked Serrano Chili Sea Salt, No. 117 Hot Habanero Pepper Sea Salt and No. 107 Asian Szechuan Pepper Sea Salt. All of these flavors are recommended to be used on Red Meat, Chicken, Vegetables, Fish, Sauce and Soups.
Although these are hot flavors the salt was the perfect combination of spicy and salty, while still retaining the heat of each flavor. If you are particularly sensitive to spice I would recommend staying clear of these and go for the milder versions. On the other hand, if you like heat to any degree, you will love these.
Each salt comes in its own Pyrex test tubes with a cork stopper to keep the product fresh. A bamboo wooden spoon is included to help distribute and get the salt out of the tubes. The box in which the test tubes sit is handmade wooden holder, and each tube contains.6 to 1.3 oz of salt each depending on density of the salt contained therein. The salts come with a reference card that gives detailed descriptions and suggestions on uses. This makes the salt easy to use even for those of use still learning about spices.
I would highly recommend The Spice Lab and their wide array of salt products and if you want more information, click here or information about the set I received click here. The Spice Labs products are also available on Amazon.com
GIVEAWAY: The Spice Lab is offering a 4 Tube Sea Salt Collection (may or not be the Chili Head Collection I reviewed) to one lucky reader! Open to residents in the US only. I will be randomly choosing 1 person on July 31st (7/31/2015) to receive these this salt collection! To enter complete the entries below! Winner will be notified by me by email and prize will be fulfilled by The Spice Lab! Remember you have 48 hours to claim prize, or I will chose another winner. GOOD LUCK!!!
Win a 4 Tube Sea Salt Collection from The Spice Lab
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On average, women usually worked fewer weekly hours than men at their main job (33.2 versus 39.5 hours in 2007). Although all age groups follow this trend, the gap between men's and women's hours was higher for older people.
For example, in 2007, young men aged 15 to 24 worked five hours longer at their main job each week, on average, than their female counterparts (31.1 versus 26.0 hours). There was an 8-hour gap in the usual weekly hours of men and women aged 65 and over (33.6 and 25.5 hours, respectively, in 2007). Among adult workers (aged 25 to 54), the gap was slightly more than six hours.Promising "rivers clean enough to swim in again", the Green Party says their latest environmental policy will focus on the quality of our water.
The policy was unveiled next to the Waikato river which was churned full of muddy water as a result of heavy rain.
The party says its three point policy - to be rolled out over the course of their election campaign - would see protection plans put in place for rivers, water quality improved and the construction of any new dams stopped.
But Irrigation New Zealand (IRZ) does not agree that dams and irrigation destroy rivers or add to pollution if they are designed and constructed properly.
"The reality is that New Zealand needs large scale water storage. This is essential for town and city drinking water supplies, as well as to produce fresh food," says Andrew Curtis, chief executive of INZ.
"Without water storage we would have to explore other expensive options to cope with future population growth. These might include implementing intense food price hikes; importing foreign fresh produce and building desalination plants.
"The reality is that it is unrealistic and prohibitively expensive to have swimmable rivers everywhere - particularly in towns and cities where water quality is by far the worst," Mr Curtis said.
Green Party co-leader Russel Norman says they have a vision for New Zealand where families can head down to their local swimming hole or beach and jump right in the water without worrying about getting sick.
"We're determined to make every single river in New Zealand clean enough to swim in again, it can be done," he said.The "Heartbleed" exploit that was discovered in websites that use OpenSSL encryption last week has since been rapidly patched all over the world. However, a new report from the Sucuri security firm claims there are still a few sites out there that have yet to deal with the issue.
The company stated this week that they scanned the top 1 million visited websites, as listed by the Alexa rating service, to see how many of them still have not fixed the "Heartbleed" exploit. The top 1,000 sites show no "Heartbleed" OpenSSL vulnerabilities. and the report claims that only 53 of the top 10,000 sites have yet to fix the bug.
The numbers and percentages of "Heartbleed" sites got larger as Sucuri moved down the Alexa rankings. In the top 100,000, the firm claim 1,595 sites are still open to the exploit. The top 1 million sites have 20,320 that are not yet patched up; Sucsuri did not list the specific sites that are still vulnerable to the "Heartbleed" issue.
The lesson is that while the vast majority of websites are no longer open to the OpenSSL problem, web surfers still need to be cautious when entering their personal information, especially among sites that don't get a lot of traffic.
Source: Sucuri | Heartbleed image via ShutterstockI just can’t stop with the Starcraft pie situation over here…
We are the Swarm… Numberless, Merciless {when it comes to pie}
Besides, I like Zerg best so I couldn’t very well not do a Zerg pie… and of course it had to be dark purple, obviously.
Besides that, I know I’ve broken my unofficial rule of not repeating myself in two subsequent posts, but…. it’s PIE. So… it’s fine. And it’s my blog anyway so why do I have these stupid rules for myself?! As a very wise man once said, who would refuse pie?! Exactly.
I’ve never put mint in pie prior to this, but I like it! It’s very unusual – the berries are still the dominant flavor, but the mint keeps popping in there to keep you on your toes. It adds an unexpected bit of freshness to the berries, and it smells SO good. I don’t think I breathed while I was doing the top crust…
Let’s see, what else is new…
Opera night lions! Opening night at Rigoletto was fantastic, of course.
And a balanced breakfast, because pie definitely counts as a fruit serving.
Patting myself on the back over here for the structural stability of this pie – appropriate amount of thickener = appropriate amount of juices! Plus, no soggy bottom crust. Mission accomplished.
It’s June – the beginning of the summer fruit season — make pie, be happy! But… beware the swarm…
Wild Blueberry, Blackberry & Mint {Zerg} Pie on Whole Wheat Crust
A Wait are those Cookies original! Yield: 1 9″ pie, serves 2 (ha) – 6. Refined sugar free and whole wheat, plus lots of antioxidants! Mint adds an unexpected freshness to an otherwise basic berry pie.
For the pie crust:
2.25 c whole wheat pastry flour
3 tbsp coconut sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp fine sea salt
1/3 c unsalted butter
1/3 c vegetable shortening
5-6 tbsp ice water
For the filling:
2.5 c wild blueberries*
2 c blackberries*
2 tbsp chopped fresh mint
1/4 c maple syrup
1/3 c whole wheat flour
2 tsp vanilla extract
zest and juice of 1 meyer lemon (or regular)
*I baked straight from frozen; fresh would also be fine; use enough berries to fill your pie plate
For finishing: 1-2 tbsp butter, 1 egg for egg wash
To make the crust: in a large bowl, whisk together pastry flour, coconut sugar, baking powder, and salt. Cut in shortening and butter either with your fingers or a pastry cutter until a coarse mixture forms and the butter chunks are the size of peas. Make a well in the center of the dough and add in the ice water one tablespoon at a time – mix as little as possible when incorporating the water to avoid overworking the dough. Once it will stick together, you’re good to go. Divide it into two even pieces, wrap in plastic wrap or a ziploc and chill for at least 10 minutes or up to overnight.
While the dough is chilling, put together the filling. In a large bowl, toss together blueberries, blackberries, mint, maple, whole wheat flour, vanilla, and lemon juice + zest. Let sit for at least 10 minutes — easiest to do this while you roll out the pie dough.
Once the dough is chilled, roll it out between two pieces of parchment or on marble, whatever you have – I like parchment for easy removal. Aim for about 1/8″ thickness, and lay the bottom crust into a lightly greased pie dish. Shape it with your fingers, evening out the top as per your pie plate or design you want — this crust will make a double crusted pie, so keep that in mind. Toss in filling goodness and dot with butter.
If you want to get fancy and get all Zerg-pie Starcraft nerdy (you must construct additional pylons!)…
Cut out templates (thick paper or thin cardboard work nicely) for the Zerg crest. Have egg wash and coconut sugar handy (I use a beaten egg + 1 tbsp water). Use the templates to cut out the top crust shape, then use a chopstick or a knife to make the surface lines. Brush everything with egg wash to make it stick. Sprinkle coconut sugar where contrast is desired. Once finished, carefully lay top crust over the filling. Bake at 450 for 10 minutes, then 350 for 35-40 until the filling is bubbling and the crust is golden brown. Remove from the oven when done and let sit to cool for at least an hour, preferably more so that the filling will set. Serve warm or at room temp, and store any leftovers overnight on the counter, loosely covered, or in the fridge for longer (assuming it lasts that long). Pie can be made a day in advance if needed and reheated briefly in a 375 oven to crisp the crust and warm the filling – 10/15 minutes. The pie filling will firm up if stored in the fridge overnight, making slicing easier.I’ve always found the resume building process in AV to be a bit of a challenge. For audio-visual professionals, there is no degree program that really prepares you for the world of live event production. There are plenty of indirect routes – film schools, recording certificate programs, and individual courses on video and lighting. But even those tend to be skewed toward the studio – music recording, film, post production, broadcast, video editing etc.
For live event professionals, most of the experience is gained in the field. But, there are plenty of educational opportunities that we can take advantage of to make ourselves more valuable, and more marketable. I’ve compiled a list of some of the main ones – how much they cost, and where to find them.
Certification with Infocomm International: CTS
Infocomm is a non-profit organization that provides education and information to AV professionals. It offers a certification course called the Certified Technology Specialist. There are three version of the CTS:
CTS General: An in-depth overview of live audio, video, Information Technology, project management, and AV sales. It also touches on architectural diagrams as it relates to working with floor plans in an installation setting.
CTS-D: The “D” stands for design. The certification is a next level up from the CTS general and hones in on knowledge specific to being an audio-visual designer.
CTS-I: The I stands for installation. The certification is geared for those who want to specialize in AV installation.
All CTS courses are skewed somewhat toward AV installation, but there is quite a bit overlap into live event applications since there is quite a bit of theory that would benefit you in any situation. Audio Engineers should find CTS surprisingly useful, since it goes into depth about networking, and its application to AV. It also goes into depth with audio theory, covering the science behind the decibel, how humans perceive sound, calculating speaker impedance, and quite a few other useful topics.
Cost: the cost of the CTS general exam is currently $375, and must be taken at an approved testing site in your area. For course and test info, visit Infocomm – CTS
For an overview of of what to expect on the test see my article, What to Expect on the CTS Exam.
2. Q-Sys Certification
Q-Sys is QSC’s audio integration platform for control of permanently installed audio systems. Q-sys is one of the leading platforms now, so you see it everywhere – hotels, churches, amusement parks etc. Knowing this platform will be a major boost to your resume, since being able to program and troubleshoot these systems is an invaluable skill.
Q-Sys offers training and certification on their website. And the great news is…it’s free!! It is one of the few certifications that doesn’t have a price tag, so it is really a great idea to take advantage of.
The training module can be found at Q-Sys Level 1 Training
3. High-End Systems HOG Training
High-End Systems is a subsidiary of ETC, and it’s most well known product is the HOG lighting console. Since the HOG console is one of the industry standard lighting boards in use, having HOG certification will give you a tremendous advantage, especially if you are looking to become a technical director, lighting designer, or lighting technician.
Training takes place in a real classroom, held at specific dates at various locations throughout the country, which are posted on the site several months in advance.
The cost of the class is $500
If taking the class is not a possibility, the training center site has several video tutorials on both HOG and HOG PC.
All of this can be found on High-End’s Training Center website, High-End Training Portal
4. High-End Systems Fixture Repair Class
High-End Systems also offers an in-person class where you will learn lighting fixture repair, down to the component level. Below is the description from the training website:
A basic guide on trouble-shooting and maintenance of DLHD and all LED products.
During the class, attendees will learn how to remove and replace major components, understand wiring harnesses and signal flow, as well as learn the fixture’s menu system.
Attendees will gain a working knowledge of the Content Management Application (CMA) software, including the process of loading custom content and upgrading fixture software.
This part of the course also offers a brief overview of proper content encoding for the High End System’s digital lighting fixtures.
Focus is emphasized on conventional automated lighting fixtures.
Attendees will get hands-on experience for general trouble-shooting and maintenance of High End Systems’ lighting fixtures.
Attendees will learn how to remove and replace major components, understand wiring harnesses and communication flow, as well as learn the fixture’s menu system.
The cost is $200. The only downside to this class is that it is only held in one location: 2105 Gracy Farms Ln, Austin TX. And there are only a handful of dates each year.
More info on this class can be found at High-End Training/class registration
5. AVID Certification
AVID’s claim to fame is Pro-Tools, but it also makes a great live audio console called the Venue, which is widely used in the high-end pro audio world. If you have ambitions of being an audio engineer for an A-list artist, then learning this console will be an invaluable step.
AVID offers two training courses on pro-tools, and two training courses on the Venue. These are in-person classes, and they are quite in-depth.
The downside is that these classes are expensive. The introductory Pro-Tools class currently has a price tag of $1,195, for instance. The Venue Training ranges from $13-$1500, and is two days long.
But AVID has other training resources on its website that are more accessible and affordable. If you go the Find a Course section of the site you can find a pretty wide range of courses that start at around $160. See AVID Online Courses
A couple notable subjects that live AV people will find useful would be their e-course on Networking, and a course on video theory (both links below).
AVID Networking Basics Course
AVID Video Theory Course
6. Yamaha Console Training
Yamaha has both seminars and online training for their products. Yamaha consoles are an industry staple, so knowing them inside and out will benefit any AV person immensely. Examples of their current in-person seminar topics include:
CL/QL console training
Digital Sound Reinforcement using Dante Protocol (Dante is currently the leading protocol for digital audio transmission and digital audio networking)
NEXO Speaker Systems (yamaha’s latest line of high-end loudspeakers)
Worship Arts Technology
General Yamaha console training labs
These classes are held in various locations throughout the country, but the main ones are in Las Vegas, Illinois and Buena Park California. This is great news for the lot of us AV people who are Los Angeles Based.
The other great news is that almost all of these seminars are free!!
The training labs in Buena Park are my favorite so far. You register for a 2-hour time slot in which you are able to tinker, and practice on any of the main Yamaha consoles: LS9, M7-CL and the PM5D. Yamaha staff is on hand in each lab to answer your questions. And it’s free! You just have pre-register at Yamaha Training Seminars
On the same training site you can find a handful of online courses that are very helpful, as well as a training blog. Really good stuff.
7. Shure Audio Institute
Shure doesn’t have any certifications that I could find, but they have a ton of great information in the form of webinars, and a couple of in-person classes from time to time. The great thing is that they don’t just offer training for their products, but a lot of their information is education on microphone applications in general. This is especially true in the area of wireless microphones. They also have a great blog for audio education.
All of their webinars are free, and pretty easy to understand with a basic understanding of audio. You can find the site at Shure Audio Institute
8. SMAART Certification
SMAART stands for System Measurement Acoustic Analysis Real-Time. It’s a software application for analyzing the frequency content of an audio signal, a process known as Real Time Analyzation. The RTA process usually takes place just after an audio system is installed. A signal known as “Pink Noise” is run through the system, and a specialized mic is used to pick up the signal in the center of the room. The software gives you a visual depiction of what that mic is picking up, and how room acoustics, or speaker design are affecting sound quality.
SMAART is the industry standard for RTA software currently, and Rational Acoustics, which makes the application, offers a training course with certification.
The Fundamentals of SMAART is a 3-day seminar held in various locations throughout the US, UK and Australia.
The cost is $750.00
You can find the class schedule and registration at Rational Acoustics Training
9. Extron AV Associate Certification Program
This is a course with a certification designed to give AV professionals a solid foundation in the fundamentals. There are no pre-requisites, and the course is completely online.
Although strangely to enroll in this course Extron says that “To enroll in the AV Associate Certification Program, you must be a reseller, consultant, or instructional technology professional” on their website.
They give no info on cost, but they only say to “contact your extron representative for pricing.”
After you take the AV Associate course, there are several other certifications they offer including:
The School of Emerging Technologies – 4k
Extron Control Professional
Extron ProDSP Specialist
For more info on Extron training products, visit http://www.extron.com/training/index.aspx?s=tab02
10. Harman Certifications
Harman is an electronics company that has recently been acquired by Samsung. Harman owns several AV manufactures including:
AKG
JBL
Martin
dbx
Digico
BSS
Studer
IDX
SVSI
They offer certification courses for all of their brands, both online and in person. The two most relevant to us in the live events industry would be Martin and JBL. And for those you can go straight to their training websites:
JBL: JBL Training/Training
Martin: Martin.com/Training
JBL’s training is all focused on their VTX Line Array Series. Training is three days long and covers everything from system design, and rigging to networking and system optimization.
Martin has training for both their consoles and fixtures. The fixture class is held in Indianna, costs $600, and covers all of their moving fixtures. If that’s not a possibility for you, they also have webinars which can be found here: Learnstagelighting.com Webinars
If you’re interested in any of the other Harman training courses you can find those here: ProHarman.com/Training
Conclusion:
This is, hopefully, the beginning of a growing list. For an extended list of training and certifications there is a Part Two that goes a little more into lighting and video.
If you know of any other good classes, certifications or seminars please feel free to comment below.
Best of luck out there!
Carmelo San Paolo, CTS
AdvertisementsWhat would it take to negotiate a new trade deal with the EU? Below is an 8-point plan.
1. Put our best, world-renowned diplomats and negotiators at the helm. Yes, the negotiating team needs trade experts, but at its helm it needs a chief negotiator with excellent international standing, whose reputation will precede him or her in the corridors of the European Commission. The chief negotiator should have a track record for successfully and skilfully negotiating the most intractable international challenges the UK has faced in the past two decades. Northern Ireland? Iran’s nuclear deal? They should have formidable diplomatic skills, political nous, and a sharp intelligence that enables them to absorb and process technical details rapidly.
Surround them with the best international trade lawyers we can lay our hands on (those with substantial experience in drafting actual negotiating texts) drawing on UK nationals in the European Commission, the World Trade Organisation, universities and law firms. Bolster the team with trade-related policy experts that cover the wide range of issues covered in contemporary trade deals - from competition policy, to intellectual property, financial services, and government procurement. Bring in the top policy analysts from the UK’s line ministries and agencies (agriculture, business innovation and skills, the intellectual property office etc), entice home UK nationals providing expert advice in the European Commission, and let the team work together with the private sector and others to identify the UK’s national interests.
There is talk of bringing in civil servants from other countries. While we do need expertise, keep an eye on the long game: don’t bring in negotiators from countries we want to negotiate with in the foreseeable future – there’s nothing worse than the other negotiating parties knowing all your weak spots.
2. Bring businesses and workers close, but not too close, to the negotiating team. UK businesses, large and small, trade unions, and consumers have a lot of skin in the game when it comes to the EU negotiations. Moreover, civil servants can’t possibly know what precise provisions a specific firm or industry will need in a deal if the UK economy is to flourish.
Harness the interest of these groups to do as much of the analysis as possible. Appoint specific industry liaisons within the negotiating team, preferably with expert knowledge on the industry, to work closely with firms and representative organisations. Request the stakeholders to analyse and evaluate how their industry or sector would fare under different trade scenarios and to provide really specific and detailed submissions to the UK government on the provisions they would like to see in the final EU deal.
Avoid the UK national position being ‘captured’ by the largest and most powerful firms by supporting smaller industry players, consumer groups, trade unions and civil society organisations to develop informed positions. Keep close contact with business throughout the negotiations, but don’t inform them of the UK negotiating position or let them in the negotiating room, so that trade-offs and compromises can be made more easily. Work as a negotiating team to mould the disparate inputs into a national negotiating position, prioritising interests of specific groups in light of the UK’s wider national economic development strategy.
3. Forget national UK politics at our peril. Trade deals can be concluded after years of arduous talks only to be derailed by political opposition at home (ask the negotiators of the TPP, which may never see the light of day). Identify all the key players in the UK and, as far as possible, keep them on board and confident in the negotiating team. Work closely with political parties from UK regions that voted strongly ‘Remain’ and ‘Leave’, make sure these regions are represented on the negotiating team, form close links with their MPs, and hold regular regional consultations. There will undoubtedly be losers in any final deal - look for other ways to ensure their interests are met so that the deal is widely accepted at home.
4. Gather intelligence on the EU position and manoeuvre to soften it. Use the excellent intelligence network of the UK’s diplomatic missions across the EU to understand the position of EU national governments, the European Commission, and powerful sub-national stakeholders (larges businesses, opposition political parties). Identify the fault-lines behind the EU’s current hard-line stance and work to open them up. Specific interests in the EU will lose if there is no deal with the UK, including German car manufacturers, French cheese and wine producers. Work behind the scenes to ensure that each European producer that stands to be damaged from the UK leaving the EU knows about it |
the entertainment industry. According to court documents uncovered by Al Jazeera America, that probe involved law enforcement officials posing as film executives, allegedly bribing a powerful California state senator to expand tax subsidies for their movie project.
The case generated big headlines only weeks after a joint New York Daily News/PIRG investigation uncovered a legalized bribery scandal on the opposite coast. There in New York, the newspaper reported that the "film and television industry has lavished Albany pols with more than $900,000 in campaign donations...while (they) were pushing to expand a production tax credit program" for the industry. And that scandal was preceded by other film-subsidy-related corruption scandals in Iowa, Massachusetts and Louisiana.
Evidently, the California lawmakers pushing to expand their state's slush fund for Hollywood studios aren't deterred by the negative publicity surrounding all this naked corruption. As I said: pure chutzpah. That chutzpah (and, perhaps, campaign contributions) also lets them ignore all the data showing these subsidies are often big losers for taxpayers - including California taxpayers.
As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reported back in 2010, states have been collectively spending roughly $1.5 billion a year just on subsidies to filmmakers. That's roughly equivalent to "the salaries of 23,500 middle school teachers, 26,600 firefighters, and 22,800 police patrol officers," according to the watchdog group.
Though shrouded in the argot of helping the arts, many of these subsidies are not Works Progress Administration-style programs tailored to support struggling indy filmmakers - they aim to subsidize studio conglomerates' big-budget enterprises.
Perhaps diverting so much money from basic public services and giving it to wealthy media conglomerates might be justifiable if doing so was a proven way to create jobs and generate a net tax revenue gain. But in its state-by-state analysis of the subsidies, CBPP notes it is quite the opposite: "The revenue generated by economic activity induced by film subsidies falls far short of the subsidies’ direct costs to the state(s)."
Individual examples among the 45 states that offer film subsidies tell that larger story.
In Louisiana, which offers some of the most lucrative tax giveaways to Hollywood, the Legislative Auditor's Office reported that the subsidies cost the state $170 million in lost tax revenue in a single year. By one estimate, the state is handing $70,000 per episode to the cast of Duck Dynasty - all while pleading poverty to justify deep cuts to public health care programs and to retirement benefits for police officers, firefighters and teachers.
Similarly, a 2009 analysis of data from the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism found that state lost $113 million in revenue thanks to film tax credits. Additionally, according to the analysis by Connecticut Voices for Children, only 11 percent of the money was classified as "actual Connecticut expenditures," meaning Connecticut taxpayers have "largely been subsidizing out-of-state personnel and businesses."
It's the same story across the border in Canada. There, British Columbia's massive film subsidies appear to be generating about $100 million a year in net revenue losses, all while the province reduces funding for basic government services.
If California had a different experience with its existing tax credits, maybe these losses could be ignored. But guess what? It's the same predictable tale in the home of Hollywood. Though one of the bill's sponsors insists "Every single economic analysis of the program shows that it’s a net economic generator for the state" that "creates revenue," that's belied by the state's nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office. In 2012, it reported that California's existing credit program "appears to result in a net decline in state revenues."
Of course, all this data has prompted pushback from the entertainment industry. Fearing that legislators might come to their senses - or that rising public anger against ongoing bailouts will force a change - the industry has deployed groups like the Motion Picture Association of America to try to preserve the subsidies by arguing that they encourage tourism.
As CBPP points out, the problem with that particular claim is that "the empirical evidence upon which these conclusions (regarding tourism) are based is weak."
That's putting it mildly wen you consider the hilarious "evidence" the MPAA cites as its proof that the tax subsidies boost tourism in states like Massachusetts. Yes, you read page 17 of that MPAA report correctly: the organization actually claims that films like "The Fighter" and "The Town," which take place in some of the most rundown parts of Boston, encourage - rather than deter - tourism to the Bay State. That's almost as absurd as claiming HBO's "True Detective" (whose creator says it was filmed in Louisiana specifically because of the tax credits) is likely to encourage tourism to bayou country.
Not surprisingly, some states aren't buying the tourism talking point. Instead, some of them are slowly but surely beginning to reduce or eliminate their film subsidies. Meanwhile, some in the visual effects industry - which has been upended by these subsidies - are exploring a legal strategy involving challenges to foreign tax subsidies.
California lawmakers hope to capitalize on those trends by going in precisely the opposite direction. If their bill to expand the state's subsidies is passed and signed by the governor (a big "if"), it would certainly be a giant gamble with a huge amount of taxpayer cash.
The proponents of the scheme would no doubt be hoping for the kind of return a successful Hollywood blockbuster generates. However, the evidence suggests that from a public investment perspective, the current proposal being discussed in Sacramento looks far less like "Avatar" and far more like "John Carter."
[illustration by Brad Jonas for Pando]Photo: Interpol
The international police agency Interpol has issued a missing alert for a family of five from Styria in Austria, who are believed to have travelled to Syria to join jihadist fighters.
35-year-old Enes S. and his wife Michaela (36) disappeared with their daughters Sarah (11), Ajla (nine) and two-year-old Enisa. The Austrian Press Agency (APA) also reports that the family has two sons, although this has not been confirmed by other sources.
Enes has Bosnian roots but was born in Bregenz, Austria. His wife is Austrian but converted to Islam when she married him, and already had one daughter.
Michaela’s sister notified the police on December 19th, when she realized the family was missing.
Enes worked as a self-employed carpenter in Graz-Neuhart, as well as Sigmundstadl and Wettmanstätten, but is reported to have been struggling to make a living and the family put their house up for sale last autumn. They had lived in western Styria since July 2013.
The mayor of Graz-Neuhart, Helmut Kriegl, said that the family had been there until the start of the Christmas holidays and that he remembered that Ajla, the middle daughter, had written in a school diary that she wished to make a pilgrimage to Mecca and finally wear a headscarf. He added that the family was “very discreet”, and had not given the impression that they wanted to leave the community.
Enes is known to Austria’s counter-terrorism agency, the BVT, as he is believed to be part of a “West Balkans fighter” circle, according to a report in the Kurier newspaper.
Some Islamists from this circle have been linked to the Vienna hate preacher Ebu Tejma and Bosnian Bilal Bosnic, who are both alleged to have recruited scores of fighters for Isis.
A core of Islamist radicals who fought in Bosnia during the Balkan Wars are still thought to control certain villages in Bosnia and train recruits from Italy, Austria and Croatia there before they travel to Syria.
According to the Kurier, Austrian intelligence analysts believe that Enes S. is already in Syria and that there is a trend for jihadists to take their families with them, as they then receive greater financial support from the Islamic State.Outside of his own hits, the late Prince was famous for having writing, instrumental, or production credits on other artists' albums.
Honey, baby, you truly know it. (You truly know it.)You look good. Tryin' your best to show it.If I were you, I would. True love and affection.These are nice (so nice), but when a money man walks in the room, girl,You look more than twice.You look once (you look twice). Can I rap to you, sugar, tonight?(chorus)Donald Trump (black version), maybe that's what you need.A man that fulfills your every wish, your every dream.Donald Trump (black version), come on take a chance.A 1990s love affair, the real romance.
But you really should listen to it for the full experience.
In his 2012 book, Prince: The Man and His Music, Prince biographer Matt Thorne writes that the musician initially wrote the song for the Time's unreleased albumi Corporate World, but it was moved to their 1990 album, Pandemonium.
"Prince is responsible for a third of the record including another Corporate World standout — 'Donald Trump (Black Version)', which continues the theme of a black rewrite of Wall Street — and four tracks with rich histories," Thorne writes.Is Cam Newton really a $100 million man?
The question ran rampant throughout Twitter after the Carolina Panthers lavished a five-year, $103.8 million extension on a quarterback with a 30-31-1 career record as a starter. The outrage took me by surprise; this is, after all, a quarterback-driven league, and while Newton might not be a prototypical pocket passer at this point in his career, he has special traits that can enable him to carry the Panthers far, as a review of the All-22 Coaches Film confirmed.
The book on Cam Newton
The first overall pick of the 2011 NFL Draft is not the prototypical quarterback that every coordinator covets, but he is a new-school playmaker with the talent to put an offense on his back. Checking in at 6-foot-5 and 245 pounds with speed (4.59-second 40-yard dash) and explosive athleticism, Newton is an exceptional dual-threat playmaker adept at delivering big gains while directing the Panthers' modified version of a read-option attack. His 2,571 rushing yards are the most by a quarterback in his first four NFL seasons in the Super Bowl era (Michael Vick ranks second, with 2,223 yards). His 115 total touchdowns are the third-most by a quarterback through Year 4 of his career -- only Dan Marino (144) and Peyton Manning (118) had more.
I'm convinced Newton is the most physical runner I've seen at the quarterback position. Capable of running through defenders in the hole, he also displays the speed and elusiveness to slip past guys on the perimeter. As a result, he's a threat to tuck it and run at any time, especially in short-yardage and goal-line situations. As a passer, he's been roundly criticized for his lack of accuracy and inconsistent ball placement, but there's no disputing his natural arm talent. He boasts one of the strongest arms in the NFL -- exhibiting exceptional zip, velocity and range, he's able to rifle tightrope throws to every area of the field despite failing to consistently incorporate his lower body.
Newton shows slightly-above-average pocket presence, awareness and anticipation. He is not only capable of fitting the ball into tight windows, but he flashes the ability to "throw receivers open" when he understands exactly where to go with the ball at the top of his drop. Considering Newton's experience directing the spread offense at Auburn, it is not surprising that he excels making quick-rhythm throws from the shotgun. When he is able to "catch, rock and throw" from the pocket, he routinely delivers the ball on time and on target. He is just as effective throwing the ball to receivers on the perimeter following quick play-action fakes on "RPO" (run-pass option) concepts. Newton consistently throws darts on slants, skinny posts and "grab" routes after briefly sticking the ball into the belly of the running back.
On traditional dropback and play-action passes, Newton is a bit inconsistent with his ball placement. Despite his exceptional arm strength and touch, he can fail to deliver the ball within the strike zone due to his shoddy footwork. Newton does not step into his throws, leading the ball to float or sail over the mark. Although Newton's superior arm talent and natural ability allow him to complete a number of passes without using his legs, the two-time Pro Bowler could become a deadly passer with better footwork discipline.
Here are three facets of Newton's game that illustrate his unique abilities -- and show why the Panthers were wise to open their checkbook to lock him up:
1) He's the NFL's most dangerous goal-line specialist.
A quarterback's ability to compile 33 rushing touchdowns in 62 games -- as Newton has -- speaks volumes about his knack for finding the end zone in critical situations. Newton is a special athlete with extraordinary size, strength and athleticism. He has a feel for locating the crease in the middle of the defense, a nose for the goal line and a willingness to sacrifice his body to put the ball in the paint. Newton set an NFL record for rookie quarterbacks with 14 rushing scores, and he continues to be a dominant force in goal-line and short-yardage situations on designed quarterback runs.
Newton showcased his skills as a goal-line specialist against the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 6 last season, when he scored on a 12-yard run on a quarterback power, as depicted in the video below. The Panthers break the huddle aligned in a power formation, with Newton in the shotgun. Newton takes the snap, pauses for a second, then follows his pulling guard through the hole to the right. The quarterback's exceptional combination of size, strength and power shows when he runs through Bengals linebacker Vontaze Burfict at the 3-yard line -- then carries cornerback Onterio McCalebb into the end zone as he scores a key touchdown.
2) His improv skills as a dual-threat playmaker make the Panthers go.
Newton's ability to punish opponents with his improvisational flair is what most concerns defensive coordinators. Coaches struggle crafting plans to attack Newton because he has the agility and elusiveness to escape danger, and because he's an explosive dual-threat playmaker when he leaves the pocket, whether he's under duress or executing a cleverly designed zone-read play. His on-the-fly prowess is a game-changer.
In the play depicted below, from the Panthers' Week 9 loss to the Saints last season, Newton uses his awareness and evasiveness to score against a perfectly designed blitz from New Orleans defensive coordinator Rob Ryan. Carolina is aligned in a trio formation, with the X taking a "nasty" split. The Saints are bringing pressure on a crash blitz, with the outside linebacker and nickel corner coming from the defensive left. Newton should be able to anticipate the pressure based on the alignment of the safeties prior to the snap (close alignment directly behind the assigned blitzers gives away the play). He feels the pressure at the top of his drop and uses his athleticism to escape around the corner. Newton exploits the blitz and scores a touchdown on a play that appeared doomed at the start (TO VIEW THE PLAY, SCROLL LEFT TO RIGHT ON THE IMAGE BELOW):
In the play depicted below, from the Panthers' Week 11 loss to the Falcons, Newton provides another example of why he drives defensive coordinators crazy. Carolina is aligned in a trips bunch formation to the left, with Kelvin Benjamin positioned at X on the right. The Falcons are bringing double A-gap pressure with their MLB and SS. Newton feels the pocket collapsing at the top of his drop and works to his right to escape the defensive end. Most importantly, he keeps his eyes downfield, eventually delivering a dart to Benjamin along the sideline for a big first down (TO VIEW THE PLAY, SCROLL LEFT TO RIGHT ON THE IMAGE BELOW):
3) His big arm complements a run-first attack.
Critics will ding Newton for his sub-60 career completion percentage (59.5), but his value as a deep-ball thrower offsets his inconsistencies as a precise passer. Newton is at his best pushing the ball down the field on vertical throws, which makes him dangerous on play-action passes with one-on-one coverage on the perimeter.
During his first two pro seasons, with Steve Smith entrenched as the WR1 in a vertical-based offense (and with then-offensive coordinator Rob Chudzinski calling plays), Newton averaged 7.8 and 8.0 yards per attempt, respectively. He used his superior arm strength and range to amass 20 completions of 40-plus yards in that time span, showing the football world that he'd developed into one of the best deep-ball passers in the NFL.
Carolina's current Mike Shula-led offense features more short and intermediate throws that require precise ball placement (which is not necessarily Newton's strength). But the fifth-year pro still shines when allowed to take his shots down the field, routinely dropping the ball down the chute and leading the receiver away from coverage.
In the play depicted below, which also came from the Panthers' Week 11 game against Atlanta, Newton flashes his big arm and solid deep-ball skills on a touchdown pass to Philly Brown. Newton takes the snap from an offset I-formation, which suggests a run on first down. He fakes the ball to DeAngelo Williams, then looks to take a shot downfield against one-on-one coverage. Brown blows past the defender on a go-route and settles under a perfectly thrown pass in the front corner of the end zone. Given Newton's arm strength and range, the Panthers should build around their franchise player's skills as a superb deep-ball thrower (TO VIEW THE PLAY, SCROLL LEFT TO RIGHT ON THE IMAGE BELOW):
Conclusion
Overall, Newton is a top-15 quarterback with the athleticism and arm talent to develop into an elite player at the position. While the skeptics question whether Newton can lead the Panthers to Super Bowl as a dual-threat playmaker, I believe he can certainly get the Panthers to the promised land -- albeit in his own fashion.
Follow Bucky Brooks on Twitter @BuckyBrooks.As the 10th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, something unexpected has happened: the ideology that 9/11 made famous—neoconservatism—has died. The evidence is all around us. In Pakistan, the Obama administration has just executed Al Qaeda’s second in command, Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, dealing another blow to a network whose defeat, according to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, is now “within reach.” Post-9/11, neoconservatism posited that jihadist terrorism was the greatest foreign-policy threat of our age, a threat on par with Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. And it insisted that the only way to defeat that threat was to remake the Middle East through military force.
Today, by contrast, it is increasingly obvious that the real successor to German fascism and Soviet communism is not Al Qaeda, whose mud-hut totalitarianism repels the vast majority of Muslims. It is China’s authoritarian capitalism, the first nondemocratic ideology since the 1930s to challenge the idea that democracy is the political system best able to promote shared prosperity. And not only is Al Qaeda sliding into irrelevance, its demise is being hastened by exactly the narrowly targeted policies that neoconservatives derided.
The Obama administration is destroying Al Qaeda not by remaking Afghanistan—a project that looks increasingly far-fetched—but through intelligence cooperation and drone strikes. And while political change—and maybe even democracy—is indeed coming to the Middle East, it is coming because younger Muslims are fed up with corruption and dictatorship, not because of anything done by the Fourth Infantry Division. At around the time of the Iraq War, Francis Fukuyama—who famously argued that “history was over” because democracy was the only viable ideology left standing—compared himself to the neoconservatives with whom he had broken ranks. Fukuyama explained that he was a “Marxist”: he believed that democracy would spread organically because it fit people’s deepest yearnings. The neocons, by contrast, were “Leninists:” they believed that the American military needed to give history a push. Today the matter is settled. The neocons were wrong and Fukuyama was right.
But to grasp neoconservatism’s demise, you don’t need to look at the Middle East. Just look at the Republican presidential race. None of the major candidates is attacking President Obama along neoconservative lines. None is focusing on his withdrawal from Iraq or his timetable for exiting Afghanistan or his refusal to bomb Iran. The one Republican candidate with a truly coherent foreign policy vision—Ron Paul—is attacking Obama for acting too much like a neoconservative. The other candidates don’t have any coherent critique at all, because while they know they’re supposed to call Obama an appeaser, they also know that even Republican voters have little appetite for the neoconservative agenda of continued war in the Middle East.
Post-9/11 neoconservatism relied on a near-infinite supply of public will. To paraphrase Walter Russell Mead, neoconservatives may have grabbed the wheel of American foreign policy after 9/11, but they were able to drive it only so far because 9/11 had supercharged the engine. The engine was the American public’s willingness to expend blood and treasure across the globe. Today the engine is sputtering. Most Americans no longer believe that what we’re fighting for in Afghanistan is worth the cost of young American lives (even if the lack of a draft keeps them from taking to the streets to say so). And most Americans believe, rightly, that we can’t afford the war either. In retrospect, perhaps the most remarkable feature of post-9/11 neoconservative foreign policy was its virtual disregard for economics. None of the major neoconservative writers—Robert Kagan, Charles Krauthammer, William Kristol, Bernard Lewis—dealt much with international economic questions. And none of the key Bush administration hawks—Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, John Bolton, Richard Perle—focused on economics either. Undergirding post-9/11 neoconservatism was the assumption that the money for a quasi-imperial foreign policy would always be there, and that, if necessary, domestic spending could always be slashed—and perhaps even taxes raised—to make sure the Pentagon was spared the ax. But that assumption no longer holds. Forced to choose between health-care spending and military spending, as they increasingly must do, most Democrats will choose the former. And forced to choose between military spending and tax hikes, Republicans in this Tea Party era will throw the Pentagon under the bus as well.
Post-9/11 neoconservatism was a doctrine that rejected limits. Now that limits are becoming, painfully, the centerpiece of American political debate, it’s no longer a plausible vision of America’s relationship to the world. While no one can be sure what will replace it, it’s at least possible that some on the right will come to remember that there was a time when neoconservatism meant something radically different than it does today. In 1997, Irving Kristol, the “godfather” of an earlier species of neoconservatism, one with a deep appreciation for the limits of government wisdom and power, predicted that “one of these days, the American people are going to awaken to the fact that they have become an imperial nation, even though public opinion and all of their political traditions are hostile to the idea.” Today, it seems, they are awakening. And as they do, neoconservatism’s best hope for survival is to relearn what an earlier generation of neoconservatives understood: that since America’s resources will always be finite, its ambitions must be too.Share. That’s that. That’s that.
Exit Theatre Mode
Online Passes – the controversial attempt by many publishers to encourage new game sales by locking online-centric content for used copies – has become engrained in gaming culture over the last several years. But according to a report on VentureBeat, one major company is doing away with them.
Electronic Arts – the mega-publisher behind a litany of games including Madden, FIFA, Battlefield, Dead Space, Mass Effect and more – will be “discontinuing” its Online Pass initiative. In a statement provided to VentureBeat, EA’s John Reseburg said that “none of our new EA titles will include that feature.”
Reseburg admitted that Online Passes just don’t seem to be working. “Initially launched as an effort to package a full menu of online content and services, many players didn’t respond to the format. We’ve listened to the feedback and decided to do away with it moving forward.”
Many major publishers – including Sony and Ubisoft – continue to use Online Passes, though interestingly, Microsoft never seemed to go down that road. Will EA’s abolishment of this system coerce other publishers to follow suit?
Colin Moriarty is IGN’s Senior Editor. You can follow him on Twitter and IGN and learn just how sad the life of a New York Islanders and New York Jets fan can be.Alternate title: Pip 7 is Awesome, Here's Why
A typical Python deployment looks like this:
Pave the server, setting up a virtualenv and installing any pre-requisites necessary to build/install the Python requirements (compiler, development headers, etc.).
To update to a new release: Update your source code Install its dependencies into the virtualenv via something like pip install -r requirements.txt
This approach works, but is lacking in a few ways:
Deployments are dependent on the network and availability of PyPI.
"Clean" installs are prohibitively slow to do on every deploy. Because of that: You can't easily/quickly rollback to a previous release. The virtualenv will accrue cruft over time as dependencies are added/removed.
Docker solves a number of these problems, but for many reasons I'm not sold on using it in production (yet). The good news is that today's release of Python's package installer, pip (version 7), will help you solve all these issues without Docker. It uses Python's wheel format to cache binary builds of the dependencies.
Wheels are extremely fast, particularly for packages that require compilation (Pillow, psycopg2, lxml, etc.) "How fast?" you may ask... Well, let's look at a few examples using our fork of the Wagtail demo project on a 2GB Digital Ocean VPS (all commands were run with a warm pip download cache).
Clean Install with Pip 6.1.1
First we'll do a clean install of the project using the previous version of pip (6.1.1).
( pip6 ) pete@box:~ $ time pip install -r wagtaildemo/requirements/deploy.txt > /dev/null You are using pip version 6.1.1, however version 7.0.0 is available. You should consider upgrading via the 'pip install --upgrade pip' command. real 3m4.797s user 3m14.219s sys 0m17.540s
This takes about 3.25 minutes, approximately 195 seconds. Every build with pip 6 will take roughly the same time.
Clean Install with Pip 7
Now we'll do the same build, but using pip 7 which caches the builds in wheel format.
( pip7 ) pete@box:~ $ time pip install -r wagtaildemo/requirements/deploy.txt > /dev/null real 3m10.726s user 3m19.412s sys 0m19.167s
This typically runs at about the same speed as pip 6 (+/- 5s), approximately 200 seconds.
Rebuild with Pip 7
Now that we have cached wheels, let's see how long it takes to install the same dependencies into a clean virtualenv using pip 7.
( pip7-cache ) pete@box:~ $ time pip install -r wagtaildemo/requirements/deploy.txt > /dev/null real 0m10.852s user 0m8.378s sys 0m2.368s
This runs in about 11 seconds. An order of magnitude faster than the other tests.
Note: deploys that add new dependencies may take longer while the wheel cache is created for those packages.
Deployment Improvements
This speed improvement unlocks a number of interesting possibilities for Python deployments that were previously too slow to consider.
It's now feasible to build a new virtualenv on every deploy. The virtualenv can be considered immutable. That is, once it is created, it will never be modified. No more concerns about legacy cruft causing issues with the build.
This also opens the door to saving previous builds for quick rollbacks in the event of a bad deploy. Rolling back could be as simple as moving a symlink and reloading the Python services.
Another possibility is building your wheels in a central location prior to deployment. As long as your build server (or container) matches the OS and architecture of the application servers, you can build the wheels once and distribute them as a tarball (see Armin Ronacher's platter project) or using your own PyPI server. In this scenario, you are guaranteed the packages are an exact match across all your servers. You can also avoid installing build tools and development headers on all your servers because the wheels are pre-compiled.
The Future
We're excited about the opportunities wheels provide without adding additional layers of software on our servers. It's inspiring to see the massive improvements being made to Python's packaging system over the last few years while still maintaining backwards compatibility with legacy packages. I'm looking forward to seeing what comes next.The chairman and ranking minority member (RMM) of the House Armed Services Committee and the chairman and RMM of the its emerging threats and capabilities subcommittee are proposing legislation that would require the Defense Department to notify congressional defense committees within 48 hours of the conduct of “any sensitive military cyber operation.”
In turn, this term is defined to mean an action that is “intended to cause effects outside a geographic location where United States armed forces are involved in hostilities,” and includes offensive cyber operation and defensive cyber operations outside the DOD information networks to defeat an ongoing or imminent threat. Such a term explicitly does not refer to cyber operations conducted under the covert action rubric.
My take—it’s about time, so hurray for the leadership of the HASC on this matter. In 2009, a report of the National Research Council (Technology, Policy, Law, and Ethics Regarding U.S. Acquisition and Use of Cyberattack Capabilities) made the following recommendation:
(Recommendation 5.) The U.S. government should provide a periodic accounting of cyberattacks undertaken by the U.S. armed forces, federal law enforcement agencies, intelligence agencies, and any other agencies with authorities to conduct such attacks in sufficient detail to provide decision makers with a more comprehensive understanding of these activities. Such an accounting should be made available both to senior decision makers in the executive branch and to the appropriate congressional leaders and committees.
The proposed legislation is silent on the content of the notification, but the 2009 NRC report said that
For understanding policy and for exercising oversight, such an accounting would describe the purposes served by any given cyberattack, the intended target(s), the outcome, the difficulties encountered in conducting the attack, the rules of engagement relevant to that cyberattack, and both the anticipated and the actual value of the attack in serving U.S. national interests.
So, the proposed legislation is a very promising start on this recommendation (made 8 years ago!). But, of course, it does not address notification requirements for agencies other than the Department of Defense (how could it—the bill to which it will be attached is the defense authorization bill). And in particular, it does not cover the intelligence community.
One ambiguity in the proposed legislation is what counts as an offensive cyber operation—and in particular, whether or not offensive cyber operations include cyber exploitations. I suspect not, based on a reading of PPD-20, a document that is still classified but which was leaked as part of the Snowden trove. That document distinguishes between cyber effects and cyber collection—cyber effect refers to “The manipulation, disruption, denial, degradation, or destruction of computers, information or communications systems, networks, physical or virtual infrastructure controlled by computers or information systems, or information resident thereon.” (This definition is unclassified in the original.) The definition of cyber collection in PPD-20 is classified Confidential, but refers to what one would expect “collection” to mean and is thus the same as cyber exploitation.
A second ambiguity in the proposed legislation is potentially troublesome. The legislation also calls for notification of congressional defense committees immediately “in the event of an unauthorized disclosure of a cyber capability covered by this section.”
The spirit and intent of this requirement is spot-on. In fact, I’d advocate a stronger version—any such disclosure worth notification of a congressional defense committee should also be reported to the vendor so that the underlying vulnerability or vulnerabilities can be fixed.
But what counts as an “unauthorized disclosure”? How does one know that an “unauthorized disclosure” has occurred? There are two dimensions of ambiguity: when and what?
On the “when,” we have all had experiences in which we have thought we lost something but it turned out we had not. (I go through this with my watch in the morning in my living quarters at least twice a week.) That is, it takes some time to determine that something is truly missing or has been disclosed. The moment of “unauthorized disclosure” would necessarily include the time at which information about the capability appears on Wikileaks or Github. But by that time, it’s really too late. So the moment of “unauthorized disclosure” has to be sometime between suspicion and worry that something has been disclosed and the time it appears publicly. To implement this requirement, a clear threshold needs to be established, such as “the moment of first access to the capability in question by an unauthorized party.” Whether is this is the right threshold can be argued, but I offer it as a starting point for discussion.
On the “what,” it is unclear what counts as a disclosure of a capability. For example, does disclosure have to refer to actual code? What about a highly detailed textual description of the capability? A general description of the capability? The code word associated with the capability? (I’d say yes, probably yes, maybe, and no.) Again, clarity is needed for implementation.
All in all, a worthy piece of legislation that will take some important steps forward in facilitating effective oversight of U.S. cyber capabilities, both offensive and defensive. Two next steps: expand the notification requirement to the intelligence community responsible for covert action and to the law enforcement community.For the follow-up to 1996's No Code, Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam asked his other bandmates for more contributions on the upcoming album. Eddie had been a key and primary writer on the previous No Code and Vitalogy for chunks of those recordings.
And respond the guys did. For Yield, Eddie has only two songwriting credits, for the tracks ''Wishlist'' and "MFC'', and the rest of the tunes written pretty much evenly between Mike McCready (guitar) Stone Gossard (guitar) and Jeff Ament (bass). Drummer Jack Irons got the songwriting nod on ''Untitled'' from Yield.
Speaking of Jack Irons, I think his drum work on this album is simply incredible and drives the album with his unique approach to drumming. Not looking forward to touring commitments, Jack soon left the Pearl Jam after recording the album and was replaced by Matt Cameron of Soundgarden who remains with the band today.
Standout songs include ''Low Light'' the wonderful Eddie track ''Wishlist'', and also the Stone Gossard penned ''In Hiding'' amongst others. The Mike McCready song ''Given To Fly'' may very well be my favorite Pearl Jam tune, ever.
For the promotion of Yield, I still remember the television promo clip of the car coming down that swirling and winding road with the music tied in perfectly and being aware that a special piece of music was upon us at that time.The Angle Death to the Myth of MLS 4.0 by Wes Burdine on 22 November 2017
Are we in MLS 4.0, yet? Have we moved past the academy revolution of 3.0 and the designated player plus supporters culture iteration of 2.0? The only thing that remains clear is that we have not transcended the delusional Silicon Valley fad of speaking of American soccer in terms of teleological progress. Anthony Precourt, however, can murder that notion.
The Columbus Crew look increasingly destined to move to Austin, Texas and we are all to blame. Correction, the arch-weasel Anthony Precourt is to blame for lying to fans and selling them out, the MLS owners who silently acquiesce are to blame, but way down that list are the rest of the MLS fans.
Too many MLS fans have succumbed to a dangerous myth, a myth that started so innocently, but perverted into a grotesque. “American soccer fans are building something,” we have told ourselves. Every day fans write blogs, make tifo, and create the culture that grows the entire sport. This self-less delusion has been a spectacular one; it is the good kind of delusion, allowing us to throw off our cares and just make things because it is fun. American soccer culture is truly unique, DIY, and spontaneous.
But it is this concept of “building” that has become twisted around itself. The process of building implies a teleological pursuit, imagining a finished project we are building toward. Sometimes that final goal gets named: winning a World Cup or having one of the top leagues in the world.
Having goals and aspirations is a good thing. It is when those goals supplant the actual process of building that becomes a problem. Building, then, is broken up by metrics for assessing that goal. And then the joy of building, the excitement of making something becomes merely a planned project increment, something upon which to be assessed quarterly.
MLS X.0
When Atlanta made its remarkable debut in MLS this season, it was time for a new system release increment. MLS 4.0 has arrived! This new release features soccer in football stadium, a feature of MLS 1.0, but this time upgraded with more fans! It featured spending lots of money on players, a feature of MLS 2.0 and 3.0, but this time on Latino players! (Note: I am using Atlanta as only the most recent MLS debutante “game-changer.”)
The myth of the X.0 new iterations of MLS helps fans and pundits mark a certain kind of growth. However, it is self-delusion to imagine this along some sort of teleological scale of progress (growth doesn’t always imply upward). Bringing in former Barcelona manager Tata Martino was a unique choice for Atlanta and one that paid off, but it isn’t as if no MLS team had ever tried to put former head coach of a European club in charge. Does anyone remember former Chelsea and Newcastle manager Ruud Gullit, or was MLS just not ready for MLS 4.0 back then?
Likewise, the signing of Miguel Almiron was inspired and he has been a fantastic addition to the league. But it isn’t as |
World, although Fox Searchlight's Earl and the Dying Girl, a high-profile specialty film, launches in 14 theaters.Four Boston College women studying abroad in Paris were attacked at a station in Marseille by a woman who tossed acid in their faces.
Police say the incident wasn’t terror related — but then again, they also say they’ve not ruled out terrorism completely.
They also aren’t releasing the name of the 41-year-old woman they arrested as a suspect, either.
And what’s still unknown: Did this woman target these poor college students because they were American? Did she target them because they weren’t wearing a burka, in accordance with sharia law?
These are the elephants in the room — and law enforcement is dragging on getting the answers.
Here’s some of the story, from ABC News:
The four American women attacked in Marseille, France with hydrochloric acid by a woman early Sunday are students at Boston College, a university spokesman said in a statement. The students, all juniors, were studying abroad in Europe. Three of the women were enrolled at Boston College’s Paris program, and the fourth was a student at the Copenhagen Business School in Denmark, the spokesman said. The acid incident occurred at around 11 a.m. local time Sunday morning at the Saint-Charles train station in Marseille. All of the students were apparently targeted by what authorities describe as a 41-year-old woman with a history of psychiatric problems. The incident was not terror-related, Marseille police said. Two of the students were treated for burns to their face at a Marseille hospital and have since been discharged, police and the university spokesman confirmed. The other two students were treated at the scene for shock, police confirmed to ABC News. “It appears that the students are fine, considering the circumstances, though they may require additional treatment for burns,” Nick Gozik, director of Boston College’s Office of International Programs. “We have been in contact with the students and their parents and remain in touch with French officials and the U.S. Embassy regarding the incident.” Local newspaper La Provence reported that the arrested woman told authorities she wanted others to suffer like she had. The woman, according to the newspaper, told police she “went crazy” and was not targeting anyone in particular. She also showed officers pictures of herself with burns and claimed she had been a victim of an acid attack, and wanted to replicate what others had suffered, the newspaper reported. A U.S. State Department spokesperson told ABC News they are “aware” of the acid attack against the Americans, but deferred any specifics on the incident to local authorities. “The safety and security of U.S. citizens abroad is one of the State Department’s highest priorities. Due to privacy considerations, we have no further comment,” the State Department spokesperson said.
The Truth Must be Told Your contribution supports independent journalism Please take a moment to consider this. Now, more than ever, people are reading Geller Report for news they won't get anywhere else. But advertising revenues have all but disappeared. Google Adsense is the online advertising monopoly and they have banned us. Social media giants like Facebook and Twitter have blocked and shadow-banned our accounts. But we won't put up a paywall. Because never has the free world needed independent journalism more. Everyone who reads our reporting knows the Geller Report covers the news the media won't. We cannot do our ground-breaking report without your support. We must continue to report on the global jihad and the left's war on freedom. Our readers’ contributions make that possible. Geller Report's independent, investigative journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we believe our work is critical in the fight for freedom and because it is your fight, too. Please contribute to our ground-breaking work here.
Make a monthly commitment to support The Geller Report – choose the option that suits you best. Contribute Monthly - Choose One Subscriber : $18.00 USD - monthly Contributor : $36.00 USD - monthly Patron : $50.00 USD - monthly Silver member : $100.00 USD - monthly Gold member : $250.00 USD - monthly Platinum member : $500.00 USD - monthlyThe bad news, Jasper, is that someone had to play 'Golden Balls' in order to get the footage on YouTube (from where this screengrab is taken)
What's the worst video game you've ever played? For me, the answer is easy: Golden Balls. Bloody Golden Balls.
This was the tie-in for the late 2000s British game show of the same name. Presented by Jasper Carrott, the TV programme encouraged contestants to betray and deceive each other. It basically celebrated psychopathy, and was criticised by an actual psychologist for, among other things, encouraging deceitfulness.
The video game version encouraged pyromania, as it was so bad there was a huge impulse to throw the disc, the Wii it played on, and everything else it had ever touched onto a huge bonfire. Everything about the game was wrong, from the appalling AI to the hideous CGI representation of Carrott – imagine Gollum in a Next suit, with worse hair.
Despite the fact the game's file size can't have been bigger than your average Word document, the whole thing was punctuated with endless loading screens, where the words "LOADING DATA" would pulse backwards and forwards, as if the 1990s had never happened.
It's almost as if television companies will sell their licences to any old developer willing to knock out a cheap cash-in at a moment's notice, isn't it? Which would explain why Golden Balls isn't the only terrible TV tie-in out there. In fact, the genre is rivalled only by movie games for consistent dreadfulness. Here's a round-up of some of the worst ones we've been subjected to through the ages.
A brave man tries to play 'EastEnders'
EastEnders the Arcade Game (Spectrum, 1987)
What classic moments would you expect an EastEnders game to feature? Michelle revealing the father of her baby? Den serving Angie her divorce papers? Mike Reid using a clown's bow tie to construct an unsubtle metaphor for his tumescent penis?
Nah. Instead, players of EastEnders on the Spectrum got to experience all the arcade thrills of weeding the allotment and going to the laundrette. Except these locations were barely recognisable, and the game doesn't feature any actual characters from the TV show. (Having said that, there is a particularly weird bit where you have to feed milk to what might be a giant baby, but could be Ethel after a nasty fall.)
It looks like the game's makers, Macsen Software, put all the effort into copying the title font and producing a nice chiptune song, then tossed off the graphics one afternoon after a pub lunch. Still, it's questionable whether this game is worse than the beat 'em up Phil forced his child to play some two decades later.
Here's Ironfist, a Simpsons character who never actually featured in the TV show (screengrab via YouTube)
Bart Simpson's Escape from Camp Deadly (Game Boy, 1991)
There have been more than 25 Simpsons video games, varying wildly in quality. But the one that sticks in my mind, because it totally ruined the summer of 1992, was Bart Simpson's Escape from Camp Deadly.
The plot is horrific: Bart and Lisa are sent to a summer camp run by Mr Burns's nephew, Ironfist, whose goal is to make the children in his care suffer as much as possible. "You're happy little punks now, but you won't be by the time you leave," says Ironfist, "Or you won't leave here AT ALL."
Over the course of the game Bart is chased by bees, bitten by giant mosquitos, attacked by piranhas, and stabbed with forks by the camp counsellors. The idea was, of course, is to avoid all these fates, but that's largely impossible thanks to the dreadful controls.
What with its nightmarish vignettes, sinister soundtrack, and monochrome visuals, spending time with...Camp Deadly feels more like you're playing a video game tie-in for Eraserhead. Except that would be fun.
The intro to 2002's 'Knight Rider' was better than anything that followed
Knight Rider: The Game (PC and PlayStation 2, 2002)
This wasn't the first Knight Rider game, but it was the most shit. It was produced by Dutch developer Davilex, known for other classic works like M25 Racer, Amsterdam Taxi Madness, and of course the seminal 112 Reddingshelikopter.
Perhaps in a nod to leading man David Hasselhoff's strong European following, Michael Knight and all the other characters in the game have Dutch accents. This includes his evil twin brother, whose name they haven't even bothered to spell right in the on-screen text. Mission objectives vary between "chase the bad guy" and "drive round a multi-storey car park looking for crates", which is as exciting as it sounds.
Amazingly, though, the game sold alright enough to warrant a sequel, shifting 170,000 copies in Europe. Yeah, we're probably best off out of it.
New, on Motherboard: What You Need to Know About the iPhone 7
Don't know what you're smiling about, mate, given this is more like 'ShiteBox' (screengrab via YouTube)
FightBox (PC, PS2 and Game Boy Advance, 2004)
Remember FightBox? This 2002 BBC show was basically Robot Wars, except with player-created video game fighters, and completely rubbish. The highlight of every episode was watching Trevor Nelson console contestants with motivational quotes like "Keep your pecker up" and "Off you go, no room for a loser," while Lisa Snowdon stood around in a boob tube saying "Wicked".
There was, of course, a video game tie-in. And, obviously, it was terrible, thanks to unresponsive controls, awful AI, and laughable visuals. But at least there were no boob tubes in it (today, they'd no doubt be a microtransaction extra).
FightBox only lasted for a single series, and unsurprisingly there was no video game sequel either. But it's a mystery why there's never been a tie-in for Channel 4's Sex Box. Perhaps it's being saved for the launch of PlayStation VR?
What even is this? (Screenshot courtesy of the author)
Hollyoaks: The Game (iOS, 2014)
I haven't watched Hollyoaks since that girl took an E and died (which, if my children are reading this, happens every time). It would appear things have moved on a bit, because this mobile game features loads of people I don't recognise, with not so much as a whiff of Jambo.
Apparently there's someone called Nana McQueen in it, because this game is all about the quest to give her a pearl necklace. This is achieved by completing a series of tediously easy match-three puzzles. It's Candy Crush for people who love Hollyoaks and hate thinking, which I imagine is a pretty large demographic.
To be fair, the gameplay is solid, and it's all decently polished. But the lowlight has to be the "Selfie" feature. This allows you to paste your face onto the heads of random strangers standing next to Hollyoaks stars. Mind you, there's no rule that says you have to use your face.
So there you go. What's the worst TV tie-in you've ever played? You can tweet me your own horrors at @Elliegibson.
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Rugby hero Jonny Wilkinson is to set to receive a knighthood in the Queen’s New Year Honours next week.
The 35-year-old, who inspired England to World Cup glory in Sydney in 2003, has had a glittering 17-year career.
But he is also being recognised for his extensive charity work in Britain, including for the NSPCC, and in France, where he played for Toulon for five years.
A well-placed source said last night: “Jonny is one of Britain’s greatest-ever sportsmen.
“He has always represented England with distinction. He is a hero and a shining example to millions around the world. He thoroughly deserves this.”
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Wilkinson, who played fly-half and inside centre, announced his retirement from rugby union in May. He spent 12 seasons with Newcastle Falcons before joining Toulon in 2009.
His performance in the Sydney World Cup earned him the OBE in the 2004 New Year Honours list.
Wilkinson kicked a last-minute drop-goal in extra time to seal victory over Australia in the final – and had earlier kicked all of England’s points in their 24-7 semi-final win over France.
In 2007 he overtook Gavin Hastings as the tournament’s all-time high-scorer.
He became the first player to pass 1,000 points for England in 2008, overtaking Argentine Hugo Porta’s world record, and the next month was confirmed as test rugby’s leading scorer.
(Image: PA)
Wilkinson is one of just five men to score more than 1,000 points in international rugby and the only player to score points in two separate World Cup finals.
He married long-term girlfriend Shelley in 2013 and has won BBC Sports Personality of the Year. The star has been tipped for a knighthood repeatedly though his career was blighted by injuries.
Meanwhile, other winners in the honours list, which will be unveiled officially on Wednesday, include Joan Collins.
The actress, who starred in Dynasty and Benidorm, will be made a Dame in recognition of 60 years in the industry.
There is also an OBE for Gavin and Stacey star James Corden.
Others tipped to receive awards include Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton and actors Benedict Cumberbatch and Eddie Redmayne.
See Jonny Wilkinson delivering an inspirational team talk to his Toulon colleagues belowPublished: Monday 6 August 2012
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DLR, Overground and bike hire use also way up on normal levels
CENTRAL LONDON had the most visitors its ever had last week, despite fears the Olympics was putting punters off coming into town.
Figures released today by Transport for London show that 4.4 million passengers used London Underground on Friday 3 August, breaking a record set the day before when 4.3 million took to the Tube.
In the same week last year, the Underground carried 3.7 million passengers.
"Just like our Team GB athletes, records on the Tube are tumbling almost every day right now," said Peter Hendy, London Transport Commissioner.
“We’re carrying these record numbers and keeping London moving and open for business because people are following our advice and planning their travel.
“We’re seeing people avoiding the peak hours and travelling at less busy times. I would like to thank our passengers for taking our advice helping the transport network to support a great London 2012 Games."
Other forms of transport also joined the stat attack, with the DLR shifting over 500,000 people on Friday, about 70% more than usual and London Overground increasing its normal numbers by 27%.
Meanwhile, 26 July saw 47,000 bike hires take place, another record.
"This is testimony to years of meticulous planning and billions of pounds in investment which combined has ensured that athletes, spectators, officials and media are being ferried smoothly to their events," said London Mayor Boris Johnson.It’s not clear when the president will issue the order. Obama to issue drone privacy order
President Barack Obama plans to issue an executive order to develop privacy guidelines for commercial drones operating in U.S. airspace, POLITICO has learned.
The order would put the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, an arm of the Commerce Department, in charge of developing the guidelines. NTIA would bring together companies and consumer groups to hammer out a series of voluntary best practices for unmanned aerial vehicles.
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The FAA, which is working on a formal set of rules to allow commercial drones to operate in U.S. skies, has been criticized for not tackling issues around what kind of images and data drones can collect. Consumer groups and some lawmakers have said drones could violate people’s privacy by peering into their homes and backyards.
( Also on POLITICO: House GOP offers border fix plan)
It’s not clear when the president will issue the order. White House officials declined to comment, but confirmed government-wide efforts to coordinate policy on the issue.
“We don’t have any details to share at this time, but there is an inter-agency process underway,” said White House spokesman Ned Price.
FAA didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The FAA has said it will issue a rule on small commercial drone use by the end of the year. Congress set a September 2015 deadline for the agency to safely integrate drones into the nation’s airspace, though an inspector general’s report earlier this year cast doubt on the agency’s ability to meet that timeline.
( Also on POLITICO: Cruz: Obama using FAA in 'economic boycott of Israel')
The NTIA process will not address government use of drones, though more than a dozen states have put limits on how law enforcement can use the technology, often requiring a warrant and data deletion after a certain period of time. This year, a number of state legislatures began considering additional laws aimed at curbing private-sector drone use.
NTIA has experience with privacy issues in the tech sector. The agency convened meetings to work out industry codes of conduct for mobile apps and is now doing the same for facial recognition technology.
Josh Gerstein contributed to this report.Terms of Use
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Select "Agree & Download" to continue:To the extent that anything is clear about the fiscal cliff negotiations that begin this week, it's this: President Obama will push hard to increase taxes on the rich.
He made that point obvious at a press conference Wednesday, his first since being re-elected to a second term.
"When it comes to the top 2%, what I'm not going to do is to extend further a tax cut for folks who don't need it, which would cost close to $1 trillion," Obama said, referring to the Bush tax cuts that apply to income over $200,000.
"And it's very difficult to see how you make up that $1 trillion -- if we're serious about deficit reduction -- just by closing loopholes and deductions."
His starting position will be for a broad $4 trillion deficit-reduction plan that includes $1.6 trillion in new revenue, White House spokesman Jay Carney said Tuesday. The basis for it is Obama's 2013 budget proposal from last February.
That new revenue from his budget would come primarily -- although not exclusively -- from households making more than $200,000 ($250,000 if married).
Here are some of the tax measures Obama has put on the table:
Let some Bush tax cuts expire: As he often stresses, Obama wants to let the Bush tax cuts that apply to income over $200,000 expire. If that happened, the top two tax rates -- currently 33% and 35% -- would increase next year to 36% and 39.6%.
In addition, investment tax rates on the rich would increase to 20% for capital gains and to one's top income tax rate for dividends. Both are currently taxed at 15%.
All told, those changes would raise close to $1 trillion over a decade, assuming that the income exemption levels for the Alternative Minimum Tax are adjusted for inflation.
Limit tax breaks: Obama has proposed limiting the value of deductions and exclusions that high-income households enjoy -- a plan that would raise more than $500 billion.
Hike carried interest rates: The president has called for taxing carried interest as ordinary income, raising an additional $13.5 billion over a decade. Managers of private equity, venture capital and hedge funds are only taxed 15% on the portion of their compensation known as carried interest. If carried interest were taxed as ordinary income, those managers would pay more than double the rate they currently pay.
Impose millionaire minimum tax: Obama's 2013 budget proposal calls on Congress to use his proposed "Buffett Rule" as a guiding principle when it embarks on tax reform. The rule would ensure that those making more than $1 million pay at least 30% of their income in taxes.
The White House didn't estimate how much a millionaire tax could raise since everything would depend on the how the proposal is structured. But a bill from Senate Democrats modeled on the Buffett Rule was estimated to raise $47 billion over 10 years.
Enact business tax proposals: Obama proposed a host of smaller tax changes. Some of them, such as new manufacturing and "insourcing" incentives, would decrease revenue. Others, such as a financial transaction tax, would increase revenue. The tax increases would raise about $240 billion, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.The lawsuit is part of an effort to undermine similar laws in 28 other states, including several states where Republican electors have expressed concerns about Donald Trump but are legally obligated to support him. | AP Photo Washington state presidential electors file third lawsuit in anti-Trump effort
A third lawsuit has been filed by Democratic presidential electors leading a long-shot effort intended to stop Donald Trump from winning the presidency.
Two Washington state electors, P. Bret Chiafalo and Levi Guerra, filed a little-noticed suit in federal court Thursday intended to overturn a state law that forces them to support the winner of the statewide popular vote when the Electoral College meets on Dec. 19. It’s part of an effort to undermine similar laws in 28 other states, including several states where Republican electors have expressed concerns about Trump but are legally obligated to support him.
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Chiafalo and Guerra join two Colorado Democratic electors and a California Democratic elector in suing to overturn their states’ laws. The two Washington electors, like their counterparts, argue that they can’t constitutionally be forced to vote for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, since the Founding Fathers intended the members of the Electoral College to vote freely.
“Plaintiffs may vote for a consensus candidate other than Clinton or Trump upon whom electors from both parties and along the ideological spectrum can agree,” the pair argues in a brief filed by attorney Sumeer Singla. “And they are and should be free to do so if their goal is to exercise their duty as electors to prevent the unqualified Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence from ascending to the highest offices in the United States.”
The matter is set to be heard Wednesday at 1 p.m. local time.
Chiafalo and Guerra are members of a group called “Hamilton Electors” that is seeking to convince Republican members of the Electoral College to reject Trump and agree on a consensus Republican alternative. They’re lobbying to persuade at least 37 Republican electors to join them, the minimum they need to block Trump from winning the Electoral College and send election to the House of Representatives.
The 538 members of the Electoral College are slated to meet in their respective state capitals on Dec. 19 at noon. Trump won the popular vote in states that include 306 electoral votes, while Clinton won in states that include 232 electoral votes. The threshold needed to become president is 270, which is why Democrats are working to convince at least 37 Republicans to reject Trump. So far, only one Republican electors has publicly committed to do so – Texas’ Chris Suprun.
Two other electors – Texas’ Art Sisneros and Georgia’s Baoky Vu – have raise concerns about Trump, but both have pledged to resign from the Electoral College, making way for pro-Trump alternates to fill in, rather than cast their votes.The NHL’s mumps ‘Team Zero’ is clear and obvious to Ducks defenseman Francois Beauchemin.
“I tell everybody who said the mumps started in Anaheim, if you look back from where players started missing games the first team that had some kind of the flu was the St. Louis Blues,” Beauchemin said via phone. “They had (a bunch of) guys that had what they called a ‘bacterial infection.’ They probably didn’t know they had the mumps but my guess is that’s probably what they had. Then Minnesota got it then we got it.”
Awesome.
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Keep in mind, there is possibly credence to Beauchemin’s statement. The Blues have been really mumpy … I mean shady about how a bunch of their players had a mysterious bacterial infection on their team before without definitively saying what it was. In fact, they still haven't.
There was even some weird drama about the Centers for Disease Control being at Scottrade Center, until the team denied it.
Generally where there's smoke there's fire... but whatever.
Regardless, if the Blues, or the Ducks or the Minnesota Wild, their players or any other team had any clue about the mumps, a virus that only afflicted 584 people in the United States last year, could the outbreak have been stopped before it even started?
“I never really knew what the mumps was until I got them. I never really heard about it,” Beauchemin said.
So far we haven’t seen any Jenny McCarthy/Kristin Cavallari reason as to why a player wouldn’t get a booster vaccine. For example, Wild defenseman and mumps survivor Ryan Suter just went with the hand washing method, which failed.
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“Everybody got the shots on our team, and I’m like ‘I don’t need to get the shot. I think I’ll be all right. I wash my hands a lot. I’m a clean guy,’” he said. “So everybody got it except for me. And of course, two weeks ago I get the mumps.”
But in a league with a players association that has to put visors to a vote, can you really force a player to have a team stick a needle in him? Even if it has a reported 88 percent chance of stopping this illness? This complicates the matter somewhat.
“I don’t know. Everybody has a different view on that stuff with flu shots or whatever,” Bruins defenseman Dougie Hamilton said.
With the news that Pens defenseman Olli Maatta has the mumps, that brings 16 confirmed, public cases to the NHL.
Adam Larsson said the mumps were the low point in his 22-year-old life.
“It came right away for me. My face started growing and the fever came at night. Those four days were probably the worst days in my life so far. It was really bad at one point. I couldn’t eat or anything. I’m glad to be back. I just have to work my energy level up a little bit to where I can play.”
Ack, that sounds horrible.
The NHLPA responded with the below statement from spokesperson Jonathan Weatherdon via email, when asked if the association had sent out or pushed any measures to lessen the mumps spread.
“The NHL/NHLPA’s joint infection control subcommittee has been following the Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) recommendations on managing mumps outbreaks. We continue to educate the players on best practices to avoid contracting and spreading mumps.”
When asked if mumps vaccines are mandatory, the answer from the PA was that vaccinations were “available, but not mandatory.”
In this regard, pressure may have to come internally from other players. Suter, who said he was vaccinated as a child like most players from North America, indicated that he felt remorse for not taking the shot, since it knocked him out and may have infected others.
In a lot of ways, it’s no different than a sick co-worker who tries to tough it out, and then infects the entire office.
Beauchemin believes others should take the vaccine, simply so they won’t have to go through the pain he felt.
“It is everybody’s choice, but I don’t know why you wouldn’t do it,” he said. “You’re better off feeling a little under the weather for a couple of days, than getting a fever putting you down for a couple of weeks.”
- - - - - - -
Josh Cooper is an editor for Puck Daddy on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
MORE FROM YAHOO HOCKEYTo learn more about climate change, visit NASA’s website at climate.nasa.gov and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration website at noaa.gov/climate.
To see upcoming lectures and events at the UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center, or to learn more about their work, visit terc.ucdavis.edu.
Read about Dr. Sadro’s research and access his academic citations by visiting the UC Davis Department of Environmental Science and Policy directory at desp.ucdavis.edu/people/steven-sadro. You can also access the data from his research at Emerald Lake in Sequoia National Pack by visiting ccb.ucr.edu/emeraldlake/data.html.
INCLINE VILLAGE, Nev. — Back in August the Sierra Sun reported that researchers found that Lake Tahoe's temperature is rising at its fastest rate yet.
Last week, we learned it isn't the only one.
Researchers have found that temperatures are rising at a higher rate in mountain environments than they are in other regions.
"If you've been backpacking anytime in the last few years, you feel it," said Dr. Steve Sadro, a limnologist at the University of California, Davis department of environmental science and policy, told a crowd last Thursday night.
"We're living in a climate change affected world now," he continued. "I think that's really an important point to make. You can feel these things — you can look out the window and see these effects. Things are different now than they were 30 years ago."
Sadro's talk, titled, "Climate change and lake temperature in the Sierra Nevada: There's no business like snow business," was given as part of the university's monthly evening lecture series at its Tahoe Environmental Research Center on the Sierra Nevada College campus in Incline Village.
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The focus of his research is on aquatic ecosystems. He studies backcountry lakes in the Sierra Nevada, and tries to understand how different factors are impacting them.
He said that one of the challenging things about trying to understand those ecosystems is getting to them. Since they're not accessible by car, these lakes require skiing or hiking in and sometimes carrying heavy equipment.
Gear often has to be carried by undergraduate student assistants or by mule, he said.
And there's another challenge: money.
"The funny thing about these projects is funding is very irregular for them, and so we're left often times to cobble together funding from multiple sources," he said. "Sometimes there are gap years where we struggle to keep the record alive."
There are thousands of lakes in the Sierra, so understanding the various factors that impact them is complicated.
Groundwater, for example, isn't a factor for all lakes but can change the temperature of some. Things like solar exposure and air temperature also have an impact on the lakes, just as snowpack does — but the effects of snowpack vary seasonally.
"In years where there's a lot of snowpack, the spring lake temperatures are generally cold," Sadro said. "Its only those years where there's hardly any snow at all that you see the lake temperatures warming, and so there's a relationship there — it's just not linear."
He added that by fall, the lake temperatures respond "more or less independently of the legacy of snowpack," which means there are other factors playing a stronger role in affecting the lake temperature.
Sadro said the goal of his work is to be able to help determine which lakes are most vulnerable to the effects of drought — a situation that despite recent snowfall is becoming increasingly common, as the Earth's overall temperature continues to rise.
"The Sierra are warming, and we're seeing rates of warming that are very fast and consistent with rates of warming that are seen in other mountainous regions of the world." Sadro said. "We're seeing drought frequency increase over the long term, the severity of drought increasing as a result of diminishing input, and also as a result of increasing air temperature; we're seeing the role of snow in regulating lake temperatures being very, very important for many small lakes, and then finally we're thinking about ways in trying to assess the risk at bioregional scales of these things on lake temperature."
There are thousands of lakes in the Sierra, many of which are in the Lake Tahoe area. Sadro said he and his team are hopeful they can predict which of those many lakes are most vulnerable due to loss of snow.
Amanda Rhoades is a news, environment and business reporter for the Sierra Sun. She can be reached at arhoades@sierrasun.com, 530-550-2653 or @akrhoades.Hollywood is buzzing with rumors (Variety, Deadline, The Hollywood Reporter) that Warner Bros. and Amazon are considering a deal for a series based on J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings books, with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos "personally" involved in the talks. None are claiming that a deal is done yet, although Warner settled a lawsuit with the Tolkien estate this summer that may make it easier to produce new projects.
Of course, Amazon has upheaval on its end with the recent removal of Studios head Roy Price, who has been replaced on an interim basis by Albert Cheng. Despite that, and the loss of drama and comedy head under separate allegations of conflict of interest, Amazon Studios recently announced it's moving into The Culver Studios at the end of this year.From start to finish, 2016 has been a year of emotional victories, heartbreaking defeats and unbelievable Super Smash Bros. Melee. But which player takes the crown as the king of the Melee hill? Here's the Top 10.
10. Justin "Wizzrobe" Hallett - Poor Wizzy still hasn't attended a Summit, but that doesn't mean he's not grinding tournaments. He's easily the best Captain Falcon in the world, he just has to get over a few key matchups before he can really stake a claim for himself in the highest echelon of Melee players. Top 8 at DreamHack Winter, The Big House, WTFox2 and DreamHack Austin is a huge step up from his play last year, and he's only getting better with each tournament.
9. Ryan "The Moon" Coker-Welch - Great commentary, solid play and a new sponsorship have breathed life into New York's favourite smasher. The Moon might not be the best player of the year, but he's working hard, and his recent success at Eden and Heir 3 puts him on this year's Top 10.
8. Johnny "S2J" Kim - Johnny's come a long way since the beginning of this year, from 13th-16th at Genesis to 5th-6th at EVO. While S2J hasn't had a spectacular back half of the year, his ability to consistently appear in Top 8s and his spectacular dunking on Westballz at EVO have earned him a spot in the Top 10.
7. Justin "Plup" McGrath - Like SFAT, Plup is slowly growing into one of the best young Melee players on the scene. He's got one of the best Sheiks in the world, a great Samus, and is developing a very strong Fox to go along with them as well. He's been in Top 8s all year and was the only person to beat Hungrybox at EVO. Plup has had a hell of a 2016, and deserves to be up there with the best.
6. William "Leffen" Hjelte - Leffen's been playing amazing, but his year away from the United States didn't do him many favors. Aside from his win at GOML, Leffen hasn't taken a major in a while, but he's settling back into the groove pretty well. Third at DreamHack Winter, fourth at UGC, and first at GOML is a pretty impressive record for a guy who couldn't practice against top level players for the better part of the year.
5. Zachary "SFAT" Cordoni - He might not be first on the list, but 2016 was the year of SFAT. After a messy 2015, SFAT suddenly started beating the gods. Wins against Mang0, Hbox, M2K and Leffen put SFAT head and shoulders above the rest of Melee's not-quite-god-tier, and he only has to beat Armada to complete the set. SFAT still has a lot to learn, considering his rough play at Smash Summit 3 and UGC, but you can't ignore the rest of his year. He certainly has a chance to be ascendant in 2017.
4. Jason "Mew2King" Zimmerman - In his miracle run at UGC Smash, M2K beat Duck, Mang0, Ice, SFAT, n0ne, Leffen and Hbox, then reset the bracket on Armada 3-1. He didn't win the tournament, but it was a statement: when M2K is on, he's the greatest Melee player in the world. Unfortunately, he wasn't on for most of the year, and consistency still eludes him. Sometimes he 3-0's Armada, and sometimes he gets dunked on by n0ne. There's no telling with M2K — but we can hope to see the return of the king next year.
3. Joseph "Mang0" Marquez - With his win at DreamHack Austin, Mang0 quite suddenly went from slump to top of his game. First place finishes at DreamHack Austin, WTFox 2, The Big House 6 and Super Smash Con 2016 make a good case for a top ranking, but Mang0's character swapping still leads to some inconsistency and generally tilty play. Mang0 is still one of the best players in the world, but he has a long way to go before he's on top again.
2. Juan |
during a cross country bust tour stop. More than a decade later, she admitted it wasn't her best look.On the coattails of the announcement by the Obama Administration to reject the Treaty Banning Landmines, a new landmine commemorating the Nobel Peace Prize has been released for immediate use in the middle east conflicts.
The new landmines will feature a 24K gold planted stamp of Alfred Nobel’s Prize for Peace. Each landmine will be numbered for authenticity. A representative from the Lockheed Martin Corporation was quoted saying,
“We are proud to support the expanding effort for peace in the middle east, and stand behind the production of the PeaceMine, (as we here at Lockheed Martin like to call it) and we hope evil doers all over the world recognize what is at stake for our country and our freedoms.”
The number of the ‘PeaceMines’ produced by Lockheed Martin is still being determined but at only $260,000 a piece, Lockheed Martin has said “we the American people are getting a steal of a deal.”
If the Obama administration expands the $534 billion military budget for 2010, the Lockheed representative confirmed “we as Americans can bet on a safer country, a stronger America, and more Peaceful World.”April 28, 2017
Washington, D.C.- Over the past few weeks, systematic and targeted attacks on healthcare in Syria have intensified. According to our staff on the ground, in April alone, 24 attacks on healthcare were carried out by the Syrian government and its allies, killing 10 health workers and injuring 16.
Yesterday, a hospital in Deir Sharqy in Al Ma’ara, south of Idlib, was targeted by four airstrikes, killing 3 patients and injuring 3 medical workers. The hospital maintained structural damages.
A few hours later, a double-tap airstrike targeted a medical point in Kafr Nobol in Idlib, killing 5 people and injuring 20. SAMS’s Yousuf Sotal, a paramedic, and Saleh Rahmoun, an ambulance driver, were among those killed in the yesterday’s second attack. Yousuf and Saleh helped treat victims of the Al-Rashideen explosion on April 15, which killed 126 people following the evacuation of Fuah and Kafraya.
In the early hours of April 28, a maternity hospital in Idlib was attacked by at least two airstrikes. No casualties were reported.
This week’s attacks represent a continuing intensification of the aerial bombardment campaign over areas outside of government control. According to our reports from the ground, 1 attack on healthcare occurred once every 28 hours in April. This is the same rate as at the end of 2016, when besieged eastern Aleppo faced a barrage of aerial attacks. April’s attacks put 11 facilities out of service, killed 10 health workers, and injured 16 health workers.
On April 2, a SAMS-supported hospital in Marrat Numan was hit by an airstrike, wounding one medical staff and 23 others. The hospital, which was providing over 13,000 consultations per month, was put out of service.
On April 4, just hours after the town of Khan Sheikhoun was targeted with sarin gas, the hospital treating the victims was targeted with a double-tap airstrike, partially destroying the facility. The attack on Khan Sheikhoun represents the largest chemical attack since August 2013. At least 86 were killed. This same hospital was targeted again on April 16.
On April 22, a SAMS-supported hospital in Abdin was targeted, devastating most of the building and putting the facility out of service. Two medical staff were wounded in this attack. Four people were killed, including a six-month old baby and her parents.
These attacks in Syria represent only a handful of the many violations of international humanitarian law and UN Security Council Resolutions mandating the protection of both civilians and healthcare workers and facilities. The destruction of healthcare facilities represents a rupturing of a needed lifeline for civilians, who face a lack of access to all levels of care.
“We’re deeply saddened by the loss of yet more heroic healthcare workers. Our hearts and prayers go out to their families,” said Dr. Ahmad Tarakji, SAMS President. “The double-tap tactic that we have seen far too many times in the Syrian conflict is a calculated and sinister effort to target first-responders and health workers who, despite the clear risks, prioritize the lives of their patients. It is time for the international community to act immediately to put an end to these crimes against humanity once and for all.”
We, at SAMS, are deeply disturbed and disheartened by these ongoing, escalating attacks against healthcare workers, and we call yet again on the international community to act immediately to protect medical workers and hold perpetrators accountable for these criminal acts. The international community has a moral obligation to intervene and protect civilians and healthcare workers. Its inaction has translated into more violence and suffering.Wed 17 Apr 1968 - The Australian Women's Weekly (1933 - 1982)
Page 8 - THE FILM COULD BE A WINNER
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Line 1.0.0 THE FILM Line 1.0.1 COULD BE Line 1.0.2 A WINNER
Line 2.0.0 On Dunk ls. in the Barrier Reef Line 2.0.1 a film unit, led by international Line 2.0.2 star James Mason and famous Line 2.0.3 director Michael Powell, is shoot Line 2.0.4 ing "Age of Consent," the Norman Line 2.0.5 Lindsay novel. After a stay on Line 2.0.6 location Kay Keavney reports..,
Line 3.0.0 CORA, sea-waif of the story (English Line 3.0.1 actress Helen Mirren), with a piece of Line 3.0.2 ornamental driftwood which artist Brad Line 3.0.3 (James Mason) has set up and painted Line 3.0.4 outside his decrepit shack on the island. Line 3.1.0 SUNDAY PICNIC (below) at Purtaboi, Line 3.1.1 near Dunk Island. James Mason pours Line 3.1.2 beer for the company on their day off. Line 3.1.3 Right is Englishman John Pellatt, veteran Line 3.1.4 of 60 films, who paid tribute to the crew.
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Line 6.0.0 ABOVE: Producer-director Line 6.0.1 Michael Powell (pointing) Line 6.0.2 and camera crew working Line 6.0.3 in torrential tropic rain on Line 6.0.4 a platform built out from Line 6.0.5 Dunk Island jetty. Powell is Line 6.0.6 signalling James Mason to Line 6.0.7 start his run down the ¡etty. Line 6.1.0 PAINTER Brad (right) Line 6.1.1 explores the beach with Line 6.1.2 Godfrey, a wire - haired Line 6.1.3 bitzer who plays the artist's Line 6.1.4 boon companion in the film.
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Line 9.0.0 JAMES MASON, as Brad, '» Line 9.0.1 the tropic solitude he hos Line 9.0.2 crossed the world to fid
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I MAKE-UP GIRL Peggy Carter, of Balgowlah,
I N.S.W., shares a joke with James Mason and
I Hehn Mirren. In the film they play a middle-aged
I painter and a teenage ragamuffin orphan girl.
STAR James Mason spearfishing
in the blue-green seas off
Dunk Island, where "Age of
Consent" is being filmed.
I'TITHO taught you to
TT steal?" snapped
the artist. "My grand-
mother," tjbe girl said.
She sat with the sea at
her back, grasping a bucket-
ful of sea creatures between
her bare brown legs.
"Where's your mother?"
demanded the artist, a
middle-aged man dreading
involvement, and with a
compassionate heart to hide.
"Dead," said Cora.
"Father?"
"Never had one," said
Cora. "Not one that would
own up to it."
The wind whipped her
long, wet, sun-bleached hair.
Came a whirring, and
artist and sea-waif and en-
chanted island faded and
disappeared. Lights went up.
I came down to earth.
I sat in a crowded tent
on Dunk Island, off the
¡North Queensland coast, and
what I had seen were rushes
from the million-dollar film
being made there, based on
Norman Lindsay's novel
"Age of Consent."
The bearded artist wa«
James Mason, and Cora wa;
England's Helen Mirren
who were sitting just ar
[arm's reach away.
I Producer-director Michac
I Powell, taut and dynamic
I turned to argue color value:
I with Hannes Staudinger
I photography directo)
I (whose credits include th<
?Japanese masterpiece
I "Samurai").
I Sixty-odd people crammec
I the tent, analysing and dis
I jeering in a sudden out
I burst of sound. Most o
I them were young - tannec
(boys and girls in brigh
j casual clothing. All wen
I dedicated film professionals
? Nearly all were Australian:
I Carpenters and cinematog
I raphers, actors and account
lan«, make-up and wardrob
I girls, lighting experts, soun<
I'xpcrts, a nurse, thre
artists, film editors, secre-
taries, a generator operator,
a dog-handler - all were
part of an army air-lifted
2000 miles to this tiny
island on the rim of thc
Barrier Reef.
Their mood was victori-
ous. They seemed to feel
they were on a winner. And
so, over the next few davs,
did I.
""Age of Consent*' is dif-
ferent. It's refreshing, and
what an advertisement for
Australia - part of Aus-
tralia I, for one, had never
seen.
This is a film about indi-
vidual human values, and
human commitment, played
out against a backdrop of
sea and sky and scented air.
The film takes time out
to observe the way a frog
leaps, and to listen to bird-
song, which is a pleasant
thing in a war-weary world.
Imported frogs
- local ones didn't
jump high enough
It's a light-hearted film,
often funny, and it features
a very funny man, Ireland's
Jack MacGowran, whom
James Mason calls "one of
the finest living actors."
"How are you getting on
with the Australian accent?"
I asked Jack.
"I'm listening for it, listen-
ing all the time," he said in
his lilting Irish. "I'm learn-
ing, ah, but some Irish will
come through. It's very like
the speech of the west of
Ireland, you know. I'm
thinking maybe it stems from
there."
Helen Mirren is a joy, as
natural and unselfconscious
as Cora, the girl she plays.
She's completely anti
glamor (her sole costume for
the film cost $4) and she's
built like a female.
With any luck she might
start a new trend that buries
Twiggy, and all the girls in
(he world with curves will
be able to start acting proud
of them again.
"'Age of Consent" is vir-
tually her first film*.
"'So I'm learning my trade
as I go along," she told me,
biting messily into a guava.
"'When I got this part with
James Mason, I thought,
marvellous, I'll be able to
watch a master at work. But,
in fact, what he does is so
clever and so subtle, you
don't know what it is till
you see it on the screen."
As for Mason himself, the
film seems likely to reveal
for the first time? - the
tremendous personal quali-
ties, the warmth, seen in his
television interviews in Aus-
tralia.
I saw quite a deal of him
on th? island. Mason, at his
actor's trade, Mason, the co
producer, in constrnt con-
sultation with Powell.
Going over his lines and
fan mail with his good friend
and secretary of many years,
Frank Essien. Combing the
shore for seashells. Spending
his one day off, Sunday, at
an impromptu picnic, stand-
ing by the hour pouring beer
for the crew.
I saw crazy things, part
of the crazy film business.
A crewman, for instance,
at the height of an absolute
downpour, frantically work-
ing a machine to make a bit
more rain.
And a barrel of fat frogs,
specially imported at great
expense because the local
variety didn't leap right.
I talked to the Australians,
men and women, whenever I
got the chance, trying to find
out how they developed such
competence in a land devoid
of a film industry.
Lots of them have knocked
around the world. Most have
worked on the films that
occasionally and increasingly
are shot here, and TV series,
like "Skippy," and com-
mercials and anything else
that gets them among film.
Every one of them was
worth a story, and a spot of
national pride. IT1 just men-
tion young, dark Tony Buck-
ley, who will edit the film -
the first time it has been
wholly done in Australia and
the first time it has been
done on actual location.
"What a responsibility,"
groaned Tony. "But what an
opportunity!"
All the international big
shots paid tribute to the
Australians.
Said Mason, "Absolutely
professional." Said English-
man John Pellatt, finance ad-
viser, a veteran of 60 films,
"Wouldn't you agree. Micky,
that this is thc finest crew
we've ever worked with?"
Said Michael Powell, the
perfectionist, "It's becoming
so."
I marvelled at thc sheer
logistics - air- and sea
freighting everything from a
hairpin to a $50,000 genera-
tor to the pocket-handker-
chief of an island.
(That generator sank in
24 feet of water just off
Townsville. It had to be dug
up, towed underwater to
Dunk, landed, dried out, and
reassembled - and so tight
was organisation that the
production hardly missed a
beat.)
I watched young bearded
artist Paul Delprat and his
two pretty girl assistants,
who actually paint the works
artist Brad does on the
island. They also painted the
decrepit shack Brad rents
and turns into a riot of color.
Machine-made
rain to boost a
tropic downpour
Some of the paintings of
Cora are nudes. In the film,
she poses for them in total
innocence. Brad paints them
with total objectivity -
until the world breaks in and
brings conflict and tension,
and violent death.
Paul works on the nudes
at a remote beach called
Muggy Muggy (now known
to the crew as Nuddy
Muddy) and on the perfect
little island across from
Dunk called Purtaboi.
It was the scene of the
Sunday picnic, when the
hard workers played just asThe high-tech research behind making Halo 5: Guardians multiplayer better for gamers
YouTube Video
When Microsoft released the Multiplayer Beta for the hotly anticipated Halo 5: Guardians late last year, they noticed something strange: Every few minutes, players appeared to be winning a medal that is supposed to be both rare and difficult to snag.
The game makers were able to spot that pattern, and then root out the glitch causing the issue, thanks to two tools developed by Microsoft Research. Those analytics tools, Trill and Tempe, let groups like the Halo team very quickly analyze large amounts of real-time customer data for any unusual activity. Then, they can hunt down any bugs that may be causing those abnormalities.
Watch the video to find out more.
Related:
E3: ‘Halo 5’ headlines greatest holiday lineup in Xbox history
Watch the Halo 5: Guardians Warzone trailer
Trill moves big data faster, by orders of magnitude
To learn more about Microsoft’s data analysis research, follow researcher Badrish Chandramouli on Twitter.
Allison Linn is a senior writer at Microsoft Research. Follow her on Twitter.JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - Hundreds of people marched to the Duval County Courthouse on Saturday to demand justice for Trayvon Martin.
Many of the marchers wore hoodies and held Skittles, the candy Martin, 17, had when police said he was shot and killed by George Zimmerman.
Zimmerman, 26, told police the shooting was in self-defense. He has not been charged.
Monday marks one month since Martin was killed.
"I think it's an important issue that he needs to be aware of. He needs to see what happened to Trayvon isn't right," said Dominique Jones, who brought her child to the rally.
IMAGES: Marching for Martin
"We're not here because of a shooting. We're here because of a murder that took place," said State Rep. Mia Jones.
Jones was one of several speakers at the rally.
Many said they want to see prosecutors arrest Zimmerman and charge him with murder.
"We've gotta wake up. That's the only way Trayvon's legacy does not go in vain," said one speaker.
Many said they are happy State Attorney Angela Corey is now leading the investigation, but others are skeptical.
"What's important is that they put the right person on the case to get all the details and do this as quickly as possible," said Bill Plumer.
"I know that she's very strong on justice. I also question, sometimes, maybe she's jaded," said another woman.
Corey has said she's not sure if it will be necessary for a grand jury to convene. Everyone attending the rally hoped it would result in change.
"If it was the other way around, and Trayvon would have been the trigger man, there wouldn't have been any investigations, there wouldn't have been a grand jury, there would've been an arrest day one, hour one, on the spot," said Benjamin Crump, an attorney representing the Martin family.
Recently, the Washington Post reported on the most striking cartoons about the shooting.
Media coverage has increased in the case, and more information about Zimmerman has come to light.
The Orlando Sentinel reported that Zimmerman recently worked for Digital Risk, LLC, in Maitland. The mortgage risk-management firm said Zimmerman hadn't been to the office since the shooting.
The Washington Post reported that Zimmerman grew up in Virginia. Neighbors called him very Catholic and very religious.
The New Black Panther party said it is creating a group to actively search for Zimmerman, and has already raised $10,000 for the effort.
"We will put the pressure on George Zimmerman. We will put the pressure on the United States Justice Department and the police to apprehend this man in an arrest. Because there's anger, there's hurt, there's frustration with law enforcement," said Mikhail Muhammad with the New Black Panthers.
"We will definitely call him (Zimmerman) out, we will bullhorn him out and say surrender. There will not be any peace until George Zimmerman turns himself in," said Muhammad.
Lead prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda was asked about the Black Panthers search party, and issued this statement:
"We are going to try to resolve this case as soon as we can. We are reviewing the evidence and the issues. We want the public to abide by existing law, and to remember our decisions will be governed by the rule of law."
Copyright 2012 by News4Jax.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Pro-child advocates say the proposal treats children in conflict with the law as criminals, not victims
Published 5:46 PM, November 16, 2016
MANILA, Philippines – Social Welfare Secretary Judy Taguiwalo on Wednesday, November 16, tagged as "anti-poor" the proposal to lower the minimum age of criminal responsibility to 9 years old.
Taguiwalo, along with Commission on Human Rights (CHR) Chairperson Chito Gascon and non-governmental organizations, opposed the proposal to lower the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 15 to 9 years old during the hearing of the House justice subcommittee on correctional reforms.
Lawmakers, including Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, have filed several bills seeking to revert the effects of Republic Act (RA) Number 9344 or the Juvenile Delinquency Act of 2006, which raised the minimum age of criminal liability from 9 years to 15 years old.
"Lowering the minimum age of criminal responsibility is anti-poor," Taguiwalo said in her position paper presented by social welfare officials who attended the hearing.
She cited data that a "greater majority" of children in conflict with the law (CICL) "come from lower-income families where parents are either unemployed and/or where a greater number of siblings result in even lesser per-capita resources."
Taguiwalo also said that lowering the minimum age of criminal responsibility "has never resulted in lower crime rates."
"The Philippine experience, and the experience of other countries attest to this fact," she said.
Social protection for children
In their position papers submitted to the House panel, Taguiwalo and Gascon said the proposed measures violate the fundamental principles of social protection for children.
Gascon said that "the principle of protecting a child's well-being and development is entwined with that of their best interest."
"It encompasses the need for addtional measures and protections due to a child's vulnerability and the duty of the State to provide this protection as enshrined under our Constitution, our domestic laws, and in various international human rights instruments specifically in the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child," he said.
"We affirm our previous stance that lowering the minimum age of MACR (minimum age of criminal responsibility) oversimplifies the nature of juvenile offending and violates the principles of child protection and welfare as provided for by laws, international treaties, and internationally-accepted standards," Gascon added.
In defense of his proposal, Alvarez earlier argued that it would rehabilitate juvenile offenders and not jail them with hardened criminals. He said the measure aims to protect children from being used by syndicates to commit crimes.
But Taguiwalo argued that the proposal "runs counter to available scientific knowledge about the cognitive, psychosocial, and neurological development" of children.
"A lower age of criminal responsibility results in more children being detained, substantially higher cost of public expenditure, and an even higher social cost of re-offending and graver offending, which simply demonstrates that such measure is not cost-effecive," the social welfare chief said.
Victims, not criminals
For Juvenile Justice and Welfare Council exective director Tricia Clare Oco, the proposed bills would damage CICL because they would be treated as criminals instead of victims.
“The proposal to lower the minimum age of criminal responsibility will merely revert to the cruel situation of locking up many children in poor and subhuman facilities after they have been exploited and abused by syndicates, their parents and other adults further victimizing them,” Oco told the House panel.
Salinhali Alliance for Children's Concerns Secretary-General Kharlo Manano agreed.
“We should regard children as victims of state neglect and abandonment from their right to survival and be protected, denied from them at one point of their lives. They have been failed by society that now wants to brand them as criminals,” he said.
Meanwhile, Legal Rights and Development Center Chairperson Rowena Legaspi said criminal syndicates' continued exploitation of children point to a failure in law enforcement.
“The failure of the system to go after syndicates reflects the weakness of the law enforcers in implementing the law,” said Legaspi.
“It is our position that these children should be taken care of. The main issues are the absence of their access to education, justice and health,” she added.
Other pro-child groups and social workers lamented that the country only needs the proper implementation of RA 9344, not its amendment. – Rappler.com(UPDATED) High-profile inmates led by Herbert Colanggo will be among the witnesses who will testify against Senator Leila de Lima at the House probe next week, says Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II
Published 12:03 PM, September 16, 2016
MANILA, Philippines (UPDATED) – Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II promised an “explosive” congressional inquiry into the drug trade at the state penitentiary during the previous administration, as 14 witnesses, including high-profile convicts, are set to testify against Senator Leila de Lima.
Aguirre said in an interview with radio dzMM that Herbert Colanggo will be among the witnesses who will testify before the House committee on justice on Tuesday morning, September 20.
Colangco is serving time for kidnapping but allegedly continues to run illegal drug operations from the maximum security prison.
Aguirre added in Filipino: “Two will testify that they delivered drug money to Senator De Lima at her house in Parañaque. Each delivery is worth P5 million ($104,666)."
He said the House probe would show why Edgar Matobato, a self-confessed hitman in the so-called Davao Death Squad, suddenly appeared at the Senate probe into extrajudicial killings led by De Lima on Thursday. (READ: De Lima witness: Duterte 'ordered' killings in Davao.
Malacañang had refuted Matobato's allegations against the President. (READ: TIMELINE: Witness lists killings allegedly 'ordered' by Duterte)
'Evil and desperate'
De Lima appeared unfazed by Aguirre's announcement.
"That simply means nakakahuha na sila ng mga [they finally got some] false/perjured witnesses. I'm not surprised anymore since, as I said before, I was warned already about their evil design and insidious moves, such as fabrication of evidence," she said in a text message to reporters who asked for her comment on her successor's statements.
"Pawang mga kasinungalingan yan! [Those are all lies!] That's how evil and desperate they are," she added.
In another interview on dzMM, De Lima said she was not surprised by the participation of inmates at the House probe into the drug trade at the New Bilibid Prison when she was still justice secretary.
She said that even during the campaign season, when she ran for the Senate, she already heard that "there were people moving in Bilibid, looking for people who will testify against me."
"'Yang 'Bilibid 19,' napakadali po silang silang tumestigo laban sa akin dahil mga galit yan sa akin 'yang mga 'yan (The 'Bilibid 19,' it's so easy for them to testify against me because they are angry at me)," De Lima said.
The "Bilibid 19" refers to high-profile inmates at the maximum state penitentiary who were the subject of surprise inspections conducted led by De Lima when she headed the justice department. (READ: IN PHOTOS: Drug lords, murderers, and high living in Bilibid)Enlarge By Gilles Mingasson, Discovery Communications, via AP USA TODAY OPINION USA TODAY OPINION Columns In addition to its own editorials, USA TODAY publishes a variety of opinions from outside writers. On political and policy matters, we publish opinions from across the political spectrum. Roughly half of our columns come from our Board of Contributors, a group whose interests range from education to religion to sports to the economy. Their charge is to chronicle American culture by telling the stories, large and small, that collectively make us what we are. We also publish weekly columns by Al Neuharth, USA TODAY's founder, and DeWayne Wickham, who writes primarily on matters of race but on other subjects as well. That leaves plenty of room for other views from across the nation by well-known and lesser-known names alike. Contributors Board
How to submit a column Sarah Palin's Alaska, a TLC miniseries, has been quite a spectacle. We've watched Mama Grizzly mush a dog sled across a glacier; stalk caribou on the tundra; paddle raging white water; and match her frontierswoman sturdiness against Kate Gosselin's urban diva shtick. In the lulls between action, the ex-governor gushed about family values and her love for Alaska, and threw political elbows. Love or loathe her, this series seems a huge success at projecting the essence of Sarah to the world. And without that myth, what's left? However, thousands of Alaskans hold a different view. Those of us who've actually lived off the land are less than impressed by Palin's televised exploits and, more important, by what they tell us about her. Tentative, physically inept, and betraying an even more awkward unfamiliarity with the land and lifestyle that's supposedly her birthright, Palin deconstructs her own myth before our eyes. To be sure, packaging and style have often trumped substance in American democracy. From the days of literal stump speeches and catchy but empty political slogans such as "Tippecanoe and Tyler, too!" politicians have vaulted into power on the shoulders of charisma and sound bite, projected to the widest possible audience by the best available media. Indeed, Barack Obama's own ascendance had less to do with his scant political résumé than his ability to light up a teleprompter. You could argue that Palin's mercurial, tweet-propelled rise is just the latest manifestation of a time-honored tradition. However, Sarah Palin's Alaska seems to have ushered in a new and troubling era in our democracy: the point where a burgeoning cultural fascination with reality TV and celebrity worship intersected mainstream politics, and the three merged into one. Since orchestrated reality is about all anyone can expect from Palin — who is uniquely unavailable in unfiltered form to the "lamestream media" — we have no choice but to glean what we can from the offered narrative. Palin is presented as the embodiment of The Great Land itself — tough, unpretentious and aw-shucks alluring. But as she ushers us from bear viewing to bonking halibut, the Palin that emerges just doesn't live up to her backdrop. You don't have to be a mountain man to see past the thin veil of smoke and mirrors. Guided 'adventures' From the opening credits, Palin's not actually leading, as the show's stirring theme song (Follow Me There) suggests. Instead, she's tucked far under the wings of professional guides, friends, or family members — in a curious subtext, almost all males. They instruct and coddle her along, at one point literally hauling Palin uphill on the end of a rope. Even post-production editing can't hide a glaring, city-slicker klutziness. Most of the show's escapades bear scant resemblance to the activities of most outdoors-oriented Alaskans. In fact, about half of the Palins' "adventures" are guided trips aimed at mass-market tourists. You won't find many Alaskans on those theme park rides, which require no skills beyond a pulse and the ability to open your wallet. Of course, there are sequences that feature Palin tagging along with working Alaskans. However, posing for hands-on scenes guided by loggers or commercial fishermen (including her husband, who's obviously a top notch outdoorsman) doesn't help. Alaskans would be a lot more impressed if she proved she could gut a caribou or set a gill net on her own — skills at which many bush-wise Alaskan women excel — and still keep those immaculately manicured French nails intact. The caribou hunt episode provides a centerpiece of the series' excesses, as well as Palin's ineptitude. According to script, it's Palin's turn to replenish the family's dwindling freezer with wild meat — from an Alaska point of view, all good. But the logistics of the trip defy common sense. Instead of hunting within reasonable distance of home, her party flies 600-plus miles to a remote camp in multiple chartered aircraft. This isn't subsistence but the sort of experiential safari popular among high-end, non-resident sport hunters. For all that, Palin ends up with a skinny juvenile cow caribou. Boned out, we're talking maybe 100 pounds of meat, at a staggering cost per pound. Faced with that hapless animal, this darling of Second Amendment supporters nervously asks her dad whether the small-caliber rifle kicks. Then, even more astoundingly, her father repeatedly works the bolt and loads for her as she misses shot after shot before scoring a kill on the seventh round — enough bullets for a decent hunter to take down at least five animals. (Given Palin's infamous tweet "Don't retreat, reload," we can infer she plans to keep her dad close by.) Later, Palin blames the scope, but any marksman would recognize the flinching, the unsteady aim and poor shot selection — and the glaring ethical fault of both shooter and gun owner if the rifle wasn't properly sighted. Instead of some frontier passion play, we're rendered a dark comedy of errors. Why it matters This would all be laughable, harmless television if that's where this story ended. Yet this show and its veneered presentation of Palin is sadly emblematic of American politics today. Sarah Palin's Alaska is just back story rather than substance. But when our candidates can also produce poll-tested commercials, trot out ghost-written websites and deliver telepromptered speeches — all financed by unlimited special interest money — Americans are essentially casting votes for fictional characters. This is not an indictment of one Sarah Palin. It's an indictment of the system. How's that for reality? Alaska writer Nick Jans' latest book, The Glacier Wolf, is available at nickjans.com. He is a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors. We've updated the Conversation Guidelines. Changes include a brief review of the moderation process and an explanation on how to use the "Report Abuse" button. Read moreMANKATO, Minn. -- With Adrian Peterson behind him, practicing in pads for the first time in more than 10 months, and the Minnesota Vikings' new stadium less than a year from opening, team president Mark Wilf said on Tuesday he's never been more optimistic about the team in the 10 years since his family purchased it.
Mark Wilf, who was among the first Vikings officials to voice support for Adrian Peterson's return in February, said he was happy to see Peterson on the field again after his suspension last year. AP Photo/Bill Haber
"The optimism comes not just so much from the talent, but also what we have organizationally and structurally," Wilf said. "We have a GM (Rick Spielman), a coach (Mike Zimmer) and a coaching staff we believe in. We feel we have a pool of talent, but (there's) a lot of hard work to get where we want to go."
Peterson's return has boosted expectations around the Vikings, who went 7-9 last season with Peterson missing all but one game and are preparing for their second season with Zimmer and quarterback Teddy Bridgewater. The Vikings restructured Peterson's contract last week, guaranteeing his 2015 salary and adding a $7 million injury guarantee for 2016. Wilf, who was among the first Vikings officials to voice support for Peterson's return in February, said he was happy to see Peterson once again on the field after his suspension last year.
"He's had a long history here with the Vikings and the community," Wilf said. "We know the kind of person Adrian is. That's all in the rear-view mirror, as far as some of that stuff goes, and we're looking forward to him being a big part of our team going forward."
Peterson took part in the Vikings' first padded practice of training camp on Tuesday afternoon, practicing in full gear for the first time since he was indicted on child injury charges last Sept. 12. He played one game last season, in the Vikings' 34-6 win over the St. Louis Rams in Week 1.
"It felt pretty good, getting back into the swing of things and feeling a little contact," Peterson said. "It was fun. I've been looking forward to it for a long time.
"That's the thing about the family I've been around -- the guys, they've been supporting me. It was such an unfortunate situation, but when you're family, and they know you -- it's like, some of you guys, I don't know you, so I wouldn't pass judgment based off what I've heard and what I've seen. That's just the type of world we live in. But these guys have known me around here, obviously. As soon as I came back, it was the same respect you'd give (linebacker) Chad Greenway -- guys that have been here."Actor James Franco once worked at McDonald's. Imeh Akpanudosen/Getty Actor James Franco has written a lengthy endorsement of his former employer, McDonald's.
The brand has been struggling with declining US sales and announced an extensive turnaround plan this week.
Franco writes in a Washington Post op-ed that in the late '90s he was a struggling actor living in Los Angeles. He was fired from a coffee shop and golf course and couldn't find acting jobs.
He became desperate after his parents cut him off financially.
"Someone asked me if I was too good to work at McDonald's," Franco writes. "Because I was following my acting dream despite all the pressure not to, I was definitely not too good to work at McDonald's."
Franco says he began working in the drive-thru and practicing foreign accents on customers.
Despite that fact that he had been a vegetarian before he started working at McDonald's, he began eating the cheeseburgers that were headed for the trash after sitting for more than seven minutes.
"I hate to whistleblow, but everyone ate straight from the fry hopper. You'd walk by and snag a fry and pop it |
would lose their monopoly for the supply of horeses and cattle to the Spanish settlements so they instituted severe restrictions on the delivery of brood stocks to Mexico. Hernan Cortez himself had to petition King Charles V of Spain to get the restrictions lifted. Although all the country from Vera Cruz to Mexico City was suitable for cattle raising Cortez chose to establish a major stock breeding program in the high altitude valley of Mexicalzimgo south of what is now Toluca. (See map below.)
The Spread of Cattle Ranching in New Spain
North from the Region of Mexico City
The cattle ranches could produce a number of different products in addition to beef for eating. The tallow could be used to make candles and the hides could be used to make leather. The spread of cattle ranching was tied to the access to markets for the products of cattle ranching in addition the sutitability of the land for nourishing cattle. Both conditions had to exist in order for a region to develop a cattle ranching industry.
The Origin of Cattle Ranching Culture of Texas
The area which is now Texas was part of the vast area claimed by the Spanish crown. Since it was not notably superior to other areas of New Spain that the Spanish kings needed to develop not much was done in the Texas area until it looked as though France might establish control there. The Spanish expedition that was sent to investigate possible French incursions into the area found that the French had established a colony at Matagorda Bay but it had been wiped out by hostile natives. The peaceful natives that met the expedition announced there peaceful intentions by shouting friends in their language. The word for friends in that language was Thechas, which the Spanish wrote as Tejas and used as the name for the natives. The Spanish version Tejas was converted into Texias by the Anglo immigrants. Those immigrants called themselves Texians for a period of time before the spellings took the modern forms of Texas and Texans.
Out of fear of losing the area to France the Spanish crown supported the establishment of 50 missions in the area to convert the natives to Christianity. The native tribes such as the Comanche constituted a constant threat to the security of the missions. Hence the network of missions was costly to support and given the lack of any real economic interest in the Texas area the government was only half-hearted in its support. The Franciscans who manned the missions needed some economic base and they introduced cattle ranching based upon the model of cattle ranches to the south in central Mexico.
In 1761 France gave its Louisiana Territory to Spain to keep it from falling into the hands of the British. Once the French threat of encroachment on Spanish territories was eliminated the government of New Spain had even less incentives to support the missions in Texas. The Franciscan brothers struggled on the best they could but Texas was in the nature of an abandoned area.
When Mexico gained independence from Spain the government demanded that all officials in the government and church take an oath denying their allegiance to Spain. Many in the missions in Texas decided to leave Mexico rather than take that oath. This denuded the Texas missions even more of personnel. The area of Texas was in danger of losing all semblance of civilization. This explains the receptiveness of the government in Mexico City to proposals for the immigration of colonists from the United States.
Moses Austin a sixty year old Connecticut Yankee negotiated the approval of the government of New Spain to allow immigrants from the U.S. to settle in Texas. About the same time as the immigrants started arriving Mexico rebelled against Spain and shortly thereafter Moses Austin died. His son, Stephen Austin, was a lawyer and negotiated a similar aggreement with the new government. The immigrants poured in by the thousands. Most were farmers from the southern states of the U.S. looking for cheap land.
The terms of the Mexican law would give the immigrants up to 277 acres if they declared that they were farmers but an additional 4338 acres if they declared they would raise livestock. The American farmers were familiar with raising livestock but in small numbers on small acreage. Furthermore those farmers herded the livestock on foot rather than on horseback.
The offer of 4338 acres for declaring that they would raise livestock was irresistible. But to follow through on their declarations they had to learn the Mexican system for raising livestock. The Americans did not even have a word for this large-scale stock raising. They had to adopt the Spanish word rancho which originally meant farm. They had to adopt the techniques for ranching developed in Mexico. This meant the lariat and the Mexican style saddle. It also meant the sombrero and the chaps. It meant the adoption of a large variety of Spanish words such as rodeo for the semi-annual roundup of cattle. The name cowboy for the mounted herdman of cattle is almost a direct translation of the Spanish word vaquero from vaca meaning cow. David Dary notes that the word cowboy was previously used in Ireland and although there may be some connection with that source it is more likely that the term derived from vaquero.
The Technology of Cattle-Handling
Small numbers of cattle on the small farms of the Anglo colonies of North America could be herded and controlled on foot but the control of large numbers of cattle on vast open ranges of western North America required an entirely different technology. That technology as developed in the Spanish empire is based upon horses. Cattle are too fast for unmounted herders and humans on foot do not have the endurance to keep up with cattle on open ranges. Further more cattle herders need some means to stop and control individual animals.
The method developed in Mexico for controlling individual animals is lassoing them with a lariat which is secured to the horn of a saddle. This system seems so simple and effective that it is difficult to imagine any other system being used. But it took many decades if not a century or so for this system to be perfected in Mexico. Note that in South America the bolo was used instead of the lariat. In other places dogs were an important element of cattle control.
In Mexico the method of lassoing with a lariat did not emerge immediately when cattle raising developed and there were a number of elements of the system that had to be created for the overall system to work. Initially the mounted cattle herders in Mexico used a hocking knife to stop a cow. A hocking knife was a crescent-shaped blade on a pole that was used to cut the ligaments in a cow's hocks, a process that is otherwise known as ham-stringing. It was a brutal technique that could be used only on an animal that would be subsequently butchered.
Later the hocking knife was replaced by looping a lariat over the horns of an animal. But the lariat was not thrown; instead the cattle herder placed the loop of the lariat at the end of a lance and then rode up close enough to the animal to drop the loop over its horns. It would not have done the herder much good to have a lariat attached to an animal if he had to rely upon his own strength to control the animal. The lariat would have to be fastened to the herder's horse to match the strength and weight of the horse with that of the cow. Now system of wrapping the lariat around the saddle horn seems so obvious but it took some time for it to develop. At first the herders looped the lariat around the tail of the horse. This method had the obvious short-comings of being slow and awkward and hard on the horse. But the lariat could not be snugged to the saddle when the saddles had no horn.
The Spanish saddle had to be redesigned not only to create an adequate saddle horn but also to make it sturdy enough to take the stress imposed by the lariat attached to a recalcitrant cow. It would do no good to have the lariat tying the cow to the saddle if the saddle broke loose throwing the rider.
With the modified saddle developed the final element of the system was for the cattle herder to learn to throw the lariat over the cow's neck. This could be done from a greater distance than the length of the lance used previously. For a lariat to be thrown it must be reasonable flexible. It also had to be strong. Now lariat are ropes but in the days of development of cattle ranching ropes did not have strength and flexibility required for an effective lariat. Lariats were made of braded strips of cowhide. But any strips cut in an obvious way from a cowhide would have been too short. The lariat came to be upwards of sixty feet in length. To get a strip of that length a special technique have to be created. A sharp knife and an awl would be set up, separated by the width of strip to be cut. The cowhide would be pulled against the knife so the strip was cut from the cowhide in a roughly spiral fashion.
There were other elements for the management of cattle herding perfected in Mexico. One was the branding of cattle for identification. In addition to the actual branding there had to be a system for registering the brands. In Mexico this was handled by cattlemen associations which maintained brand-books.
The Six Gun: the six-shot revolver hand gun
The six gun had a specifically Texas origin. The Texans had found that single shot long guns were not effective defense against the hostile tribes of Texas such as the Comanches. Very soon in the conflict the native tribes learned that once a settler had fired his single shot they could attack firing a multitude of arrows while the settler was reloading. The repeating rifle was essential for the survival of settlers in small numbers. The hand gun was handier in the close combat the settlers faced. The Colt Company of New Jersey manufactured a five-shot revolver. Some of these handguns were provided to the Texas Rangers. They were pleased with them but Sam Walker of the Texas Rangers felt they could be made even better. Walker is said to visited Colt in New Jersey and suggested a number of modifications:
increase the number of shots from five to six
provide a trigger guard to prevent inadvertent firing
eliminate the separation of parts when the gun was reloaded to prevent accidental loss of parts
increase the weight of the gun so it would function more effectively as a club when all of the shots were fired.
These suggestions were adopted and the Texas Rangers made the Colt six shooter its official hand gun in 1847.
Sources:The Supreme Court is beginning a new term on Monday with a blockbuster docket of cases touching on civil rights, free speech, presidential power, redistricting and privacy rights.
The court has agreed to hear 43 cases so far, including a challenge to mandatory union fees in the public sector. The justices are likely to take up even more cases on Monday.
But court watchers may never get to hear arguments in two of the most closely watched cases of the term.
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The court canceled arguments scheduled for Oct. 10 in two cases challenging President Trump’s travel ban after the White House issued new, targeted restrictions on travelers from eight countries.
The justices have asked the parties in the travel ban case to submit additional briefs on how the new order impacts the current cases before the court. Arguments could be rescheduled, but what the court will decide to do remains unclear.
Aside from the cases, the term could be memorable for other reasons.
It will be Justice Neil Gorsuch’s first full term on the bench. He joined the court in April after a bitter, partisan battle over the vacancy left by the late Justice Antonin Scalia.
Court watchers also say this term could be Justice Anthony Kennedy’s last. Long the court’s pivotal swing voter, Kennedy was rumored to have been considering retirement last spring.
“There’s only one prediction that’s entirely safe about the upcoming term," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said recently while speaking at Georgetown Law School, "and that is it will be momentous."
Here’s a look at the top cases to watch.
Trump v. International Refugee Assistance Project; Trump v. Hawaii
Some argue the Trump administration has already won the fight over its travel ban. The court in June agreed to reinstate the 90-day ban on nationals from six majority-Muslim countries that had been blocked by lower courts.
The justices, however, carved out an exemption from the ban for people who have a “bona fide” relationship with a person or entity in the U.S.
The challengers, including the state of Hawaii, are pushing the court to find the ban, which expired on Sept. 24, unconstitutional. They argue Trump used nationality as a proxy to uphold a campaign promise to ban Muslims from entering the U.S.
But the updated travel restrictions Trump issued for Chad, North Korea, Venezuela, Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Somalia could bolster the administration’s case that it needed the temporary ban to assess vetting procedures; it could also push the justices to rule the case is now moot.
The court’s next move will all depend on what’s argued in the briefs due Oct. 5.
Gill v. Whitford
The justices have agreed to wade into the controversial issue of partisan gerrymandering — the process of drawing voter districts to increase the political power of one party over another.
The case centers on Wisconsin’s 2011 legislative map, which was drawn by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature. A lower court struck down the map as unconstitutional last year.
A group of Democratic voters claim Republicans divided Democrats among districts so they fell short of a majority. Other Democratic voters were packed into districts their party’s candidate was already sure to win, they say.
All eyes will be on Kennedy, who signaled in a concurring judgment in 2004 that he would be open to the court resolving the issue if a “limited and precise” rationale could be found for determining whether partisan gerrymandering has occurred.
The Democrats challenging the map in this case claim to have come up with one — the "efficiency gap." That is calculated by taking one party’s total wasted votes in an election, subtracting the other party’s total wasted votes, and then dividing that by the total number of votes cast.
Wisconsin officials appealing the lower court decision argue one-third of all redistricting plans drawn in the last 45 years could be challenged under the plaintiff’s standard.
Whether the court will accept the standard is anyone’s guess. Arguments are scheduled for Oct. 3, the second day of the new term.
Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission
The case centers on Jack Phillips, a Colorado baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple and argues he can’t be forced to do so under the state’s public accommodations law. That statute prohibits businesses from discriminating against customers based on their sexual orientation.
As a Christian, Phillips says he strives to honor his faith in all aspects of his life, including his art and his cakes. Creating a custom wedding cake to celebrate a same-sex wedding ceremony, he argues, would violate his First Amendment rights.
The justices will decide whether Phillips’s religious objections prevail over the state law.
“The Court held that gay and lesbian persons could live out their identity by lawfully marrying someone of the same sex,” religious groups led by the Christian Legal Society wrote in a brief supporting Phillips.
“Now this Court must hold that religious dissenters from same-sex marriage have the same liberty to live consistently with their identity.”
Attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation who are representing the same-sex couple in the case say a ruling in favor of Phillips would have disastrous consequences.
If religious motivation exempts businesses from anti-discrimination laws, the government could do nothing to protect Americans from the “harms of invidious discrimination,” they say.
Carpenter v U.S.
Your cellphone tracks your every move, but is that data private?
The justices are being asked to weigh whether police can obtain location data from a cellphone service provider without a warrant.
Timothy Carpenter, who was convicted of robbing Radio Shack and T-Mobile stores in Michigan and Ohio in 2010 and 2011, claims police violated his Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure when they obtained records of his cell site locations and presented them at his trial to show his proximity to the robberies around the time they occurred.
On appeal, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Carpenter’s argument. The court said he had no reasonable expectation of privacy in cellphone location records held by his service provider.
Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Council 31
The justices are revisiting an issue it grappled with last term, when it had only eight justices: whether public sector employees can be forced to pay union fees.
The court deadlocked 4-4 in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association in March, affirming a lower court ruling that upheld a California law requiring some public-sector workers to pay union fees.
This case before the court now centers on Mark Janus, a child support specialist for the state of Illinois who has been forced to pay money to the American Federation of State, Country and Municipal Employees Council 31. He says that union has contributed to the fiscal and economic problems of his state with its unreasonable demands.
“Our case was already in the pipeline when the court considered Freidrichs. … Now it’s in a position to take up this issue again and actually reach a decision because now there are nine members and there shouldn’t be a tie,” said Jacob Huebert, an attorney with the Liberty Justice Center.
Huebert argues that government workers at every level should be able to choose whether they give their money to a union.
The union, however, claims it has 40 years of Supreme Court precedent on its side. It argues the court has consistently affirmed its 1977 ruling in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, holding that employees may be required to pay their share of collective-bargaining activities, since all employees benefit from the outcome.The price of gas in Winnipeg has shot up as much as 15 cents per litre at some stations.
A number of stations in the city were posting a pump price of 117.9 cents per litre on Thursday. The majority are Esso stations, but there was the occasional Petro-Canada and Domo as well.
The last time drivers in Winnipeg faced such a pain in the gas was June 2016.
Just four months ago, the price was just 82 cents per litre.
There are still bargains to be had right now, though.
The Husky and Domo stations on Marion Street, just west of Lagimodiere Boulevard, were still posting prices at 99.3 as of Thursday morning.
And a number of other stations around the city, including the odd Esso, were still between 1.01 and 1.03.Frugal living and savings can be managed using only a paper and pen. I try to find easier ways to manage my finance, to do that I usually use my phone. Here I will list all my apps that I have found useful, time-saving and more efficient than paper and pen.
Ideal state in financial managing is to have things in control in a predictable manner. SmartAmount is a tool to plan future expenses, by making an account balance forecast. Using the app is simply by entering recurring occurrences like salary and bills to the app. After enough knowledge of income and expenses application can assist the user to plan future expenses and money usage.
Decision making is not one of my best sides. Often I find myself comparing different options. Pros & Cons is an app that lets you make a list of favorable and unfavorable factors to help you in decision making. The app lets you give scores for the statements. Since using the app I have noticed that it’s easier to make and understand decisions by looking things in different, more visual way. The app would be even better if you could compare more options than two.
Investments, loans, and other personal financial matters almost always include calculations. When you’re on the move and there is no access to the spreadsheet, you can use Interest Rate Calculation. An application that has all the necessary calculations in easy, accessible form. There is a calculator for single rates, compound rate, regular fixed and loan calculator. The app is visually appealing and well made.
To keep you on track and on the budget worthy option is My finance. There is a lot of budgeting tools in Google Play Store, MyFinance is comprehensive and one of the best budgeting applications. It includes an export option, possibility to categorise all the expenses and templates.
Do you know an android application to manage personal finance or investments?Cincinnati Reds third baseman Eugenio Suarez (7) blows a bubble in the seventh inning during the National League baseball game between the Milwaukee Brewers and the Cincinnati Reds on June 29, 2017 at Great American Ball Park. (Photo: Kareem Elgazzar)
PITTSBURGH — Walt Jocketty won’t say the exact words that Jim Leyland said after the Tigers traded Eugenio Suarez to the Reds, but to be sure, they weren’t pleasant.
Jocketty and Leyland have been friends for years, but Leyland wasn’t feeling too friendly when he saw Jocketty in the hallway of the Grand Hyatt in San Diego in the early hours of Dec. 11, 2014.
Because at the time Jocketty and the Tigers’ Dave Dombrowski were the longest-tenured general managers in baseball, they had the two best suites at the hotel — and they happened to be across the hall from each other.
MORE: Young Luis Castillo proving to be special for Cincinnati Reds
The Reds, needing to move some veteran starting pitchers, worked into the early morning of the last day of the winter meetings and finally agreed to a deal that would send Alfredo Simon, an All-Star the previous year, to Detroit in exchange for then-minor-league shortstop Eugenio Suarez and right-hander Jonathon Crawford, a former first-round pick.
Because of the proximity of the suites, Jocketty ran into Leyland in the hall.
“I can't repeat what he was saying, but he basically said, 'I'm so mad, I can't believe we traded this guy, I love this guy,’” Jocketty recalled before Friday’s Reds game with the Pirates. “He texts me all the time to see how he's doing. He'll say, ‘I saw he hit another one. I love him.’ He was upset they traded him.”
“It’s true,” Leyland said before Friday’s game against the Pirates.
Leyland, now a special assistant to the general manager for the Tigers, was in Pittsburgh on Friday. He caught up with Suarez, who didn’t play for him with the Tigers but was in two springs with Leyland as a minor-league shortstop.
Suarez said he gave the notoriously prickly Leyland a giant hug upon seeing him.
“He's one of the best people and he's one of the best managers in the big leagues and everyone knows that,” Suarez said before Saturday’s game. “He's really good and he knows how this game is played. I was blessed to play for him.”
The Reds not only traded for Suarez and Crawford that day, but also sent right-hander Mat Latos to the Marlins in exchange for right-hander Anthony DeSclafani and catcher Chad Wallach. Both Simon and Latos were scheduled to be free agents following the 2015 season. Dealing the two saved the Reds at least $15 million that season, not to mention the four players.
Suarez was the player the Reds wanted from the Tigers all along, and he was a player Leyland didn’t want to let go. The Tigers signed Suarez as a 17-year-old out of Venezuela. He’d reached the big leagues as a shortstop in 2014 with the Tigers, hitting.242/.316/.336 in 85 games. Leyland had already retired from managing, but was still working for the Tigers at that point.
Leyland's son, Pat Leyland, had played with Suarez in the minors and told his father about the young shortstop. Leyland then took notice of him and started watching him with a closer eye.
“I fell in love with him, I just like the way he played. I thought he was going to be a real good offensive player with some pop. He's a great kid,” Leyland said. “He had a loud sound in his bat, he had a different sound in his bat than a lot of guys. I felt he was going to have a lot of pop in his bat. I thought he could hit 20 (home runs) some day. It worked out pretty good.”
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Suarez hit.280/.315/.446 in 97 games in his first year in Cincinnati with 13 home runs, replacing the injured Zack Cozart at shortstop. With Cozart back last season and Todd Frazier traded to the White Sox, the Reds moved Suarez to third base. He hit 21 homers last season, but struggled defensively with the new position and took a step back offensively, hitting.248/.317/.411.
This season, though, the 26-year-old has been one of the best third basemen in baseball. Entering Saturday’s game, he was hitting.276/.385/.498 with 24 home runs and 73 RBI.
As an added bonus, he’s been outstanding defensively. He showed that once again in Friday night’s game when he made a nice play on the third-base line and threw from his knees to retire Pirates’ center fielder Andrew McCutchen in the eighth inning of a 7-3 Reds victory. Earlier in that inning, he’d ripped an RBI single to increase the Reds’ lead. In short, it was just another day for Suarez.
Leyland said if he has the TV on and isn’t watching the Pirates, he’ll check in on Suarez.
“Every once in a while as a manager, you become attached to a player that you kind of like,” Leyland said. “But we were looking for a pitcher and we got a starting pitcher. You understand those things. I didn't want to give him up, we didn't want to give him up, either. But you've got to give something up. We got a pitcher that pitched pretty good for them and we were looking for a guy to pitch in our rotation and that's how trades are made.”Remote Control HDMI/IR Adapter
When you’re hanging an HDTV on a wall, the biggest pain is fishing wires through walls to the video equipment that’s hidden in a closet or another room. It is necessary to run an HDMI cable through the wall for the audio/video, but the other pain is figuring out how to control all of your hidden equipment with your remote controls since remotes require a direct view to work (like Blu-Ray player and TIVO in the case of my parents). This tool is really cool because it lets you use the HDMI cable that is already installed to relay the IR signal back to your equipment so I don’t have to run a second wire through the walls.
I’m the one in my huge obnoxious family that everyone asks to wire their house with an ethernet network, surround sound system, home theater set-up, etc. This is my third home theater set-up job, the other two I’ve used a wiring system that requires you to screw a connector block to the closet where the equipment is and to run these wires through the wall. That took hours. This kit takes a couple minutes to set up. All you really have to do is unplug your HDMI cable from your TV, plug in the IR injector adapter, and replug the HDMI cable into the IR injector adapter (and then repeat on the video equipment side). Then, I just took the IR blaster that is on the equipment side and pointed it in the direction of the video equipment, and it works like a charm 100% of the time.
In the past I have used the wired kit from Cables to Go a couple times. It is a really reliable kit, but it is almost twice as expensive and takes twice as long to install. I’ve also seen other wireless models but read in forums that those convert the IR signal into an RF signal that can go through walls, but that the RF signal is too similar to your wifi signal and so the interference makes it not work 100% of the time.
-- Colin CameronAppearance and function match the final product, but is made with different manufacturing methods.
Looks like the final product, but is not functional.
Demonstrates the functionality of the final product, but looks different.
A prototype is a preliminary model of something. Projects that offer physical products need to show backers documentation of a working prototype. This gallery features photos, videos, and other visual documentation that will give backers a sense of what’s been accomplished so far and what’s left to do. Though the development process can vary for each project, these are the stages we typically see:
These photos and videos provide a detailed look at this project’s development.
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Pledge, Support and Save Tons of Money Today!The comedy festival planned by a group of 50 influential Quebec comedians wishing to distance themselves from Juste pour rire/Just For Laughs is already receiving support from various levels of government and sponsors.
Eleven comedians were on Radio-Canada's popular talk show Tout le monde en parle Sunday, less than a week after the group banded together in response to the sexual assault allegations against Just for Laughs founder Gilbert Rozon
Quebec's minister of economy, Dominique Anglade, appeared alongside the group.
Quebec's minister of economy, Dominique Anglade, said the government is looking into ways it can help the new Festival de rire de Montréal. (Radio-Canada)
She said the provincial government plans to back the new festival, once it comes up with a business plan.
Organizers are moving quickly: the Festival du rire de Montréal is already incorporated. Monday, they met Federal Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly and, Tuesday, they're planning to meet officials from the City of Montreal.
'We have a responsibility to accompany them,' says Anglade
Anglade said on Tout le monde en parle that she contacted the group as soon as she heard about the plan because she wanted to be proactive.
"We can't see a group of people mobilize and be interested in doing something together and stay passive as a government," Anglade said.
"We have a responsibility to accompany them."
Martin Petit, the Quebec comic who's been leading the initiative, said the festival is adopting a co-operative model that aims to be more inclusive and welcoming to female comedians, as well as to the new generation of young comics.
Desjardins Group has also pledged its involvement.
Quebec comedian Martin Petit says he felt betrayed when he heard about the series of sexual assault allegations against his old boss, Just For Laughs founder Gilbert Rozon. (Radio-Canada)
Petit said he felt betrayed when he heard about the allegations against his old boss, Rozon, to whom he'd spoken on the phone just three weeks prior.
"He always finished his phone conversations by saying, 'Thank you, Martin, for your trust,'" Petit said on the show. Rozon was a producer on Petit's show on Radio-Canada, Les pêcheurs.
Notary Paul Larocque, former mayor of Bois-des-Filion, is the fledgling festival's interim director general.
Montreal mayor-elect Valérie Plante was also on the show and said she's ready to support the Festival du Rire de Montréal in the ways the city has done for Just For Laughs, which has mainly been with logistics, such as security.
Meanwhile, Just For Laughs has vowed its show will go on this summer, meaning there would be two comedy festivals in the city, possibly in the same season.
Anglo comic got start at Just for Laughs
The new festival has not indicated whether there would be an English-speaking element, whereas Just for Laughs has both English and French components.
That's what makes it the most important place for Canadian English-speaking comedians to get discovered, said Martha Chaves, who said Just for Laughs is where it all started for her in the 1990s.
"JFL, for us, is like the Holy Grail," Chaves told CBC News Monday, adding it's one of the only galas in the country at which English-speaking comedians can showcase their talent to American agents, producers and networks.
Toronto-based comic Martha Chaves says the opportunities for Canadian English-speaking comedians to showcase their talent to American networks are few and far between. (CBC)
Though the festival has shows in both languages, few of those shows are bilingual, Chaves said, and the anglophone and francophone communities are fairly isolated in their own communities.
"French Canadian comedians are, let's say, a lot more organized than English comics," Chaves said.
United by the province sharing their language, French-speaking comics band together, she explained.
"They have a union, they operate differently, they do huge shows that we sometimes don't have the chance to do."
"It's just like the two solitudes of Canada: they are one, we are the other."
Chaves said she's not ready to turn her back on the gala and that if she's asked to perform again, she'll do it.
She said she was heartbroken by the Gilbert controversy and that it tainted the industry, but that she doesn't want the event to crumble because of the actions of one person.
"I feel like I'm part of the family of Just For Laughs," she said.A warm welcome to your hard-earned LGBT weekend! Get some community, some party, some arts and entertainment, and a whole lot of not thinking about work until you absolutely have to.
Friday, Feb. 17
GROWLr Roughhouse. Dance your way into the weekend with this party man-on-man dance party, featuring DJ Paul Goodyear from Sydney @ Heretic, 10 p.m.
A Kid Like Jake. Ripped from current events, parents and a private school learn social and personal lessons over a gender-non-conforming child. Drama ensues @ Out Front Theatre, 8 p.m. Runs through Feb. 26.
Somewhere Over The Rose. The amazing Kathy Halenda delivers a tour de force one-woman show combing the songs of both Judy Garland and Bette Midler @ Art Station, 8 p.m. Runs through Feb. 22.
The Other Show. Come to the unique weekly drag cabaret with an eclectic cast and special guests that always pack a surprise @ Jungle, 9:30 p.m. Stick around and catch fire, because it’s Fuego Friday with DJ Isi’s Latin beats and spotlight performances, 11 p.m.
Boys Room. Hang with the cool kids in East Atlanta @ Mary’s, 9 p.m.
Furrrriday. It’s a celebration of your body hair with other guys who have it, love it, and can't get enough of it @ Woofs, 9 p.m.
Glitz & Glam Dinner Theater. Charlie Brown, the undisputed Bitch of the South and her gurlz entertain with dinner and a show amid the fancy theater experience of Atlanta’s premiere drag restaurant and bar. Make Reservations @ Lips Atlanta, 6 p.m., 9 p.m. and the Taboo Show at 11:30 p.m.
Fresh Face Friday puts the newest drag glamazons on display. Then get your singles ready for premiere queens in Femme Fatale @ Burkhart’s, 9:30 p.m. and 11 p.m.
Celestial Friday. Celeste Holmes hosts the show “where the stars come out” and puts the grrls on display for your entertainment and your dollars, plus Second Level beats upstairs @ Blake’s, 11 p.m.
Ladies Lounge. Get your lesbian weekend started with a DJ-driven dance party, live performances and scores of women in the new Midtown home of Atlanta lesbian nightlife @ My Sister’s Room, 9 p.m.
Resident DJs Scott and Mikey take you deep into the night with $5 Fridays @ Xion, 3 a.m. – 7 a.m.
Saturday, Feb. 18
Bowling Beer & Boys (middle photo). You know it’s almost Hotlanta Softball League time when the Titans team hosts this annual beer bust with pin-knocking, raffles and more @ Midtown Bowl, 2 p.m. This thing always delivers the fun. Like, always. No seriously. But for real, though.
Audre Lorde Scholarship Luncheon. Local group Zami Nobla for lesbians of color present their annual scholarship recipient with guest speaker Emilie Towns, including lunch, special honorees and live musical performances @ The Commons, 12 noon.
Atlanta Rollergirls skate a doubleheader derby @ Yaarab Shrine Center, 5 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.
#Daydrunk. Drink specials put you to bed early or make you the life of tonight’s party @ Mary’s, 2 p.m. – 8 p.m. Do it, and you may not remember what you did during the regularly scheduled shenanigans, 10 p.m.
Armorettes Backroom Burlesque. This month’s Saturday special show raises tips for Georgia Equality @ Heretic, 8 p.m. Stay late, because DJ Grind sees that girl, watches that scene, you are the dancing queen, 10 p.m.
Icon: Britney Spears. Dancers, singers, burlesque queens and drag queens do their thing, plus DJ Beats and some surprises – |
ness. It gives you more energy and helps with motivation which can also combat those drowsy-nearly-deadline-day feelings! Take a regular jog, walk, cycle or check out your local gym for class timetables a couple of times a week and you'll soon see the benefits!
Jasmin Vincent lives at Liberty Dock, at our Student Accommodation Leeds. She is studying History of Art at The University of Leeds, and is currently in her 2nd year.In a major blow to Chicago's technology community and tourism industry, Microsoft has canceled its Ignite conference for 2016, and plans to move it to Atlanta.
The loss of the conference, which was scheduled for May 9-13 at McCormick Place, will affect more than 50 hotels and cost the city about 90,000 room nights, sources said.
A corporate travel partner for Microsoft sent notice to participating Chicago hotels Tuesday night, informing them of the decision and requesting that the rooms booked for the May event be released.
A Microsoft blog post confirmed Wednesday that Ignite 2016 will take place Sept. 26-30 in Atlanta. "We've continued to listen to your feedback and use it to refine our approach," the company said in the post. "To that end, we have made the decision to shift Microsoft Ignite from spring to fall."
A company spokesman declined to comment further.
Microsoft Ignite made its debut at McCormick Place in May, with a weeklong event showcasing its products to information technology professionals. The inaugural conference drew more than 20,000 attendees, officials said. The return engagement was on the books for 2016, but sources said Microsoft wanted to reschedule for later in the year, when McCormick Place was unavailable.
Chicago's tourism industry was already facing a challenging 2016, with 200,000 fewer convention room nights booked than last year, according to Choose Chicago, the city's official tourism arm. With the loss of Microsoft Ignite, the deficit will be closer to 300,000 fewer room nights.
In an email to hoteliers Wednesday morning, Don Welsh, president of Choose Chicago, expressed his disappointment over the software giant's decision.
"While this is a significant loss for the first half of 2016, I want to assure you that this action taken by Microsoft is purely the result of industry buying cycles," Welsh said in the email. "The customer requested fall dates to better align with those cycles; however, McCormick Place did not have space available."
Choose Chicago is under financial pressure, with $7.2 million of its funding frozen by the state's ongoing budget stalemate. Last week, the agency announced it would eliminate 28 positions, representing one-fourth of its workforce, and close two international offices, with more potential downsizing ahead, officials said.
Convention business tends to be cyclical and booked years in advance. While tourism has been on the upswing, Chicago's failed Olympic bid, which would have tied up McCormick Place, chased away at least some convention bookings for 2016, according to Welsh.
Beyond that, eight other major conventions have canceled events in Chicago since 2012, including GRAPH EXPO 2016, the Kitchen & Bath Industry Show and the HIMSS19 Annual Conference & Exhibition, a health care event with 35,000 attendees.
The one-two punch of Choose Chicago's downsizing and Microsoft's cancellation is of great concern to the city's hotel operators, who have more than 2,000 additional rooms to fill with the opening of 10 new Chicago hotels in 2015.
Longtime Chicago hotelier Laurence Geller said it is too late to find significant new convention business for 2016, and recruiting leisure travelers requires aggressive marketing, something that has been put on hold during the state budget stalemate.
"The only way to fill it in is to induce business through short-term marketing campaigns — promotions, events," Geller said. "But there's the conundrum: (Choose Chicago doesn't) have a budget."
The state provides about 40 percent of Choose Chicago's $30 million annual budget.
Geller, the former CEO of Strategic Hotels & Resorts, completed the acquisition of the Waldorf Astoria Chicago from Sam Zell's Equity Group Investments in July. He is also converting an office building at 101 E. Erie St., formerly home to ad agency FCB, into a 290-room Conrad hotel, which is set to open in May.
While neither of Geller's luxury hotels was booked directly for the Microsoft conference, he said the cancellation will affect rates across Chicago, including at his properties, which would have benefited from limited availability.
rchannick@tribpub.com
Twitter @RobertChannickDisclaimer: This article is intended to be general information and nothing in this article constitutes legal advice. Please consult with an attorney before making any intellectual property or other legal decisions.
Everybody makes mistakes, but some can be prevented. Read on to see five common mistakes regarding intellectual property, so you can avoid the pitfalls.
1. My business doesn’t have IP
100% of businesses have Intellectual Property (IP). IP is not just for tech businesses or inventors. Even if you simply decide to launch a crowdfunding campaign, you’re exposing your IP to risk. Your name or product name, branding, and customer lists are all valuable IP assets and need protection.
And, if you are working with anyone on your business or idea, having work-for-hire and employment agreements will ensure the work done for the company is owned by the company.
A common mistake happens when a business outsources a business function. If a work for hire agreement is absent, the contractor, not the business, owns the contracted work. For example, company X needs a new logo and finds a designer to create the logo. The designer creates the logo, gets paid for her work, and the business begins using the logo on their website. Six months later, the designer sends a “cease and desist” letter to Company X, requesting the logo be removed from the website. The exchange of money for services is not enough, the company does not own the work and must take the logo down or risk infringement.
2. Patents are the only intellectual property
Patents may be the most well known type of intellectual property, but they share the spotlight with trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets, each of which has a distinct role in defining rights and ownership over a particular type of work.
Copyrights are used for music and written works; anything expressed in a tangible medium.
are used for music and written works; anything expressed in a tangible medium. Trademarks are for logos and brand material, but also include sounds!
are for logos and brand material, but also include sounds! Trade Secrets are recipes, formulas, processes, or even customer lists.
3. Everyone will sign an NDA
Requesting to have a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) signed when you’re sharing proprietary information is very wise. But, you can’t force someone to sign and not everyone will comply with your request.
When a party cannot sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) consider giving enough information to explain your concept but not enough to have someone replicate your entire process or product.
4. Mailing an idea to yourself works
In real life envelopes are steamed open, mailed empty, or otherwise tampered with to invalidate the date stamp as proof of time of invention. In order to prove the date of creation, your brilliant idea needs to be time-stamped by an independent 3rd party, like a notary or online storage provider.
Time-stamping does not replace copyright, patent, or trademark registration, but certainly will help prove origin and date of creation.
Finally, remember that when you are uploading your valuable IP using cloud storage, read the terms and conditions and only use online storage providers with secure encryption.
5. Minimizing the importance of intellectual property.
Intellectual property is the most valuable asset for startups. In fact, over 90 percent of a startups’ value can be made up of IP. But, if you don’t know where your intellectual property is and how to leverage it, your IP goes unnoticed. This is the reason why identifying your IP is so important from the beginning.
When an investor is thinking about investing in your company, the conversation surrounding IP will surely come up. What IP do you have? Do you own it? Why is IP so important for investors? For one, protected IP gives your company protection from any other company or person using it. Investors see this as a competitive advantage, protection against competition, and an asset that can be sold or licensed regardless of the business success or failure. Ultimately, this means there is lower risk in investing money into your company. Investors love low risk. So, by eliminating friction for an investor, you increase the probability of receiving an investment.
Another situation arises with banks and leveraging assets for debt. Banks and other lending firms will give out debt based on the value of the company’s assets. Not recognizing your IP as an asset will significantly reduce the amount of available debt your company can access. Identifying your IP is the first step to realizing its value and how it can help you. If you don’t know what you have, IP is impossible to leverage.
Intellectual property has a role at each stage of the business lifecycle. Starting a company is heavier in identifying and securing IP. Once hiring begins, the right contracts and agreements become paramount in protecting the current and future IP of the company. As the company grows and innovates, more IP will be created and increase the company’s value. Having an IP strategy is paramount to getting the most value from your business.
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votes, average:out of 5)Too much of a good thing can be bad. Sometimes it only takes a spoonful.
Yesterday the Food and Drug Administration released a warning about powdered pure caffeine. Usually added to drinks before workouts for an energy boost or to aid weight loss, the white substance is readily available online.
The federal advisory comes weeks after an autopsy ruled the death of a teen in LaGrange, Ohio, a caffeine overdose.
High school student and wrestler Logan Stiner died in May, days away from graduation, after consuming one teaspoon of powdered caffeine—the equivalent of drinking 25 cups of coffee or 70 cans of Red Bull. The 18-year-old suffered seizures. The county coroner found more than 70 micrograms of caffeine per milliliter of blood in his system—more than 20 times that of an average coffee drinker.
“The difference between a safe amount and a lethal dose of caffeine in these powdered products is very small,” FDA spokesperson Jennifer Dooren told the Associated Press.
Similarly, caffeine tablets have been popular as study aids among college students. Though they contain much lower dosages of the stimulant (roughly the amount of one to three cups of coffee), the agency has received a report of a 19-year-old who died from taking too many and warns against the pills as well.
Federal authorities don’t regulate those substances because they’re sold as dietary supplements. As is the case with energy drinks, Four Loko, and caffeine inhalers, powdered caffeine especially attracts young people. In its statement about the product, the FDA advises parents to take heed.
“I can’t believe you can buy this,” Henry Spiller, a physician who heads a poison control center at the Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, told the AP. “Honestly, I mean, it’s frightening. It makes no sense to me.” The center received three reports of hospitalization from caffeine powder use over the course of one week this month.
The FDA, which took caffeinated alcohol off shelves in 2010, is examining powdered caffeine and will consider taking regulatory action.No one was seriously injured Wednesday morning when a vehicle slammed into a fast food restaurant in southeast Atlanta.
According to the Georgia State Patrol, four vehicles — a Lincoln Navigator, a Ford Expedition, a pickup truck and an Audi — were involved in a wreck about 7:45 a.m. at the intersection of Moreland and East Confederate avenues, and the Navigator came to a stop inside the nearby Zesto restaurant.
GSP Senior Trooper Larry Schnall said that the driver of the Expedition was southbound on Moreland Avenue when she lost control, striking several other vehicles and setting off a chain reaction crash.
The Navigator “traveled airborne into the building, causing significant damage to the establishment,” Schnall said. “Fortunately, no one was inside.”
The restaurant was scheduled to open at 10 a.m., according to the Zesto’s website.
Schnall said three of the four drivers were transported to the hospital for treatment of injuries that were believed to be minor. He said investigators had not yet determined what caused the Expedition driver to lose control of her vehicle.
“Myself and my partner were across the street and partially witnessed this accident,” Schnall told the AJC. “We saw the Navigator go airborne into the building, and my first reaction was, wow, if this place was open for business, someone very well could have been seriously injured or multiple fatalities.”Measure would provide immunity if someone seeks help after witnessing overdose
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Amid words of condolence for the lost son of one of their former colleagues, the Senate on Wednesday approved a bill to protect from criminal prosecution anyone who seeks medical help for someone overdosing on an illegal drug.
Conflicting versions of the legislation were left in limbo when the 2015 session came to an abrupt end in June. On July 1, the state's existing "Good Samaritan" law expired.
The newly introduced bill cleared the Senate on Wednesday afternoon, on the second day of the 2016 legislative session, with the sponsor — Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Michael McCaffrey — saying the protections it provides could mean the difference between life and death to someone who has overdosed.
The vote was 35 to 1, with Sen. Frank Ciccone casting the only nay vote. He later explained it was out of concern for the free pass the law appears to give everyone at the scene of an overdose, including those responsible.
The legislation provides that anyone seeking medical assistance for a drug overdose “shall not be charged or prosecuted for any crime related to the possession of a controlled substance or drug paraphernalia, or the operation of a drug-involved premises, if the evidence for the charge was gained as a result of the seeking of medical assistance.”
The bill would not only reinstate the expired law, it would expand the immunity to someone at the scene who otherwise would be in danger of a probation and/or parole violation.
A version passed by the Senate last year would have extended the protection to anyone facing charges for the delivery or sale of a controlled substance. That provision, the source of much debate last year, was removed from this year's bill.
Present in the chamber for the vote was former Sen. Rhoda Perry, D-Providence, the lead sponsor of the original law, passed in 2012 with a three-year sunset provision.
On Dec. 7, The Journal published an obituary for Perry's 41-year-old son, Alexander C. Perry.
Running five days after his death, the obituary described him as a Rhode Island College graduate and self-employed painter who had "struggled with addiction for many years."
The former senator was greeted with hugs and condolences on her return to the State House to watch her former colleagues do their part to reinstate the overdose prevention law she championed when she was in office.
"As members of this esteemed body, we must use Alex's too early departure from this world to remind ourselves that addiction is not a crime. It is a disease," Sen. Gayle Goldin said.
Governor Raimondo issued this statement after the Senate vote: "I applaud the General Assembly for their action to encourage Rhode Islanders to call 911 in an overdose emergency."
"Drug overdose is the leading cause of accidental death in Rhode Island and touches every community in our state.... Rhode Island's response to the overdose crisis must first and foremost be focused on saving lives,'' she said. "The Good Samaritan Overdose Prevention Act of 2016 is an important tool to combat this public health crisis.''
McCaffrey recalled former Sen. Perry's words when she shepherded the original law to passage.
"At the time, Senator Perry said, 'Ultimately, saving a life is much more important than an arrest or a lawsuit. This bill is about putting human lives first.' I couldn’t concur more," McCaffrey said.
He said the current legislation eliminates the sunset provision and leaves the issues related to delivery of an illegal substance to be addressed in separate legislation.
Senate leaders had placed the legislation on their calendar for immediate-consideration, bypassing the usual public hearing requirements.
The House has scheduled a hearing next Tuesday on a matching House version of the bill sponsored by Rep. Robert Craven. "The bill is not the same as was heard in committee last year, so this will give the public the opportunity to weigh in as part of the usual committee process," House spokesman Larry Berman said. He anticipated a committee vote the following week.
kgregg@providencejournal.com
(401) 277-7078
On Twitter: @KathyProjoOregon Woman Loses $400,000 to Nigerian E-Mail Scam
Monday, November 17, 2008
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SWEET HOME, Ore. —
Janella Spears of Sweet Home says she simply became curious when she received an e-mail promising her $20.5 million if she would only help out a long-lost relative identified as J.B. Spears with a little money up front.
Spears told KATU-TV about the scammers' ability to identify her relative by name was persuasive.
"That's what got me to believe it," She said. "So, why wouldn't you send over $100?"
• Click here to visit FOXNews.com's Cybersecurity Center.
Spears, who is a nursing administrator and CPR teacher, said she mortgaged the house and took a lien out on the family car, and ran through her husband's retirement account.
"The retirement he was dreaming of — cruising and going around and seeing America — is pretty much gone for him right now," she said.
She estimates it will take two years to clear the debt that accumulated in the more than two years she spent sending money to con artists.
Her family and bank officials told her it was all a scam, she said, and begged her to stop, but she persisted because she became obsessed with getting paid.
The scheme is often called the "Nigerian scam" and it's familiar to many people with e-mail accounts. It still exists and it still works.
Spears first sent $100 through an untraceable wire service as directed by the scammers. Then, more multimillion dollar promises followed so long as she sent more money.
The scammers sent Spears official-looking documents and certificates from the Bank of Nigeria and the United Nations. President Bush and FBI Director Robert Mueller were also involved, the e-mails said, and needed her help.
They sent official-looking documents and certificates from the Bank of Nigeria and even from the United Nations, saying her payment was "guaranteed."
But it wasn't and now Spears is paying the price for her costly lesson.
"The hope is [other people] are not going to fall as hard as I fell," Spears said.
• Click here to read more on this story on the Web site of Portland, Ore., TV station KATU.Some weeks ago, one of our readers, Tyler, contacted me to introduce himself and offered to write a fitness article for the blog. He is a kinesiology graduate at the moment, which means that he is actually studying the essence of the human body, from movement and weightlifting to psychology and neuroscience.
Needless to say that he is actually the kind of guy I was looking for, to enlighten us in bodybuilding matters. Below you will find an in-depth breakdown of the main principles of bodybuilding, along with an effective program to follow. Whether you are a beginner, intermediate or advanced in the scene, this article will definitely be of use.
Please make sure to share your thoughts in the comment section below and let me know if you want us to bring you more fitness articles in the future. For more specialized bodybuilding advice you can subscribe to Tyler’s blog at www.wilfredofitness.com.
-Andrian
I’ve been embedded in fitness culture for quite a while now. In fact, I am currently enrolled in university as a master’s kinesiology student. Over time, I’ve noticed that there is a gap between solid fitness information and many people’s perceptions on getting fit.
Why does this gap exist? Access.
A significant financial investment is required to have direct access to the research that is advancing the field of fitness and bodybuilding. That investment could be in the form of tuition or subscriptions to a scientific publication.
Another gap exists in the form of language. Fitness professionals, who have the ability to help millions with their wealth of knowledge, often like to engage in “mental flexing.” Instead of flexing their biceps in the mirror at the gym for all to see, they flex their intellects by using unnecessarily big words. The science guys are speaking a language that the average person does not care to figure out.
Alain de Botton is a philosopher and an inspiration of mine. He has taken the complex concepts of philosophers like Proust and broken them down so that anyone can understand them in an instant. When asked by Tim Ferris what inspired Botton to write his first book, Botton responded with this:
“I always felt that high culture, by which I mean literature, philosophies, plays, etc., these things do not just belong in the ivory tower. They have a richness to them which can be absorbed and should be transmitted to the widest possible public. This is heresy among the universities that believe, partly for economic reasons, that only if you enroll in their sacred fraternity do you really have the right tools to be able to interpret and enjoy the masterpieces of civilization. I passionately disagreed with that. I am by nature a popularizer and a democrat of the mind and I did not appreciate that kind of cloistered vision of knowledge.”
Alain de Botton has taken the power away from the universities and given it to the people, and that is exactly what I intend to do in the fitness industry. It begins here, with this very article.
I am going to give you the power of knowing exactly what goes into a good muscle building program, and why particular things work. I will keep my opinions to a minimum, and I will not make unfounded claims. I will give you the evidence as well as the practical applications that I have developed over 4 years of studying and experimentation. All that in an attempt to understand the true meaning of bodybuilding and how it can impact your life positively.
Enjoy the read.
Consistency
Consistency is the most important aspect of muscle building. Point blank period. You must understand that building an impressive physique takes time. A lot of time. You know the guys in the infomercials for those get fit quick products? They’ve been training for years.
Be encouraged by that point. Once you have built your physique you will take great pride in the fact that you worked long and hard for it.
So the question is, “how do I establish, and maintain consistency?”
Consistency in the gym is all about creating a habit out of hitting the gym. If you can get yourself to the gym then the working out part will take care of itself.
Andrian has covered habit creation in great detail in an article titled “Getting immersed in the power of habit,” so I won’t go too deep into that subject. But I do want to speak specifically on some tactics that I know of people using to establish the habit of hitting the gym.
G et your workout clothes ready and sit them at the door before you go to sleep at night. This is for those who train in the morning. This way you’ll be forced to get out of bed to go to the door and get your clothes on. Put on your clothes and keep going right out the door. S et very specific short term goals. Being specific will allow you to narrow your focus and ignore all the noise. Short term goals will light a fire under your butt while long term goals make procrastination D on’t do too much too quickly. Too many people take an all or nothing mentality to fitness. Starting with a 6 day/week training schedule leaves you nowhere to build to and will burn you out more quickly. Start off small and build from there. H ave some fun. The best way to keep yourself going to the gym is to actually enjoy yourself while you’re there. This will take some experimentation on your part, but you have to find a particular niche that you have fun with. Whatever you find enjoyment in, use it to push yourself into that weight room every day.
Routines, Programming, and Splits
Okay, on to the bodybuilding part.
Definition of some major terms:
Routine: a way of defining one specific workout’s structure.
Programming: how a group of workouts is structured to lead to the accomplishment of a particular goal.
Splits: refers to how a lifter strategically splits up his or her workouts into a program.
Splits vary as greatly as all the people using them. Splits related questions are often some of the first questions beginners have.
How often do I work a body part during the week? Research suggests twice per week or once every three days [1].
Can I hit a body part on consecutive days? Yes, but eventually you’ll have to allow that muscle to rest if you want it to grow [2].
What’s the best split? There isn’t one, plain and simple. Different ones work to varying degrees for different people. I do, however, have a tweak to improve the flexibility of a split.
But before I get to my suggestion, here’s some definitions of traditional splits and tips to improve them.
Upper/Lower
Upper body one day, lower body the next.
Good for beginners because of its’ simplicity, those who can’t make it to the gym often, and women. Women recover from weight training better than men, and can do many workouts for their upper and lower bodies per week [3].
. Do more pulling than pushing on your upper body days. Doing too much pushing will ruin your posture.
Stick to the big compound movements.
BodyPart/Bro Splits
The bodybuilders’ split of choice
These vary greatly from lifter to lifter. There is no right or wrong way.
Powerlifting
Each training day is normally focused around a particular movement and strengthening that movement.
Rest is extremely important here. If enough rest does not occur, then strength gains will cease and you may even get weaker.
Lower, Push, Pull (LPP)
Very good for people who are power builders.
Very simple, like Upper/Lower, but the extra training day allows a lifter to put more focus on a greater array of movements or goals.
On to my tweak. The average split does not afford you the ability to miss a training day. Why? Let’s say you were supposed to train your chest on Tuesday, and you were unable to make it to the gym. The question becomes what to do with that missed training day.
“Do I not train my chest at all this week? Maybe I should just train my chest tomorrow, but that’s back day. What do I do about back day?”
So, my suggestion is to not schedule workouts for particular days. Come up with an order that you would like to schedule consistent training days with. Decide what the training sessions will look like each day, but do not schedule for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.
I’ve dubbed this the “On Any Given Day split.” Here’s an example:
Day 1: Push
Day 2: Pull
Day 3: Legs
Day 4: Rest (as needed)
Day 5: Rest or Repeat
Let’s say that you had to run an errant on day 2 and you forgot about it. No biggie, with this little tweak you don’t even have to think about it. Just push all of your schedule forward, and move on.
Frequency – How often you work a particular muscle or movement
As discussed before, research dictates that working a muscle twice per week is better for muscle growth than once per week. You can absolutely make progress training a muscle once per week, but, if you are concerned with optimizing your progress, twice per week is the way to go.
Here’s an example of how this would work in a body part split.
Day 1: Chest/Triceps/Shoulders
Day 2: Upper Back/Lats/Biceps
Day 3: Upper Legs/Lower Legs
Day 4: Rest
Day 5: Chest/Triceps/Shoulders
Day 6: Upper Back/Lats/Biceps
Day 7: Upper Legs/Lower Legs
Keep in mind this is only an example. There are tons of ways to customize a program like this to your own goals and needs.
Rep – Short for repetition. Refers to a single execution of an exercise
“How many reps should I do on this exercise?”
Another common question. More specifically, people tend to wonder about what rep range is the best.
The research shows that all rep ranges have their merits [4]. There is also a wealth of research that suggests that different loads, and different intensities affect the various regions of a muscle.
Researchers have found that they can cause growth in specific portions of the muscle with heavier or lighter weights [5].
Rep ranges of 1 – 5, 6 – 8, 9 – 12, and 25 – 50 can cause growth. So employ all of them.
Sets – An amount of reps done in succession
“How many sets should I do?”
There’s no right or wrong answer to this question. My suggestion is to do sets in relation to the amount of reps you are doing in the set. We are trying to build our body here. Bodybuilding requires that muscle should be subject to enough tension.
Let’s say you are doing sets in the rep range of 1 – 5. The amount of time that the muscle will be under tension will not be very long with a rep range that short. So, doing more sets may be required to get the desired muscle building effect.
Doing a set of 50 reps will place a muscle under tension for a very long time. So only 1 or 2 sets will be needed.
Volume – The total amount of work that is being done in a given routine
You need to be tracking your volume. Period. Why? Because it is the best way to measure your progress. We can’t really measure how much muscle we’ve gained, but we can measure volume easily.
Also, measuring volume is how we ensure that progressive overload is occurring in our program.
So how do you track volume? I prefer the old fashioned way, pencil and paper. But there are some great apps that get the job done like jefit.
Here is the volume formula:
Weight X Sets X Reps = Volume
Employ this formula and then write it at the bottom of each exercise that you do.
Now when you go back to that exercise again make sure the volume has gone up. This could mean adding weight, an extra set, or more reps per set.
Progressive Overload – The rule that states that workouts should consistently get harder
The human body, just like the human mind, is very good at adapting. Adaptation is the body’s way of maintaining homeostasis and keeping you alive for as long as possible.
Your body alone will do just enough to adapt to stress and then no more. This is why it takes consistency and time to build an impressive physique. So, how do you combat homeostasis? With the law of progressive overload.
Here are a few ways of employing the law of progressive overload:
Add more weight
Do more sets.
Do more reps.
Slow down each rep. Instead of lowering and lifting the weight as quickly as possible. Try lowering the weight for about 3 seconds.
Have you ever heard someone say that you have to alter exercises in order to confuse your muscles? Confusing your muscles is a misinterpretation of the law of progressive overload. Yes, you should vary your workouts, but that variation should come in the form of difficulty, not changing exercises for the sake of changing.
The art of exercise selection
There is no hard science or formula when it comes to picking out the best exercises. But, there is a way for a beginner to come up with the right exercises for their particular goals. It involves two steps:
Ask yourself, “what do I want to achieve with this exercise?” Try to be as specific as possible. An example would be, I want the entirety of my legs to get bigger.
Find out if there is a single exercise that can bring the achievement you seek. The answer mostly depends on the function of the muscle.
Compound Vs. Isolation Movements
Compound movements are a better use of your time [6]. Not only research tells us this, but so do many successful bodybuilders.
Why are compound movements better than isolation?
Growing your muscles is all about damaging the muscle to the extent that it will repair itself stronger and larger than before. Causing damage is all about applying tension and stress to the muscle throughout its functional range of motion.
Compound movements can take multiple muscles through their functional range of motion. Let’s use the bench press as an example.
When you touch your chest with the barbell and then press the weight back up, your triceps, chest, and the front of your shoulders all contract.
Also, compound movements allow a lifter to use far more weight than he would be able to use in an isolation exercise.
Think of your muscles as a group of people who work together to lift something. If only one muscle is recruited then it cannot lift as much as three muscles working in collaboration.
Causing damage is about applying tension. Heavier weights equal greater tension on the muscles recruited, thus leading to greater growth.
You’re probably thinking one of two things right now.
So, should I never do an isolation exercise? I saw the big guy at my gym doing a bunch of isolation exercises, and he’s gigantic!
You should absolutely do isolation exercises, but isolation has its place. Compound movements have holes. So use isolation exercises as a way of patching up the holes in your routine.
Example: The functional anatomy of the triceps is to extend your elbows. However, one of the heads of the tricep works harder when you extend your elbows and your shoulders are in flexion.
This function of the tricep is missed by any pressing movement that you might do. If you want overall tricep development and big ol’ arms, you need to do an overhead extension or skull crusher movement.
If you ever come across the notorious “isolation vs. compound” debate, you know that both have their purpose in a good routine.
In Closing
I did my best to keep all of these concepts as simple as possible, but I understand that it may take a bit of time for all of this to set in for a complete beginner.
Therefore, I took the liberty of putting together a week long program for you. This is a general program that is aimed at highlighting all of the concepts in this article. If you have any questions please let me know in the comment sections below.
Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7 Legs Push Pull Rest Legs Push Pull Squat 6 sets x 3 reps Bench Press 4 sets x 5 reps Chin-Up 4 sets x 3-8 reps - Squat (add 10 lbs) 6 sets x 3 reps Bench Press (add 5 lbs.) 4 sets x 5 reps Chin-Up (try to add 1 more rep to the total that you achieved last time) 4 sets x 3-8 reps Leg Extension 3 sets x 15 reps Lying Lateral Raise 3-4 sets x 20-30 reps Cable Pullover 3 sets x 8-12 reps - Leg Extension (use the same weight but do each rep slowly) 3 sets x 15 reps Lying Lateral Raise (do at least 3 more reps on each set than you did last time you completed this exercise) 3-4 sets x 20-30 reps Cable Pullover (add 5 lbs) 3 sets x 8-12 reps Hamstring Curl 3-4 sets x 15 reps Face Pull 3 sets x 12-15 reps Lying DB Shrug 3 sets x 8-12 reps - Hamstring Curl (use the same weight but each rep more slowly) 3 sets x 15 reps Face Pull (do at least 3 more reps on each set than you did last time you completed this exercise) 3 sets x 12-15 reps Lying DB Shrug (slow down each rep) 3 sets x 8-12 reps Standing Calve Raise 5 sets x 15 reps Overhead Tricep Extension (focus on stretching) 3-4 sets x 6-8 reps Standard Barbell Curl 3-4 sets x 6-8 reps - Standing Calve Raise (use the same weight.) 4 sets x 20 reps Overhead Tricep Extension (slow down each rep) 3 sets x 6-8 reps Standard Barbell Curl (slow down each rep) 3 sets x 6-8 reps - Tricep Pushdown (focus on contraction) 3-4 sets x 6-8 Hammer Curl 3-4 sets x 8-12 - - Tricep Pushdown (slow down each rep) 3 sets x 6-8 Hammer Curl (slow down each rep) 3 sets x 8-12
You can subscribe to Tyler’s personal blog at www.wilfredofitness.com.
References:
[1] Exercise dosing to retain resistance training adaptations in young and older adults.
[2] Recovery in training: The essential ingredient.
[3] Effect of reduced training frequency on mascular strength.
[4] Rep out: The truth about rep ranges and muscle growth.
[5] Low-Load High Volume Resistance Exercise Stimulates Muscle Protein Synthesis More Than High-Load Low Volume Resistance Exercise in Young Men.
[6] Effect of adding single-joint exercises to a multi-joint exercise resistance-training program on strength and hypertrophy in untrained subjects.TORONTO — The CEO of Hydro One insists he’s not concerned that Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives asked police to investigate allegations the utility misled the ombudsman about the extent of its billing problems.
[np_storybar title=”David Reevely: Ontario’s solution to Hydro One’s ‘abominable’ service is to silence the messenger” link=”http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/david-reevely-ontarios-solution-to-hydro-ones-abominable-service-is-to-silence-the-messenger”%5D
Hydro One’s indifference to tens of thousands of customer complaints about a disastrous new billing system is proof it can’t be trusted to clean up its own messes, says Ontario Ombudsman André Marin.
Read more …
[/np_storybar]
The Tories asked the Ontario Provincial Police to investigate allegations by Ombudsman Andre Marin that Hydro One misled the government and lied about erroneous bills sent to tens of thousands of customers.
Hydro One CEO Carmine Marcello says he’s really disappointed to hear the official opposition asked for |
for multiple seasons. Additionally, he’ll be the quarterback in Miami for at least two more years so there’s the chance for him to break his own records as time flows on.
The other most interesting quarterback on this list is Cam Newton. He has taken 51 of these sacks. The least amount he’s had in a season is eight. His percentage is 27.57%, which is the 16th highest of all time. It’s also not something he’s gotten better at avoiding. Last season he was taken down eleven times for an enormous loss. With his strength he tries to get out of every sack instead of just going down. Sometimes it works, and sometimes the defender wrestles him to the ground. When it doesn’t work, he ends up taking one of the big sacks. He’s also just 27 and his style of play shouldn’t change any time soon. If anyone is going to take Farve’s record away from him it will be Newton.
Rather than just look at raw totals let’s look at the percentage of sacks that are deep losses. To do this, I looked at quarterbacks with a sample of ten sacks or more taken, and then searched by % of deep sacks taken. Bad quarterbacks get the boot and never get the chance to fill the stat sheet with these type of plays. This is why the rate is better than the raw total when trying to find the quarterbacks who are the best at doing this awful thing.
% of Big SACKSNumber of Big sacks% of big sacksAvg Yards lost per sackCase Keenum1246.15%9.38Danny Kanell2133.87%8.13Stan Humphries2832.94%8.21Chris Simms1632.65%7.37Luke McCown1132.35%7.97
There are times where the universe makes perfect sense. The planets in the solar system directly align, the bouncing square floating around the DVD player’s sleep mode fits exactly in the corner of the television, and your feet matching the rhythm of the drum when running are all examples of this. Yet, nothing maybe more spectacular than this moment. When Case Keenum takes a sack 46.15% of the time it’s going to be for a loss of 10 yards or more. That’s insane. On average he loses 9.38 yards. That’s so beautiful. Kanell, Humphries, Simms, and McCown are cool and all, but this paragraph doesn’t need to be filled with words that diminish what Keenum has done.
Deep sacks, big sacks, enormous sacks, all don’t have a nice ring to it. The common way losers who write about sports on the internet solve this problem is by naming their breakthrough after a player. In this case, there’s really two guys who you can name it after. Case Keenum, whose fever dream 2013 inspired this research and is the all time leader in percentage of sacks being a deep loss, or Ryan Tannehill, the single season leader who will get two more seasons to try to break 17. This is a big responsibility, and each record they have is remarkable. Let’s watch some plays real quick.
It has to be named after Keenum. When Keenum takes a Keenum it’s a thing of disastrous beauty. He drops back aimlessly like a quarter spinning across a table. He twirls to run away. He still has yet to learn that players can rush from his blindside. And getting the ball out quickly is an idea that’s never stuck between his ears. Tanehill’s on the other hand are a combination of poor blocking, unblocked blitzers and freezing in the face of pressure. He will stand in the pocket and wait for the bus to careen into him. There’s nothing fun or funny about turning a deer made of stone in the middle of the road into smears and splatter. It’s just sad. Everyone of his make me say to myself, “That poor bastard.” Keenum’s however, are a self-inflicted mess of incompetence.
When the fall arrives and it is football time again, there are going to be thousands of things I’m going to be excited for. But right now there’s nothing that gets me dreaming of September like the opportunity to watch Keenum take a bunch of Keenums as the full-time starter in Los Angeles next season.Image caption Joy Abuh's husband was killed in an attack blamed on herdsmen
Farms have been built on ancient routes of a semi-nomadic community in Nigeria, causing violence that has already claimed hundreds of lives this year.
Cradling her baby son, Benjamin, Joy Abuh stares intently when she talks about the moment her life changed forever.
"The herdsmen shot my husband as he was riding his motorbike," she told me matter-of-factly. "They then used a machete to hack him to death."
She says his body was found in the bush several days later.
It was so badly decomposed that villagers buried it before Mrs Abuh had the chance to see her husband for the last time.
Locals in Agatu district in Nigeria's central Benue state say Fulani herdsmen killed dozens of people during a string of attacks this spring.
Many homes were set on fire and reduced to piles of bricks.
Some of the villagers are still recovering from their injuries: I saw one man hobbling along on crutches as a result of a gunshot wound.
Image caption Semi-nomadic herdsmen oppose the growth of farming communities
Image copyright AFP Image caption The Fulani herdsmen say they have less grazing land for their cattle
The attack in Agatu was one of the most serious in Nigeria this year.
These types of clashes between herdsmen and farmers are increasingly common in some parts of the country as the struggle over grazing rights and access to water becomes more acute.
The violence is largely blamed on Fulani herdsmen, a semi-nomadic group who roam areas in West and Central Africa.
'Sophisticated weapons'
During the dry season in Nigeria, herdsmen begin the long migration from the northern states to the country's central region in search of grazing pastures for their cattle.
It is a journey the herdsmen, often young boys, have been making for centuries.
Following well-established routes, they often return to the same areas.
But land that was once unclaimed and, therefore, free to graze on is now being farmed, frequently triggering clashes.
Hundreds of people have been killed in the violence in 2016.
Who are the Fulanis?
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Nigeria is divided along ethnic and religious lines
They are believed to be the largest semi-nomadic group in the world and are found across West and Central Africa - from Senegal to the Central African Republic
In Nigeria, some continue to live as semi-nomadic herders, while other have moved to cities
Unlike the more integrated city dwellers, the nomadic groups spend most of their lives in the bush and are the ones largely involved in these clashes
They herd their animals across vast areas, frequently clashing with farming communities
They are often linked with another group, the Hausas, having lived together for a very long time. Some refer to the Hausa-Fulanis but they are different groups
The Fulanis played a key role in 19th Century revival of Islam in Nigeria
Nigeria's Fulani herdsmen
Farmers accuse the Fulani of failing to control their cattle and of damaging crops. In turn, the Fulani accuse farmers of stealing their cattle.
The Fulani insist they are only trying to defend themselves and preserve their traditional way of life.
"In the past you graze anywhere, you didn't come into contact with farms. But now you're forced to herd cattle along the road," says Isa Mosham Sarkin, a local Fulani leader in neighbouring Nasarawa state.
"People are saying that Fulani are a threat to the nation. But we're not the ones causing the problems - it is some farmers."
Image copyright Reuters Image caption Nomadic Fulani herdsmen spend most of their lives in the bush
Image caption Farmers are scared of being attacked
Some observers fear that unless the issues are addressed the clashes could become more violent.
Growing insecurity and the effects of climate change are making a bad situation even worse, says Israel Okpe, from Pastoral Resolve, an organisation that promotes conflict resolution between farmers and the Fulani.
"Both sides are becoming more armed, they are preparing for anything," says Mr Okpe.
"We don't know where the weapons are coming from but they are sophisticated."
Behind the competition for land:
Image copyright AFP Image caption Nigeria has suffered for years with communal violence, often linked to cattle raiding
Growing population - Nigeria's population could more than double to 440 million by 2050 according to the UN
Greater insecurity - the breakdown of law and order is pushing herdsmen and farmers towards more populated areas
Climate change - droughts are pushing herdsmen into areas their cattle previously did not graze.
The violence is also playing into the country's politics, which frequently breaks down along ethnic lines.
President Muhammadu Buhari, a Fulani, has been accused of turning a blind eye to the problem, sparking a public outcry.
In response, the government ordered security forces to crack down on cattle rustlers.
The government is also discussing plans to station security guards on farms and open up special cattle ranches where the herdsmen's cattle would be allowed to graze.
'Spinning out of control'
But critics say that will mean forcing farmers to give up land they already control, sparking further resistance.
For rice farmer, Rotimi Williams, there is only one solution: Farmers and the Fulani will need to find a way to share the land.
When 20 hectares (49 acres) of his rice paddies were ruined in February, he admits he was furious.
Some of his labourers were ready to take up arms. But he decided on a different approach.
Instead of lashing out, he hired the Fulani herdsman who caused the damage to provide security.
He then employed dozens of women from the nearby Fulani village to work in the fields.
"We need a pragmatic approach where we learn to resolve conflicts with our neighbours," he says.
"The situation is spinning out of control. Everyone is scared of herdsmen. But if you give them respect then you get respect in turn."
Respect and resolutions, however, are rare on the ground between farmers and the herdsmen.
And with the demand for land growing the violence may only intensify.While the recent anime Monster Musume: Everyday Life With Monster Girls has made inter-species relationships an endless parade of fun and games, things are much more complicated for those in such relationships. For a closer look at this growing phenomena, Anime Maru sat down with several men in Tokyo who are currently in long-term relationships with monster girls.
Anime Maru: Thank you for taking time from your busy day to sit down and speak with us. To begin, why don’t you tell our readers a little about yourselves and your experience with the growing trend of humans dating outside their own species.
Akira Kotobuki.: Well, not too long ago I began dating a Lamia, that being the name we humans use for snake-people, named Karin, who I met at a bar a few months ago. She’s a nice girl, but just a little too affectionate in public sometimes. Otherwise though? Things are pretty good, at least when it comes to our relationship itself.The sex though…that’s another thing entirely.
Yuki Miyamoto.: I’ve been dating a slime girl for nearly three months now. She’s a sweet girl…quite literally sometimes, if she eats too much fruit, or fruit-flavored drinks.
Masaru Fukui: My girlfriend is a silkworm-type, she’s nice, but I really wish she’d stop spitting up silk all over me while she sleeps.
Koki Hirano: My girlfriend is a dragon, like a literal one, not a monster girl.
Anime Maru: Could you tell us a little bit about your sex life, if you don’t mind?
Akira: Not at all, Karin and I are pretty open about this sort of thing. You see, when Lamia mate they coil each others tails and writhe all over the place until all is said and done. But when a human is in the mix…things start to get hairy, or scaly, as it were. The first time we did it, she wrapped her tail around me so tightly that she broke three of my ribs, one of my legs, and my left shoulder, I was in the hospital for a week! On top of all of that, it took me nearly three weeks, reading a library’s worth of books, and a few lessons from Karin herself to learn where her genitalia were even located.
Yuki: I pretty much just stick it in wherever she wants it, which is pretty much anywhere but her head. I’ve been told that Slimes can reproduce from the slightest amount of genetic material entering their body, so I always use a condom when we have sex…. not that I mind the idea of having a cute kid worth exactly one EXP, but I’m not ready yet.
Masaru: She’s really into bondage and tends to wrap me in silk restraints at least once a week. Its fun, but it really get boring after awhile. As for regular sex? I have no idea how it works with a bug-person like her, maybe when she grow up into a moth we’ll find something else to do for fun.
Koki: She’s 50 feet tall. I just sort of pet her head and that’s it. (Sighs)
Anime Maru: So, Mr. Akira, where is snake genitalia anyway?
Akira: Well it isn’t where you’d expect them to be. I thought from all of those dirty manga and anime it’d be just like being with a human girl but more scaly. But all she had down there was scales, and when I asked, Karin politely taught me that female Lamia don’t have a vagina, instead they have a cloaca, which is a sort of dual use organ near the middle of their tail that acts that both an anus and vagina.
Anime Maru: Moving on then… what are your girlfriends like outside the bedroom?
Akira: If I had to use one word to describe Karin it’d be energetic. She always gung-ho to get up and hit the town every weekend and does so with more zeal then you’d expect from a girl that weighs almost 400lbs. (Don’t ever mention her weight by the way, she doesn’t like that.) Besides that, she’s like pretty much every other girl I’ve ever met. She likes to do thing like shop, cuddle, and eat a whole tub’s worth of ice cream when she’s sad. The cuddling is nice, but we have to have a safe word in place so she doesn’t break a part of me, or suffocate me to death.
Yuki: My girl is mostly quiet. She can’t really talk, since she lacks actual vocal cords, so I’ve taught her sign language over the last few months. Since then, I’ve learned she’s really into reading classical eastern European literature, but her wet body always ruins the books when she tries to read them, which makes her very sad. To solve the problem I got her an E-Reader and she’s never been happier.
Masaru: Aside from the bondage? She really likes making art from her silk. She has this little site on Etsy where she sells dolls, clothing, bedding, and every other possible thing you could think of out of silk. The stuff is all super top quality and, if I can put a little plug in here, you should all check it out if you’re into really soft stuff.
Koki: She likes flying around, stealing treasure, and setting people on fire. I don’t approve, but I doubt she cares.
Anime Maru: Are any of your other friends in relationships with monster girls?
Akira: A few, the whole thing is pretty taboo around here even with the recent upswing of media depicting mixed-species couples. I do know one guy who is dating this adorable little harpy that can’t be more then five feet tall. I hear things are going great, but every time I see him his whole body is cover in scratches and gashes, and I’ve got to wonder what those two do at night to cause such a thing.
Anime Maru: What do you all think of anime and manga like Monster Musume?
Akira: I think they’ve been good for the community overall, because they serve to show positive depiction of inter-species relationships. But at the same it creates false expectations as well. We’ve got waves of fat, ugly, foul smelling type hitting on monster girls in the grossest ways possible and expect it to be okay! I mean just the other day I saw a grown man in a PreCure t-shirt slap a centaur on the ass as if it were completely normal! Of course she then kicked him twenty feet into the air, but the point stands. I’m not saying its the fault of the author of MonMusu that this sort of stuff happens so often, but it certainly isn’t helping either.
Yuki: My girl really dislikes Suu, she is simply not a good representation of the slime race. She even went so far as to protest the show in Akihabara last summer while the TV anime was airing. She really believes strongly in breaking stereotypes.
Masaru: We both thought it was hilarious, but they really could have used a few more insect girls in the mix.
Koki: I wasn’t able to watch it, me and the girl were taking a holiday in Europe looking for a castle to store her massive treasure trove.
Anime Maru: So before we go, what are you and your girlfriend’s plans for the future?
Akira: She wants to have kids and get married someday. I know that for sure. But first I’m going to have to figure out if A. if either of those things are even possible and B. If Lamia lay eggs or not. Once I figure those things out, we’ll see what happens next.
Yuki: For now, we’re both working on learning to understand each other more. Once that’s done, I think I’d like to get married.
Masaru: We’re waiting till she becomes a moth before taking anything further, but I’d like to get married and have a nice honeymoon to.
Koki: I’m really looking forward holding a small nation in thrall in the future with her.Under the watchful eye of the prison guards at Metro Davidson County Detention Facility, half a dozen inmates in blue overalls are wrestling with prosthetic legs. They strip each one down into a collection of screws, bolts, connectors, feet and other components. The prison workshop is home to a collaboration with Standing With Hope, a US charity based in Nashville, Tennessee that recycles unwanted prosthetic limbs for the developing world. The disassembled legs will be shipped to Ghana, where locally trained clinicians will rebuild them to fit patients there.
These legs will get a second life, but other types of prosthetics and implants usually face a different destiny. What to do with augmented human parts when they are no longer needed – often due to the owner’s death – is an increasingly common issue. Modern medicine offers a litany of replacement parts, from whole limbs to metal hips, shoulders and joints. Then there are pacemakers and internal cardiac defibrillators (ICDs), as well as more common augmentations like dentures and silicone breast implants. What happens to these augmentations when someone dies?
Inert devices such as breast implants and replacement hips tend not to be removed after death, largely because there’s no compelling reason to do so, and they pose little threat to the environment. So it’s likely that the archaeologists of future centuries will uncover peculiar objects in the graves of the millennial dead: silicone bags, plastic teeth and sculpted metal bones.
It’s a different story for cremation. In a furnace, silicone may burn up, but not the metal in implants – such as titanium or cobalt alloy. It is often separated from the ash and disposed of separately. Even tiny amounts of precious metals such as gold fillings can be discovered by waving a metal-detector over the ashes.
In recent years, enterprising organisations have stepped in to recycle this material. Dutch company Orthometals, for example, collects 250 tonnes of metal every year from hundreds of crematoriums around Europe. At their facility in Steenbergen, it is sorted and melted down into ingots before being sold to the automobile and aeronautical industries. A similar US company, Implant Recycling, sells the melted and recast metals back into the medical industry. After you die, a little piece of you may one day end up in an aeroplane, a wind turbine, or even another person.
Pacemakers and ICDs, by contrast, are often taken out of the body after death – and almost always before cremation, because the batteries can explode when heated. The same goes for spinal cord stimulators that treat pain and some types of internal pumps for administering drugs, since they contain electronics too.
Once removed, implants are typically discarded – both the European Union and the US, among others, have rules that forbid the reuse of implanted medical devices. However, there is a growing trend to recover them for use in the developing world.
At $4,000 for a pacemaker and $20,000 for an ICD, a second-hand implant is the only way that millions of people will be able to afford this life-saving equipment. In the UK, charity Pace4Life collects functioning pacemakers from funeral parlours for use in India. In a similar effort, the journal Annals of Internal Medicine recently published the results of a US programme called Project My Heart Your Heart, which found that 75 patients who received second-hand ICDs showed no evidence of infection or malfunction. The group are now applying for FDA approval to send recycled heart devices overseas.
Back in Nashville, Standing With Hope has adopted a similar approach by shipping prosthetic limbs to Ghana. The charity’s co-founder, Gracie Rosenberger, was badly injured in a traffic accident at 17, an incident which cost her both legs. Like many amputees, Gracie acquired a stockpile of prosthetics over the years, which made her wonder whether they could be put to better use. As limbs are replaced or outgrown, the old ones gather dust in the backs of closets. When an amputee passes away, the family are often left with a cache of working limbs but no one to take them.
“The private insurers do not want it back, I don’t even think Medicare wants it back,” explains Rosenberger’s husband Peter, who is president of Standing With Hope. “There are all kinds of liabilities. So a lot of this stuff is discarded, unfortunately.”
Now amputees and their families can send old limbs in the mail to the Rosenbergers. When asking for donations, Standing With Hope’s website reads: “We’re not asking for an arm and a leg... just a leg”.
The goal is to beat last year’s total of 500 replacement limbs delivered to Ghana. “Last year I had a thing I called Operation Footloose, and on my radio show I would play the theme from Footloose and say ‘turn that foot loose so we can recycle it’,” Peter laughs.
Just like organ donors, those that bequeath their medical implants can bid farewell to the world with the knowledge they offer a stranger a second chance at life, be it a man with a heart defect in India, a woman undergoing a hip replacement in America, or a child with a missing limb in Ghana. And it’s not just donors and recipients that have something to gain from the process. The Metro Davidson County Detention Facility is just a few minutes’ drive from Peter’s home, and every so often he visits the inmates working in the limb disassembly workshop. As they chatted, one prisoner told Peter what the Standing With Hope project meant to him. “He had tears in his eyes and said to me: ‘I get to do something positive for the first time with my hands. I’ve never done anything positive with my hands’,” Peter recalls. “How rewarding is that?”
If you would like to comment on this, or anything else you have seen on Future, head over to our Facebook or Google+ page, or message us on Twitter.THERE could be a hidden city frozen underneath Antarctica, according to shock claims.
The huge continent is an icy mass, and is currently only inhabited by scientific researchers and penguins thanks to its freezing temperatures.
David Demaret 3 An artist's view of what an ancient civilisation could look like on the continent of Antarctica
Rumours of a hidden city have been floating about for years, as conspiracy theorists and even some scientists claim the freezing continent is actually the home of the legendary Lost City of Atlantis.
One scientific theory claims that once upon a time Antarctica was ice-free and home to an ancient civilisation.
RELATED STORIES Exclusive FREEZE WILLY Antarctic explorer reveals he's suffering chilling condition known as 'Polar Penis' with nether regions in agony Video GREAT PYRAMID OF FREEZER Scientists are baffled by these Google Earth images of a pyramid poking out of the icy wastes of Antarctica CHILLY BUGGERS Brit scientists head to Antarctica where they face three months of darkness and -55C winds in climate study Latest ASTRONAUT STRICKEN Buzz Aldrin, second man on moon, 86, evacuated from South Pole after falling ill on trip to Antarctica POLAR TRAGEDY Brit scientist and leading expert on climate change killed after his snowmobile plunged 100ft down crevasse
The theory, called crustal displacement, alleges that movements in the Earth's crust meant that large parts of Antarctica were ice-free 12,000 years ago and people could have lived there.
Allegedly, a society could have existed 'prehistory', coming to an end with the last Ice Age which froze over the continent.
And this could have been Atlantis, a mythical city founded by people who were half god and half human which was first mentioned by Greek philosopher Plato in 360BC.
Speculation over the location of the legendary long-lost city is rife, with others believing it to have been near the Greek island of Santorini.
Antarctica's secret city was apparently '"confirmed" by an ancient map called the Piri Reis map, compiled in 1513 from military intelligence.
It appears to show the Antarctic coast hundreds of years before it was discovered, but was denounced by many scholars at the time.
However, earlier this year photos from NASA appeared to reveal traces of a human settlement underneath the ice.
Epa 3 Conspiracy theorists believe that there could be an ancient city hidden underneath the ice of Antarctica
The pictures, taken using remote sensing photography for NASA's Operation IceBridge mission to Antarctica, show what online sleuths believe could be a city.
Google Earth images also appeared to show a pyramid poking out of the tundra, with enthusiasts claiming that it is proof humanity once lived in the area and built a man-made structure.
The fascinating discovery comes just weeks after scientists revealed the Earth could be heading for another mini ice age caused by the Sun "going blank".
Conspiracy theorists went wild earlier this year when a video claiming to be from the lost city emerged.
It appeared to show extensive ancient ruins hidden in the ice, and was a video supposedly 'left behind' by a California TV crew who have been missing since 2002.
Archaeologist Jonathan Gray claimed that the US government is trying to block the video from being seen because it reveals there is a "massive archaeological dig under way two miles beneath the ice".
But that's not the wildest claim - with several online websites claiming that there is a city in Antarctica and HITLER knew about it, making it a secret Nazi base.
The wild claims state that the Nazis claimed an area of Antarctica as German territory and sent an expedition there.
3 Artists impression of a doorway to Atlantis, which is claimed to be the lost city underneath Antarctica
They then allegedly mapped the area and discovered a network of rivers and caves, one of which led to a large geothermal lake.
A city-sized base was built there, called "Base 22 or New Berlin", and supposedly was home to not only Nazis but also the Illuminati.
However, things get even weirder, with suggestions that the Germans discovered abandoned alien technology OR contacted aliens, and used it to make super weapons.
And some people think the rumoured base still exists, with the Germans, aliens, and the Illuminati planning to launch a New World Order from it.
In October, explorers discovered the remnants of a secret Nazi base hidden deep in the Arctic, just 600 miles from the North Pole.
Whatever beings may be inhabiting the base, they'll need to make sure to wrap up warm - with one unlucky Antarctic explorer revealing this week he is suffering from the painful-sounding condition Polar Penis.
We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at tips@the-sun.co.uk or call 0207 782 4368Tallest penguin species at risk from climate change melting ice, which could wipe out third of Antarctic population by 2100
The entire population of Antarctica's famous emperor penguins could fall by a third by the end of the century because of disappearing sea ice, putting them at risk of extinction, researchers said on Sunday.
The finding justified protecting emperor penguins under the endangered species act – as America already does for polar bear – the researchers writing in the journal Nature Climate Change said.
They also called for marine reserves to buffer the fish stocks penguin need to survive.
“The population is declining. Unless something changes to stop that, the population will go into extinction,” said Hal Caswell, senior scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, and one of the authors.
As a top predator in Antarctica, the main threat to emperor penguins’ survival comes from climate change which is melting the sea ice.
The loss of sea ice is reducing the supply of krill, the tiny shrimp-like crustaceans that populate the Southern Ocean, and are the emperor penguins’ main food source. Young krill feed off of algae living in the sea ice. When the ice goes, so do the krill.
Changes in the ice around Antarctica may - in the short term - boost some of the emperor penguin populations, especially along the Ross Sea, the researchers said. Sea ice off the western coast of Antarctica has been on the increase, because of break-up of glaciers and winds.
But by 2100, all 45 known emperor penguin colonies of Antarctica will be on the decline because of loss of sea ice. Those located on the coasts of the eastern Weddell Sea and the western Indian Ocean will show the sharpest drops. Nine colonies are projected to be “quasi-extinct”, the researchers said.
Global number of breeding pairs of emperor penguins from 2009 to 2100. The red line is the median and the grey area is the 90% envelope from stochastic simulations of population trajectories. Photograph: /Nature Climate Change
Other studies have raised the threat to emperor penguins under climate change, suggesting the ordinarily hardy 3ft animals are susceptible to rising heat. Smaller penguins like the Chinstrap and Adelie are also at risk from warming.
Researchers from the University of Minnesota last week suggested some emperor penguins may be better equipped to adapt to changing ice conditions than previously thought, by moving their colonies.
But the Woods Hole researchers said their study was the first to forecast a population decline across all of Antarctica. Their study also suggested there was little scope for penguins to adapt to the changing ice conditions.
The researchers said the findings called for urgent measures to help the penguins survive – such as legal protections under America’s endangered species act and the creation of marine reserves off Antarctica.
“Implementing a marine protected area in the Ross Sea could help buy time to avoid extinction and to put in place needed conservation and greenhouse gas mitigation strategies,” Stephanie Jenouvrier, lead author and a scientist at Woods Hole, said in a statement.
A marine reserve would potentially put large areas of ocean off-limits to fishing – reducing the pressure on krill stocks and giving the penguin a better chance at survival, said Andrea Kavanagh, director of global penguin conservation for the Pew Charitable Trusts.
“Given this new research, and what we already know about global temperatures warming and the changing climate, one of the things we should do immediately is put a marine reserve in place so we can make sure that we are not fishing in areas where the penguins need to forage for food,” she said. “It is one way of eliminating one more threat to the penguins.”
The study used observations from the colony at Terre Adelie in East Antarctica that has been extensively studied, and satellite data from other known colonies."Protar" redirects here. For scale model kit brand, see Tarquinio Provini
"ZEISS" redirects here. For the optician, see Carl Zeiss
Carl Zeiss ( German: [tsaɪs]),[3][4] branded as ZEISS, is a German manufacturer of optical systems, and industrial measurement and medical devices, founded in Jena, Germany in 1846 by optician Carl Zeiss. Together with Ernst Abbe (joined 1866) and Otto Schott (joined 1884) they built a base for modern optics and manufacturing. There are currently two parts of the company, Carl Zeiss AG located in Oberkochen with important subsidiaries in Aalen, Göttingen and Munich, and Carl Zeiss GmbH located in Jena.
Carl Zeiss AG is the premier company of the Zeiss Gruppe, one of the two large divisions of the Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung. The Zeiss Gruppe is located in Heidenheim and Jena. Also controlled by the Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung are the glass manufacturers Schott AG and Jenaer Glas, located in Mainz and Jena respectively. Carl Zeiss is one of the oldest existing optics manufacturers in the world.[citation needed]
Corporate history [ edit ]
First workshop of Carl Zeiss in the city center of Jena, c. 1847.
Carl Zeiss Jena (1910)
2 historical lenses Carl Zeiss, Jena, Nr. 145077 and Nr. 145078, Tessar 1:4,5 F=5,5cm DRP 142294 (produced before 1910).
Flektogon lens engraved merely "Jena", as exported to West Germany (1967) VEB Zeiss Jenalens engraved merely "Jena", as exported to West Germany (1967)
The manufacturer Zeiss in Göttingen
Carl Zeiss opened an optics workshop in Jena in 1846. By 1847 he was making microscopes full-time. By 1861 the Zeiss workshop was considered to be among the best scientific-instrument makers in Germany with about 20 people working in the company, and business growing quickly. By 1866 Zeiss sold their 1,000 th microscope. In 1872 physicist Ernst Abbe joined Zeiss and along with Otto Schott designed greatly improved lenses for the optical instruments they were producing. After Carl Zeiss's death in 1888, the business was incorporated as the Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung in 1889.
By World War I,[5] Zeiss was the world's largest location of camera production. Zeiss Ikon represented a significant part of the production along with dozens of other brands and factories, and also had major works at Dresden.
In 1928 Hensoldt AG was acquired by Carl Zeiss and has produced the Zeiss binoculars and riflescopes since 1964,[6] occasionally resulting in twin products being offered under both the Hensoldt and Zeiss brand names. The Hensoldt System Technology division (resulting from a merger of the military optics operations of Leica and Hensoldt) was continued by Zeiss under the Hensoldt name until 2006.
As part of Nazi Germany Zwangsarbeiter program, Zeiss used forced labour during the Second World War.[7][8] The destruction of the war caused many companies to divide into smaller subcompanies and others to merge. There was great respect for the engineering innovation that came out of Dresden—before the war the world's first 35 mm single-lens reflex camera, the Kine Exakta, and the first miniature camera with good picture quality were developed there.
At the end of the war, Jena was occupied by the US Army. When Jena and Dresden were incorporated into the Soviet occupation zone, later East Germany, some parts of Zeiss Jena were relocated by the US army to the Contessa manufacturing facility in Stuttgart, West Germany, while the remainder of Zeiss Jena was reestablished by the (Eastern) German Democratic Republic as Kombinat VEB Zeiss Jena.[9] As part of the World War II reparations, the Soviet army took most of the existing Zeiss factories and tooling back to the Soviet Union as the Kiev camera works.
The western business was restarted in Oberkochen (in southwestern Germany) as Opton Optische Werke Oberkochen GmbH in 1946, which became Zeiss-Opton Optische Werke Oberkochen GmbH in 1947, but was soon renamed to Carl Zeiss. West German Zeiss products were labelled Opton for sale in the Eastern bloc, while East German Zeiss products were labelled "Zeiss Jena" or simply "Jena" for sale in Western countries.
In 1973, the Western Carl Zeiss AG entered into a licensing agreement with the Japanese camera company Yashica to produce a series of high-quality 35 mm film cameras and lenses bearing the Contax and Zeiss brand names. This collaboration continued under Yashica's successor, Kyocera, until the latter ceased all camera production in 2005. Zeiss later produced lenses for the space industry and, more recently, has again produced high-quality 35 mm camera lenses. The eastern Zeiss Jena was also well known for producing high-quality products.
Following German reunification, VEB Zeiss Jena—reckoned as one of the few East German firms that was even potentially able to compete on a global basis—became Zeiss Jena GmbH, which became Jenoptik Carl Zeiss Jena GmbH in 1990. In 1991, Jenoptik Carl Zeiss Jena was split in two, with Carl Zeiss AG (Oberkochen) taking over the company's divisions for microscopy and other precision optics (effectively reuniting the pre-war Carl Zeiss enterprise) and moving its microscopy and planetarium divisions back to Jena. Jenoptik GmbH was split off as a specialty company in the areas of photonics, optoelectronics, and mechatronics.[10][11]
The Hensoldt AG was renamed Carl Zeiss Sports Optics GmbH on 1 October 2006.[12]
The companies of the Zeiss Gruppe in and around Dresden have branched into new technologies: screens and products for the automotive industry, for example.
Today, |
up” at the Republican national convention. Given the depth of Flynn’s connections with the Russians, his recent agreement to cooperate with the special counsel, Robert Mueller, was an especially significant development for nervous politicians at the White House.
How Trump walked into Putin’s web Read more
But what may be even more dangerous to Trump’s future is the recent report that Mueller has subpoenaed records of Trump’s dealings with Deutsche Bank. The last part of Harding’s book is devoted to Trump’s incredibly convoluted relationship with the German bank, which included defaulting on a $330m loan from its real estate division – and then settling that default by borrowing hundreds of millions more from the bank’s private equity division. Asked if “it was normal to give more money to a customer who was a bad credit risk... a former senior Deutsche bank staff member said: ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’” At the same time as the bank was engaging in these bizarre dealings with Trump, it was also laundering tens of billions of dollars for its Russian customers. The hundred billion dollar question for Mueller is, then, whether there was a connection between Trump’s loans and the Russians’ laundry.
The book leaves the strong impression that there has been so much unsavoury activity between Trump, the Russians and the German bank, that a talented lawyer such as Mueller (who has hired a dozen of the toughest prosecutors in the US) is almost certain to make a federal case out of it. As to the question of whether there was direct collusion between Trump and the Russians to get him elected, the last word should go to Adam Schiff, the senior Democrat on the House intelligence committee, and the public official who probably has the deepest and widest understanding of this scandal. On CNN Schiff recently declared: “We do know this. The Russians offered help. The campaign accepted help. The Russians gave help, and the president made full use of that help. And that is pretty damning whether it is proof beyond a reasonable doubt of a conspiracy or not.For those Zelda gamers out there who love to think that Nintendo actually does have this rich history behind the land of Hyrule and that all of the games are deeply interconnected, then Hyrule Historia is the gift that keeps on giving. While most of the Japanese Zelda fans will have already probed the vast tome of Zelda information already, we English-speakers are having a slower time of it as each page is painstakingly translated for us by fans.
And with the official timeline already revealed, some thought that that was all there was to be revealed. Not so! Zelda Universe forum member The Baton of the Wind revealed last night a connection between Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess that many theorists had been debating over for quite some time. However, now we can easily say with certainty that the Hero’s Shade from Twilight Princess is indeed OoT’s very own Hero of Time.
From Hyrule Historia, the text reads:
When Link first set foot in the Twilight, the crest of the Triforce of Courage shined on the back of his hand; when he returned to human-form he wore clothes the hero wore. Link is taught mysteries from the ghost of the hero of time. Since he returned to his childhood, he’d felt regret that he would leave his name as hero. Therefore, the “son” of Link speaks proof of the courage he inheirited mysteriously.
Looking back on it, the connection does seem pretty clear, though everything always seems 20/20 when you already know the answer. However, when you stop and think about the fact that Twilight Princess exists the only timeline in which the Hero of Time actually survives and exists makes it pretty clear that Miyamoto and Aonuma must have been doing some conspiring here all along to help tell a more cohesive Zelda timeline, even if all of the details weren’t actually revealed in-game but merely hinted at.
What other little secrets will we discover in this book? It certainly makes me hungry for an official translation!Chris Hayes on Wednesday asked the obvious question plenty of people still want answered: What, exactly, made President Bill Clinton apologize for signing a crime bill that he now declares "made the problem worse"? (Could it be, perhaps, that the bill made the problem worse?)
Hayes spoke with former Maryland Democratic representative Kweisi Mfume, who voted for the 1994 crime bill, who agreed that Clinton's comments might simply be the result of hindsight always being 20/20.
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"The president, in hindsight, makes a welcome sort of statement," Mfume said. "I think all of us have evolved over time to recognize that you can't bill your way out of crime, you can't incarcerate yourself out of it. It is long-term, and systemic issues have to be addressed."
Watch Hayes chat with Mfume below:If you want to read the full release notes, or grab the download, they can be found here:
Otherwise, read on for a quick overview of the new changes.
Hazelcast and JSR107
With this release, Hazelcast 3.4 has been integrated into Payara. Hazelcast is an In-Memory data grid, and is used in Payara as a clustered web session store and as the provider of the recently approved JSR107 (JCache).
JBatch
The JBatch module in Payara Server has been upgraded to version 1.0.1-b04, and now has MySQL, Oracle, DB2, and PostgreSQL persistence managers integrated into it. Also integrated is the ability to define a table prefix and suffix, as well as the ability to define a blank schema for JBatch; defining a blank schema allows you to configure and select the schema in the connection pool instead of directly within JBatch.
See our previous blog for a more in depth review of the work we’ve put into JBatch.
Payara-ML Distribution
We are additionally releasing Payara Server 4.1.151 with a Multi-Language (ml) option for the full and web distributions of Payara Server. These are packaged with the l10n packages from GlassFish, and so provide translations into German, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, South Korean (ko), Brazilian Portuguese (pt-BR), Simplified Chinese (zh_CN), and Taiwanese Mandarin (zh_TW).
We decided against including internet translations for any of our additions, as they are typically only accurate when translating simple sentences and single words, so you may find certain sections of Payara are only in English. If you speak any of these languages, please feel free to help us fix these gaps!
Other Fixes and Enhancements
This release provides more than just the addition of Hazelcast and the work put into JBatch. There are numerous fixes and smaller enhancements that have been implemented, of which here are a few:
SSLv3 is now disabled by default in the default domain template to help prevent anyone falling prey to the POODLE attack.
We’ve updated various modules, such as Jersey, Weld, and Tyrus, to more recent releases.
We’ve incorporated fixes for various GlassFish JIRA issues, such as GLASSFISH-21175, GLASSFISH-21261, and GLASSFISH-20994.
Wrapping Up
So, that’s a brief overview of the more notable changes that you’ll find in Payara Server 4.1.151. As always, if you uncover any bugs with Payara Server, or have an enhancement request, feel free to raise an issue on the GitHub project page.
Payara 4.1.151 is releasing today, so I thought I'd take you through some of the keyfeatures of this release.Don’t feel bad if you somehow missed Joe Musgrove getting called up to the Astros this past Monday. After all, only like a billion other transactions took place that day, many of which involved established big leaguers and/or prospects more highly touted than Musgrove. But now that the deadline-related madness has come and gone, I’d like to direct your attention to Mr. Musgrove. He’ll be joining the Astros’ rotation this Sunday in place of the injured Lance McCullers, and there’s reason to think he’ll be a very good pitcher.
Two years ago, Musgrove wasn’t on anyone’s prospect radar. Though he was drafted way back in 2011, it took him until 2014 to make it out of Rookie ball — and until 2015 to make it into the full-season levels. But when finally given the opportunity to last year, he broke out in a big way. He shot from Low-A to Double-A, putting up a dazzling 1.88 ERA in just over 100 innings. Perhaps even more impressive were his strikeout and walk numbers: he struck out 99, while walking only eight, giving him rates of 25% and 2%, respectively.
Musgrove has effectively replicated those absurd strikeout and walk numbers in 2016. In 85 innings between Double-A and Triple-A this year, he’s struck out 26% of opposing batters, while walking just 3%. You hardly ever see a pitching prospect with a walk rate that low, and you almost never see one who pairs it with a strikeout rate up over 25%. On the downside, Musgrove had a little bit of trouble keeping the ball in the park in his 10 Triple-A starts, but those starts also took place in the PCL, where lots of pitchers have trouble keeping the ball in the park.
My KATOH projection system is very much buying into Musgrove’s performance. It projects him for 5.5 WAR over his first six seasons by the traditional method and 7.2 WAR by the method that integrates Baseball America’s rankings. Those projections place him 46th overall and 28th overall, respectively, on KATOH’s list. Among pitchers, he was eighth and sixth. KATOH’s lists tend to be relatively hitter-heavy — likely due to some combination of pitchers’ attrition rates and the fact that KATOH does not directly quantify “stuff.” But among pitching prospects, my system thinks Musgrove is one of the best out there.
To help you visualize what his KATOH projection entails, here is a probability density function showing KATOH+’s projected distribution of outcomes for Musgrove’s first six seasons in the major leagues.
To put some faces to Musgrove’s statistical profile, let’s generate some statistical comps for the 6-foot-5 righty. I calculated a Mahalanobis distance between Musgrove’s Double-A and Triple-A performance this year and every season at those levels since 1991 in which a pitcher recorded at least 350 batters faced. In the table below, you’ll find the 10 most similar seasons, ranked from most to least similar. The WAR totals refer to each player’s first six seasons in the major leagues. A lower “Mah Dist” reading indicates a closer comp.
Please note that the Mahalanobis analysis is separate from KATOH. KATOH relies on macro-level trends, rather than comps. The fates of a few statistically similar players shouldn’t be used to draw sweeping conclusions about a prospect’s future. For this reason, I recommend using a player’s KATOH forecast to assess his future potential. The comps give us some interesting names that sometimes feel spot-on, but they’re mostly just there for fun.
Though Sunday will be Musgrove’s first big-league start, it won’t be his debut. He already pitched in relief in Tuesday night’s game against the Blue Jays — the team that drafted him — and absolutely dominated. He tossed 4.1 scoreless innings and, in typical Musgrove fashion, struck out eight and only walked one. He also tied the major-league record for most strikeouts as a reliever in his debut. That particular distinction is probably trivial, but whatever: the point is that Joe Musgrove was really good.
Musgrove doesn’t exactly have blow-you-away stuff — he averaged 92 mph with his fastball out of the bullpen on Tuesday — but instead gets by with plus command. With prospects like that, we often don’t see them coming until they’re basically here. They don’t light up the radar gun at the lower levels, and therefore don’t start creeping onto prospect lists until they’ve proven themselves at the upper levels. Musgrove falls into this category as well, as many outlets left him off of their preseason top-100 lists completely. But regardless of his prospect pedigree, Musgrove has made it clear over the last two seasons that he’s very capable of getting minor-league hitters out by way of excellent strikeout-walk differentials. Don’t be surprised if he starts doing the same out of Houston’s rotation.Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Google Brain's Quoc Le explains 'deep learning' in a minute
Growing up in a small village in Vietnam, Quoc Le had no electricity till he was nine. A little over 20 years later he has helped design artificial intelligence used by millions everyday.
The 32-year-old helps lead the Google Brain team, a specialised unit that attempts to give computers the kind of profound neural networks that human beings possess, or at least helps them simulate it.
It is Google's attempt to build an artificial brain.
It may not be humanoid-like machine that can think for itself that many will have in mind, but "intelligence" has already been integrated into Google products, the kinds of technology that Mr Le could only imagine as a child.
Image copyright Ngo Van Hoai Image caption Thuy Duong village in central Vietnam had little access to technology in the 1990s
Image copyright Ngo Van Hoai Image caption These photographs were taken by the village photographer
Mr Le remembers the humble moments of technological progress in his village of Thuy Dong: the first time the village got a TV, the first car he saw, the first rice cooker his family bought.
"Back then every single moment of technology introduced to us, suddenly changed our lives," he says.
But it was a picture of the 1969 Moon landing that inspired him to become a pioneer in artificial intelligence.
"I was asking the question: we are not the fastest animal on earth, we can't even fly, but somehow we made it to the Moon. What is that single capability that we have that other animals don't have?
"And I realised it's because of the brain - it's intelligence." He assumed this meant that intelligent machines were commonplace, but later realised they were not.
"So I decided maybe I should build it," he says with a smile.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The BBC's quick guide to Artificial Intelligence
Mr Le began his research into machine intelligence while at university in Australia and later as a PhD candidate at Stanford. He said he was frustrated that software that learned needed a lot of input from humans.
"The machines we claim to be intelligent we spend a lot of time coding decisions inside them. I want everything to be automatic," he says. So he worked out how to let software learn things itself.
Image copyright Google Image caption This is a cat. And a computer can now recognise it as such thanks to the work of Mr Le and others
The field of deep learning - the attempt to make machines learn by creating a set of complex algorithms - was already nascent. But Mr Le wanted to significantly speed it up by building large-scale neural networks that could process much more data.
In 2012, Mr Le led an experiment for Google where the neural network was shown YouTube videos for a week to see what it might learn.
One of the artificial neurons, as Me Le puts it, was "very happy" to see a picture of a cat, without ever being told what a cat is or being given any images labelled as a cat.
It was a significant breakthrough in proving that machines could learn without intense input from humans to a high degree of accuracy.
Another study showed a conversation between a machine and a human, where the machine was able to provide responses after studying movie subtitles. Although the study admits that a lack of consistency was a common failure of the model.
A machine was able to come up with replies to questions based on what it had learned from movie scripts, in a study led by Mr Le.
General knowledge Q&A
Human: Who is Skywalker?
Machine: He is a hero.
Human: Who is Bill Clinton?
Machine: He's a billionaire.
Human: Is sky blue or black?
Machine: Blue.
Human: Does a cat have a tail?
Machine: Yes.
Human: Does a cat have a wing?
Machine: No.
The findings of these experiments and others have been integrated into Google services, providing predictive replies for emails, recognising places and people in images and voice recognition in search.
While deep learning is thought to be among the most promising areas of study in artificial intelligence, there are many others.
Even within Google there is a team, created after Google acquired UK company DeepMind in 2014, that has been using machine learning with games.
Last week, the computer it built beat the world champion of the ancient Chinese game Go, a game that has been very difficult for computers to master because of the huge amount of possible moves.
And other companies including Facebook, Microsoft and China's Baidu have all announced they are investing in deep learning and other forms of artificial intelligence.
Eventually, Mr Le wants his technology to converge into artificial intelligence similar to that depicted in the movie Her, where operating systems acts as personal assistants to humans.
"What I care about is making a machine be able to see, be able to hear and be able to understand us," he says. But we are very far away from that, he admits.
What he has achieved in the last five years is to help put AI into the hands of people all over the world, including those back in his village in Vietnam.I received a super cute plush dog for this exchange. My gifter thought he was rather sophisticated and I think they're right. My plan is to find him a permanent home within our bookshelf so that he may educate himself throughout the day.
But where to put him? I'm afraid he may have a bit of a drinking problem, since he came all the way from Ireland so perhaps I should house him with my old psychology text books? Or perhaps he might enjoy my husbands growing collection of engineering books since he looks like the type of pooch who might enjoy making things with his own two paws? Maybe he'll enjoy the easier side of the bookshelf and make himself a home in my children's book collection? Or should I expose him to the wonderful world of role playing games and science fiction/fantasy? Hmmm...perhaps I'll let him decide...Gazillions. That's the number of times the federal government has spied on Americans since 9/11 through the use of drones, legal search warrants, illegal search warrants, federal agent-written search warrants and just plain government spying. This is according to Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who, when he asked the government to tell him what it was doing to violate our privacy, was given a classified briefing. The senator -- one of just a few in the U.S. Senate who believes that the Constitution means what it says -- was required by federal law to agree not to reveal what spies and bureaucrats told him during the briefing.
The rules for classified briefings of members of Congress on areas of government behavior that the government wants to keep from its employers -- the American people -- are a real Catch-22. Those rules allow representatives and senators to interrogate government officials about government behavior that they are afraid to reveal, and they require those officials to answer honestly and completely. But the rules keep the interrogations secret, and they expressly prohibit members of Congress from telling anyone what they have learned.
So Paul and his colleagues who joined in the secret briefing now know the terrible truth about the government watching us, but they cannot reveal what they know. Paul -- who is the son of Rep. Ron Paul, the greatest congressional defender of limited government in our era -- when asked what he learned at these secret briefings and aware that he could be prosecuted for telling the truth, chose a fictitious word to describe the vast number of violations of privacy at the hands of federal agents: gazillions. Paul's personal courage in using a word like gazillions to convey an oblique message of truth in the face of an unjust law that commanded his silence reminded me of St. Thomas More's silence in the face of an unjust law that commanded his assent to the king's headship of the church.
The feds are no happier with the senator's personal courage than the king was with St. Thomas More's, but there is not much they can do about it. If you check out your dog-eared dictionary, you will find that if it is listed at all, it gets a mention as slang. Yet most of us hearing or seeing that word understand it to mean some huge -- perhaps even incalculable -- number.
The point here is terrifying. If the government derives its powers from the consent of the governed, how can it do things to us to which we have not consented? And when it does these things -- like send a drone over your back yard to learn who is coming to your Saturday barbeque or to see what fertilizer you are using in your vegetable garden or to take a peek into your living room or bedroom -- and when the laws the government has written prevent our elected representatives from telling us what it is doing, we are at the doorsteps of tyranny. The government gave Paul the distinct impression that it was afraid of our exercise of our personal freedoms, and thus it needs to watch us as we do so. This is the same government whose stated principal purpose is to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, and thus personal freedom.
What has become of the Jeffersonian value of the primacy of the individual over the government in a free society? How have we lost the American value that the government works for us, and we don't work for the government? What remains of the constitutionally guaranteed right to be left alone?
The answer to these questions goes to the nature of human freedom and personal courage. Freedom lies in our hearts, but to survive, it must do more than just lie there. Its essence is the exercise of unfettered choices, and the unfettered choices we make address our perpetual yearning for truth. This is a natural process that -- just like the muscles in our bodies -- will atrophy if unused.
So, when the government scares us into the disuse of freedom, we have only ourselves to blame when Big Brother comes calling. And when he does come, on his face there will be no smile.Untitled a guest Sep 23rd, 2012 126 Never a guest126Never
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rawdownloadcloneembedreportprint text 1.68 KB Tebow of Love “Mark?” Tebow awoke to see Mark Sanchez standing at the foot of the bed. “Mark, what are you doing here?” Tebow prayed. “I just can’t fight it any longer.” Mark Sanchez exclaimed. “Tebow, I’m in love with you.” Tebow was shocked. “But Mark, it’s a sin!” “It’s okay, we won’t tell God.” Sanchez crawled into the bed and mounted Tebow over the covers. “But... I...” Tebow tried to argue but Sanchez began taking off his shirt, revealing his slightly impressive abs. He slowly began to slide the covers off a Tebow, revealing his shirtless torso. He ran his hand across Tebow’s pecks. “Come one Tebow. You know you want this.” “You’re... You’re right!” Tebow grabbed Sanchez by the shoulders and threw him backwards off the bed. He jumped out of the bed and on top of Sanchez and pressed his face against his. The pair began making out vigorously. “NO!” Tebow shouted and jumped off of Sanchez. “I just can’t. I’m a good Christian man.” “Don’t worry, it’s cool.” Tebow turned around and saw that Sanchez was now mounted by Santonio Holmes, who was caressing every inch of Sanchez’s body. “Mark NO!” Tebow collapsed to his knees in pain and agony. His Christianity lead him to not want to make love to Sanchez, and now he only regretted it. “Tebow” God said. “I appreciate your loyalty. You have earned 22 virgins.” And God sent the Bills cheerleader squad to Tebow because they’re all virgins because no one wants to have sex with anything or anyone connected to the Bills. “Thanks God” Tebow married them all so he could have sex with them and then he did. The End.
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Tebow of Love “Mark?” Tebow awoke to see Mark Sanchez standing at the foot of the bed. “Mark, what are you doing here?” Tebow prayed. “I just can’t fight it any longer.” Mark Sanchez exclaimed. “Tebow, I’m in love with you.” Tebow was shocked. “But Mark, it’s a sin!” “It’s okay, we won’t tell God.” Sanchez crawled into the bed and mounted Tebow over the covers. “But... I...” Tebow tried to argue but Sanchez began taking off his shirt, revealing his slightly impressive abs. He slowly began to slide the covers off a Tebow, revealing his shirtless torso. He ran his hand across Tebow’s pecks. “Come one Tebow. You know you want this.” “You’re... You’re right!” Tebow grabbed Sanchez by the shoulders and threw him backwards off the bed. He jumped out of the bed and on top of Sanchez and pressed his face against his. The pair began making out vigorously. “NO!” Tebow shouted and jumped off of Sanchez. “I just can’t. I’m a good Christian man.” “Don’t worry, it’s cool.” Tebow turned around and saw that Sanchez was now mounted by Santonio Holmes, who was caressing every inch of Sanchez’s body. “Mark NO!” Tebow collapsed to his knees in pain and agony. His Christianity lead him to not want to make love to Sanchez, and now he only regretted it. “Tebow” God said. “I appreciate your loyalty. You have earned 22 virgins.” And God sent the Bills cheerleader squad to Tebow because they’re all virgins because no one wants to have sex with anything or anyone connected to the Bills. “Thanks God” Tebow married them all so he could have sex with them and then he did. The End.WENATCHEE, Wash. – Three individuals, including a private music teacher, face state criminal charges for communicating with minors for immoral purposes following an undercover operation spearheaded by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).
Matthew Kelzenberg, 42, of Cashmere, Wash., who works as a private music teacher, Eduardo P. Ramos, 19, and Jose Manuel Ortega Ibarra, 21, both of Wenatchee, were arrested earlier this month by HSI special agents in collaboration with the Wenatchee Police Department and Chelan County Sheriff’s office.
The three defendants fell under suspicion after they allegedly engaged in sexually explicit communications with undercover investigators who were posing as minors in internet chat rooms. Authorities allege all three men individually attempted to meet with the supposed “minors” for the purpose of having sexual contact. They were arrested when they arrived at the predetermined meet locations.
The three men had their initial hearings before Chelan County Superior Court Judge Nakata May 8. They were subsequently transferred to the Chelan County Jail pending their arraignment, which is scheduled for May 22.
The arrests were the result of a three-day operation which began May 3 and involved investigators in HSI’s Wenatchee, Seattle, Spokane, Blaine, and Yakima field offices.
“The scrupulous work by HSI special agents and our partners helps weed out those intending to harm our innocent youth,” said Brad Bench, special agent in charge of HSI Seattle. “Coordinated multi-agency operations allow us to maximize law enforcement resources and hold these criminals accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”
The charges contained in the complaint are only allegations. A person is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
Investigators are seeking to identify any minors who may have had inappropriate contact with the defendants. Tips regarding potential victims can be reported online at www.ice.gov/tips or via the toll-free tip line at 1-866-DHS-2-ICE (1-866-347-2423).
The charges in this case are a product of Project Safe Childhood, a Department of Justice initiative launched in 2006 to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse, and HSI’s Operation Predator, an international initiative to protect children from sexual predators.
Led by the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute those who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims.
Since the launch of Operation Predator in 2003, HSI has arrested more than 14,000 individuals for crimes against children, including the production and distribution of online child pornography, traveling overseas for sex with minors, and sex trafficking of children. In fiscal year 2015, nearly 2,400 individuals were arrested by HSI special agents under this initiative and more than 1,000 victims identified or rescued.
For additional information about wanted suspected child predators, download HSI’s Operation Predator smartphone app or visit the online suspect alerts page.ADVERTISEMENT
Americans are abandoning religion in droves.
That's the clear takeaway from two crucially important polls released earlier this week — one from the Public Religion Research Institute and another from the Pew Research Center.
The Pew poll shows that since 2012 the share of Americans who describe themselves as "spiritual but not religious" has surged from 19 percent to 27 percent, while the share of those who call themselves "religious and spiritual" has declined from 59 percent to 48 percent. That's a dramatic change for a mere five years, and it builds on longer-term trends.
The PRRI poll, which is far more ambitious, places the Pew findings in a broader context, showing that white Christians now comprise less than half of the population; that the relative size of the white evangelical Protestant, white mainline Protestant, and white Catholic populations is declining rapidly; that 24 percent of the country is religiously unaffiliated; that the share of young people (aged 18-29) in that unchurched group is 38 percent; and that nearly all of the growth in the numbers of the religiously unaffiliated has taken place since the early 1990s, when their share of the population consistently averaged a comparatively paltry 8 percent.
Add up the findings and assume current trends continue and we're left with a picture of the United States as a country in which established religious traditions and institutions are in sharp decline — and therefore in which culture and politics are rapidly secularizing.
Liberals, who are often secular in orientation, will likely respond to the news by rejoicing. With the religiously unaffiliated flocking in much greater numbers to the Democratic Party than the GOP, this would seem to be another confirmation of the "emerging Democratic majority" thesis that has captured the imaginations of so many on the left over the past decade and a half.
But the enthusiasm is unwarranted. Whatever the left's electoral gains following from the increasing secularization of the country, they are likely to be balanced out by other changes that may well prove to be far more pernicious. There is no guarantee that the transition to a more purely secular culture and politics will proceed smoothly — or that the resulting post-religious culture and politics will even end up being especially liberal.
More traditional religious believers already feel under siege from the federal government and an often overtly hostile surrounding culture. Liberals tend to dismiss this as paranoia and whining. But as we saw with Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein's harsh questioning on Wednesday of judicial nominee Amy Barrett, a devout Catholic, the impression isn't wholly without foundation in reality. (Back in June, Bernie Sanders posed similarly accusatory questions to a conservative evangelical nominee for the Office of Management and Budget.) The message conservative believers hear from liberals and the left is clear: If you hold traditionally religious views, you will be treated as an unwelcome outsider in American public life.
This hostility has provoked a shift in the goals and outlook of traditionalist Christians. Where once they thought of themselves as a "moral majority" that might retake political and cultural institutions and transform them in their image, now they merely want to ensure that the government's power to persecute them is restrained. (Hence the emphasis of the dwindling religious right on religious liberty protections.)
Hence also the strategic (some say cynical) alliance many evangelicals forged with Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign. There is abundant anecdotal evidence that the alliance may well backfire, hastening the exit of young (overwhelmingly anti-Trump) evangelicals from the faith. But those evangelical leaders who supported and continue to stand by Trump would likely say that this eventuality makes it even more essential to establish a strong presidential protection racket for religious institutions. The smaller and less powerful the church becomes, the more persecution it is likely to face in an increasingly secular (and sometimes even explicitly anti-religious) common culture.
In this respect, the rise of Donald Trump to the presidency was driven in part by a precipitous collapse in the power of the churches in American public life.
And that brings us to a second and even more troubling consequence of America's growing secularization.
Liberals tend to assume that those who have left religious traditions and institutions behind will end up being … secular liberals, which is to say paragons (in their own eyes) of liberal tolerance and moral virtue. But not only is this belied by the occasionally harsh anti-religious fervor of many secular liberal pundits and public officials. It's also contradicted by the rise of the post-religious right.
There is no guarantee at all that those who leave religious institutions and traditions behind will end up on the liberal left. As Trump's strong support in the GOP primaries among non-religious Republicans attests, a significant number of the post-religious (especially those who are less well educated) could well end up on the nationalist alt-right.
Ross Douthat, Peter Beinart, and The Week's own Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry have all noted the ominous emergence of a post-religious right, and have made the point that the left's most vociferous critics of the old religious right (of which I was once one) may well end up ruing the decline and fall of their former opponents.
A post-religious America will be very different from the country we've known up until quite recently. Not all (or even many) of the changes will be improvements.When we got our hands on the new Surface Pro 3 yesterday, Microsoft has already attached the Surface Pen to the new Type Cover. While it does a great job at securing the Pen, we’re not completely happy with the way it looks. Check out some of the other ways you can attach the Surface Pen to the Surface Pro 3. Head past the break to watch the video.
1. There’s space between the new magnetic strip and the keyboard on the Surface Pro Type Cover. You can use that to clip on the Pen.
2. If you’re not using the Type Cover, you can attach the Pen to the right side of the Surface Pro 3. The magnets for the AC connecter is in this general area to pull in the Pen.
3. If you’re holding the Surface Pro 3 in portrait mode, you can attach the Surface Pen on top of the left side. The magnets for the Type Cover are in this area to pull in the Pen.
4. Same as number 3, but at the bottom.
5. These next two ways are very impractical, but some of you may want to know about them anyway. If you’re holding it in portrait mode, you can attach the Surface Pen towards the top left corner of the display. There’s a magnet here for the stabilizing strip on the Type Cover.
6. Same as number 5, but towards the bottom.
I’ve already decided to take off the flap for the Surface Pen the new Type Cover. Do you think you’ll do the same when you buy the Surface Pro 3? Let us know in the comments!
Further readingVintage Sound With Modern Technology
The MM-50E’s unique Shadow electronics system puts all the electronics inside the pickguard, allowing you complete control of your electric tone without adversely affecting the F-style mandolin’s acoustic tone.
The MM-50E’s ground breaking electronics feature Shadow Germany’s “Quad” NanoMag™ pickup, a unique low impedance humbucker pickup designed in collaboration with Epiphone luthiers. The pickup is equipped with samarium-cobalt magnets that capture true acoustic tone with a wide range of harmonics. Under each string pair is a separate "coil" that only picks up the sound of that string pair, with crosstalk separation of >85dB! Each of the 4 output levels is controlled by 4 trimpots discretely accessible from the top of the pickguard via a mini flathead screwdriver. Once set to your desired levels, typically you would never need to adjust the levels again.
This allows the mandolin to respond and sound just like an acoustic mandolin should. The pickguard features separate rotary master volume, treble, and bass controls as well as an easy-access battery compartment for the light-weight, long lasting 2032 watch-style lithium battery.g
HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS — His workouts complete, his guests leaving in some mixture of intrigued and wary, sidelined center Greg Oden could choose the NBA team with which he’ll attempt his latest comeback as soon as Monday, one of his agents said Friday.
Six teams are believed to have scouted the 7-footer — the No. 1 pick in the 2007 Draft who has played a total of 82 games in six years due to multiple knee injuries — in workouts in Oden’s native Indianapolis, including Miami, New Orleans, Sacramento, San Antonio, Atlanta and Dallas.
Agent Bill Duffy declined to reveal details, but said contract talks have ranged from general conversation to more specific terms, as the teams consider both the rewards and the risks of signing a premier talent whose body, thus far, has been unable to withstand the rigors of NBA play.
“Physically, he’s awesome,” Duffy said Friday afternoon. “We’re very happy with where he is. [His health and impact are] going to depend on monitoring him and his minutes.”
Oden, 25, has not played in an NBA game since Dec. 5, 2009. Four days earlier, in his final full performance for Portland against Miami, he had 13 points, 20 rebounds and four blocked shots in 30 minutes.
In 61 games in 2008-09 and 21 the next season, Oden averaged 9.4 points, 7.3 rebounds and 1.4 blocks in 22.1 minutes while shooting 57.7 percent. He has had three microfracture knee surgeries, which might dissuade |
’s a reason I read The Irish Times, the Guardian, and the many other newspapers that I pick up. I trust what they tell me to be true. A team of trained professionals has taken the time to source, to fact check, to edit and to attempt to be fair and balanced. Sure it’s campaigning from time to time. It’s agenda-setting, absolutely. Columnists take a view, of course they do. Not everything gets reported and some of the reporting gets it wrong some of the time. But by and large I trust it.
But I can’t and I don’t trust social media.
I came across this video tonight on Twitter, it was re-tweeted by Mark Little, the former RTE US correspondent and now CEO of Storyful. It’s a cartoon from YouTube, so just how credible it is, well that’s questionable. But it raises some fundamental points about journalism.
Ouch! RT @markhamnolan: Journalism training in the post-Boston era, after the trust is gone: youtu.be/TihxEkJ_sR8 — mark little (@marklittlenews) April 23, 2013
Traditional media, particularly newspapers, are dying because the business model – built around circulation and advertising – is well and truly bust. News organisations are desperately scrambling online, and in an effort to stay relevant, are trying to compete in the social media sphere. But the real value that traditional media can best bring is to be a trusted source. Instead, more and more journalists are trying to share the space with the trolls, the ranters and the ravers. In an effort to feed an insatiable beast, journalists are swamping social media with volume instead of value. Journalists are trying to be first with the news, instead of being right. Traditional news values are being lost.
Never before has it been so important to have trusted sources; what we’re getting is unreliable rubbish. What we desperately need now more than ever is credible, reliable journalism."Kehilot Israel Bamizrach Bameot Ha-19 Veha-20: Turkiya" ("Jewish Communities in the East in the 19th and 20th Centuries: Turkey" ), edited by Yaron Ben-Naeh, Ben Zvi Institute and the Education Ministry, 314 pages (in Hebrew )
The ship sent by Sultan Beyazid II to save the Jews and Arabs of Spain from the Inquisition in 1942.
Much false resentment and manipulation of hatred have been evident lately between Turkey - the country considered to be the "heir" of the Ottoman Empire - and the country that is considered to represent the Jewish people. The latter are actually the very same people over whom the Ottoman Empire spread its protective wings, time after time, in times of trouble: first in the period that followed the Spanish Inquisition, when Sultan Bayezid II opened the gates of his kingdom to a people that suddenly found itself without a homeland. And once again, during World War II, when Turkey turned a blind eye and allowed a steady stream of European survivors to pass through it en route to Palestine.
In other words, the friendship between the Turkish and Jewish nations is firm and longstanding, and that is not simply words but a historical fact. For those requiring proof, here is a comprehensive new book that is intended to introduce the reader to the history of Jewish life in Turkey during recent centuries, from a variety of perspectives.
The book's editor, Hebrew University historian Dr. Yaron Ben-Naeh, got a hole in one (in my view ) with a revolutionary article that he wrote about homosexual practices among Jews in the Ottoman Empire, in which he described the tolerance for such phenomena on the part of the community's rabbis - who ostensibly ought to have censured them vehemently.
Since then Ben-Naeh has enlightened us in other articles about other matters, and in a thick book about the Jews of the Ottoman Empire in the 17th century entitled, "Yehudim Bemamlechet Hasultanim" ("Jews in the Realm of the Sultan," Magnes Press, 2006 ). In it he describes the mutual social and religious relations between the Jews and their surroundings in a tolerant kingdom that allowed them to exist and develop within an autonomous framework that was always open to the outside world. Seclusion was never a hallmark of this Jewry.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, the period covered in the new book, Turkish Jewry was exposed, slowly at first, and then at an accelerated pace, to modernism, secularism, nationalism and to the innovative arts - from dance and theater to cinema. There was never any explosive or blood-soaked revolutions here: Turkey's Jews knew to keep their heads down when necessary, and during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and founding of the republic, they also knew to bet on the right side. But in any event, one does not find extremism of any kind in the community's history, nor sharp transitions or overly fierce rebellions against tradition, but rather, mainly, evolutionary processes and slow change - and plenty of tolerance, from every direction, albeit not without arguments and fights.
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Indeed, there were debates surrounding education - whether Turkish, French, Jewish, or any combination thereof. This is the subject of the chapter written by Yaron Ben-Naeh. There were also conflicts between Jewish newspapers over the issue of Zionism versus assimilation (the subject of a chapter by Moshe Maggid ). One fascinating chapter in the book deals with the Sabbatean believers, whose ancestors converted to Islam along with Shabtai Tzvi, and who to this day observe traditions of their own that are shrouded in mystery.
So multifaceted was Turkish Jewry, and so impossible to describe fully, that I can attest firsthand, for example, that the history of my own family - one whose roots in Istanbul go back for generations - does not actually correspond to any of the categories in the book. Was my family in fact "Eastern"? "Turkish"? It was certainly Jewish, but according to a rather broad and vague definition of Judaism. For example, I can just see my parents and grandparents guffawing were someone to say they were fond of Turkish-Jewish folk music, liturgy or poetry, a subject which musicologist Edwin Seroussi expounds on with tremendous erudition in the book. In fact, music, in their eyes, and in the eyes of all their relatives and members of their circle, meant solely Western classical music.
Ben-Naeh's book outlines general phenomena and historical models. It cannot and does not presume to take in individual nuances. Nevertheless, this is a heartwarming and informative work, which provides, on the margins of every page, concise information about people, phenomena and terms of import to anyone interested in the subject. For instance (completely at random, on page 67 ) there are a few lines about Rabbi Dr. David Marcus, the Ashkenazi rabbi of Istanbul, a liberal and enlightened man - and grandfather of the senior correspondent for Haaretz, Yoel Marcus.
Rare photographs, from family and public archives, give the book a nostalgic air, for what appears there is a world that is gone forever. It is safe to assume that Jewish homes no longer serve jam as a refreshment in a "tabela di dulsi," and many of the synagogues featured in the old photos are not active or no longer exist. But documentation still exists because Turkish Jewry was lucky to have one precious gift that not many other communities in the world had: continuous habitation from the late Middle Ages to this day, which was made possible due to Turkish society's tolerance toward the Jews, and to the Jews' efforts to avoid making themselves loathsome to their environment by annoying separatism.
These days, however, the coexistence described in the book before us is under threat. But better days are still to come, and we shall yet exchange with each other the almond candies that we Jews call "confetti di disposario."'America's scariest police chief' keeps his job despite posting video threatening to shoot liberals and snarling they can 'take it in the a**' because mayor insists he was just exercising his freedom of speech
Mark Kessler is the police chief and only police officer for Gilberton, Pennsylvania - population 700
He has been heavily criticized for the anti-liberal content of video's he posted on YouTube in which he calls them 'libtards'
He also instructs any liberals offended by his pro-Second Amendment rants to 'Go f**k themselves'
In one of the videos, he blasts U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry as a traitor for pledging to sign a United Nations treaty
He shot himself in the hand in 2011 while trying to break up a bar fight
The man dubbed 'America's scariest police chief' will not lose his job after posting 'disturbing' videos of himself firing assault rifles and threatening liberals because the town's mayor thinks he is exercising his freedom of speech.
Mark Kessler is the only police officer in the tiny hamlet of Gilberton, Pennsylvania, but has caused serious concern following his appearances in a slew of foul mouthed and provocative videos in which he attacks Secretary of State John Kerry and makes rude slurs against liberals.
The self-professed gun fanatic and militia member, who carries an M-16 to work policing his town of 700 people, has been unapologetic about his conduct denying all claims he is a 'delusional lunatic' and claims the YouTube clips were 'designed to get people's attention.'
Scroll down for video
Chief of Police of One: Mark Kessler the one-man police force of tiny Gilberton has made a series of videos in which he advocates his support of the Second Amendment and made disparaging remarks about liberals
Kessler made headlines in 2011 after he shot himself in the hand after pulling his weapon to intervene in a bar fight. He was off-duty and was the only person armed in the altercation.
To date, over 40,000 people have viewed Kessler's videos - which he uploads under the banner of his Constitutional Security Force - which he claims is designed to protect the rights of all Americans, but isn't a militia - despite being armed.
'What he does in his private life, we have no control of,' Gilberton Mayor Mary Lou Hannon told Frank Andruscavage of the Pottsville Republican Herald when asked about the video.
In one video Kessler uploaded to YouTube on July 15th, the 14-year veteran tells viewers offended by his profanity to 'go f**k yourself'.
Second Amendment: Mark Kessler sports one of his modified rifles and the uniform of his Constitutional Security Force (right)
Chief Mark Kessler - pictured in 2010 - shot himself in the hand a year later after he tried to split up a bar fight
'F**k all you libtards out there, as a matter of fact, read my shirt,' rants Kessler as he turns to reveal the back of his T-shirt which reads, 'Liberals take it in the a**.'
'You take it in the a**a and I don't give a f**k what you say so you can all just go f**K yourselves,' says Kessler.
'If you f**king maniacs want to turn this into an armed revolt, knock yourselves out. I'm not about that, so see you on the other side.'
In a second video uploaded to YouTube later that day, Kessler takes it on himself to pretend to apologize to the thousands of people who wrote him messages of complaint.
The unnerving video begins with a mock-apology to all those 'libtards' who claimed their feelings were hurt by his language and then begins a rant about calling Secretary of State john Kerry a 'traitor'.
In the video he claims to be annoyed by a recent news article in which Kerry says the U.N. would sign an arms control treaty which many conservatives see as a stealth assault on the Second Amendment.
'That piece of s**t traitor,' yells Kessler into the camera.
'Who is he to decide what we can and can't own? And f**K the U.N. Who are they to decide what we, the American people, can own?'
'I've got a message to Kerry and to these c**ksuckers over in the U.N. Sign anything you want to sign. It's not going to mean s**t.
'You know what I have to say to you? Come and take it, motherf**kers.'
Angry: In his first video posted on July 15th - Police Chief Mark Kessler shows how he feels about liberals - while sporting a Confederate flag on his T-shirt
Hate: Chief Mark Kessler shows off his real attitudes towards liberals with a motto on the back of his T-shirt in his July 15th video
Kessler then proceeds to fire off rounds from his assault weapon, calling it his'sincere apology.'
After firing the first weapon, Kessler screams out, 'I'm hurting some feelings today. All you f**king libtards out there, all you f**king crybabies, grow a pair of balls, and man the F**k up, all right?'
In an interview with the Pottsville Republican-Herald, Kessler affirmed his right to make the videos.
'I think the video is in support of the Constitution—the support of the First Amendment, the right to express your thoughts and words freely without reprisal from any government,' said Kessler.
'That’s why I used the vocabulary I did. As for the firing of the guns, that is my Second Amendment right. I have the right to keep and bear arms regardless of what the government says that I don’t.'
Kessler's Constitutional Security Forces, despite stating they are not a militia are still armed and declare they will, 'Defend our Constitution our country from tyranny only if needed.'
Attack on John Kerry: In his second video, Kessler pretended to apologize and then launched into a violent tirade against John Kerry culminating in him firing a round of assault rifle fire
Gilberton Mayor Mary Lou Hannon (left), has refused to fire her police chief Mark Kessler (right) because he was not wearing a uniform when he made his controversial comments
Uploaded: This is how Police Chief Kessler announced to the world his first video attacking liberals onto Twitter
He also hosts his own regular radio show and has uploaded videos to YouTube in which he claims he is being followed by suspicious helicopters and unidentified members of the military.
The chief, Mark Kessler, the one-man police force of tiny Gilberton, population about 800, and some other gun-rights advocates view the treaty — which Congress would have to ratify for the U.S. to take part — as a step toward restricting the domestic use of more conventional weapons that are personal property.
In a telephone interview, Kessler said he made the videos to draw attention to what he views as the erosion of the constitutional rights of free speech and to bear arms and to speak out for the many others who are afraid to do so.
He also said he is increasingly concerned about what he views as a government out of control, citing the FBI's use of drones, the National Security Agency's collection of hundreds of millions of Americans' phone records and the Internal Revenue Service's scrutiny of applications for tax-exempt status by politically active groups.
'I'm trying to wake people up to say, 'Hey, there's a lot more going on than meets the eye.' A lot more,' Kessler said in an interview from Texas where the 41-year-old father of four was vacationing.
'It goes way beyond the Second Amendment, the First Amendment. It's a shame. Our founding fathers didn't intend for our government to be the way it is.'
Kessler, who called himself 'a wholeheartedly good man who loves his country,' acknowledged that some people were upset by the videos, but he said he does not regret posting them and insisted that many more people were supportive of them.
Gilberton Mayor Mary Lou Hannon said Wednesday that she found the language offensive and understood that many others did, too.
'They're like watching an R-rated movie,' Hannon said. 'The profanity and violence in it was a little upsetting.'
Not a Militia: The Constitutional Security Force which is headed by Kessler deny they are a militia
The weapons in the video are legal weapons and belong to the police department after he purchased them with his own money and donated them in a transaction approved by the borough council, Hannon said.
The council, which has had a contract with Kessler for 14 years, is planning to address the matter with Kessler in a private session Wednesday, Hannon said.
She said she supports his continued employment, noting that he has made a lot of residents feel safe and responds to emergencies at all hours.
'If you were in trouble and you needed somebody to protect you, Mark would be the person you would want running to your aid,' Hannon said. 'My experience and that of many of our residents (is) he will die for you. He's loyal and I think that's important.'
Watch Video Here:
Kessler, a former coal miner, is active in gun-rights circles, appearing on an online radio broadcast on the conservative conspiracy theory website Infowars, hosting an online radio show on a website that bills itself as the 'voice of the resistance,' speaking at gun-rights rallies and hosting his own website where he is seeking recruits for what he calls the Constitutional Security Force.
He also has claimed in recent weeks that his outspoken views on gun rights have earned him death threats.
On Wednesday, he would not say how many people have signed up for the security force, but said there are chapters in 45 states and many recruits are current or former members of law enforcement and the military.
The mission, he says on the website, is to help the military or peace officers to defend the constitution and country from 'tyranny.'
In January, Kessler drafted a resolution the borough adopted that calls for 'nullifying' any federal, state or local regulations that infringe on the Second Amendment. He boasted about the resolution while speaking at a February gun-rights rally on the steps of the Pennsylvania Capitol.
'If they come in and try to disarm any of my citizens, it's not going to go over very well,' he told the crowd.Calling Red Tails: “one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen”, might be a tad harsh. But if I rack my brain for a worse one, nothing springs immediately to mind.
Maybe my disappointment, that the treatment of such promising subject matter was so watered down, got the better of me?
“A high-flying action epic inspired by the heroic exploits of the first all African American aerial combat unit”. The main theme apparently being: the Tuskegee Airmen fighting Nazis in the air and racism on the ground.
Let’s start with the Nazi element shall we? When I was greeted with a shimmering LucasFilm logo at the outset, I cracked my knuckles, popped my first beer and mentally prepared myself for a cinematic treat. At least visually hey? But whilst the flying scenes were special-effects-clever, (nice one boys), they didn’t actually make a whole lot of sense logically.
The skies are so littered with planes, American and German (nobody else was in WWII apparently), that the dog fights defied belief. How can supposedly rookie-pilots weave in and out of their own comrades’ crafts whilst looking up, down, left, right and yacking away (with face masks down); no mid-air collisions, no friendly fire, no barrel-roll unwarranted?
When the Red Tails shoot anything on the ground…and I mean anything…armored cars, trucks, trains, submarines (OK, they’re in the water), planes (at an airfield); everything explodes spectacularly, as if it’s somehow been hollowed out and packed with explosives. (If that’s historically accurate, why did our guys bother making bombs? Bullets must have been cheaper and seemed to do the trick just fine. Perhaps they used a bomb when they wanted to take out a whole city in one fell swoop)?
Contrast this to Germans shooting American planes. Despite the close formation, only one plane is affected at a time; still no mid-air collisions. Even then German bullets don’t seem to have the same explosive power. Fighter planes get gently riddled, so the pilots can take their last heroic breaths or limp back to base. As for bombers, they slowly disintegrate with wings folding off, engines detaching and propellers still turning.
Maybe, if LucasFilm and Industrial Light & Magic had stuck to science fiction films, someone here could’ve produced results that were easier to swallow. (After all, most of us have no idea what’s feasible in a fantasy world with technically advanced fighters). Bah! Action side spoiled for me.
How about the racism side of the film. Again, this didn’t seem historically accurate either. Plus, so middle of the road, I’m surprised the cameraman wasn’t hit by a truck. For every racist incident, there seemed to be a patriotic counter-balance. (Maybe we’re not all bad these days; but I’d guess back then the scales were heavily biased toward the nasty side).
The top brass thinks negroes are intellectually inferior and cowardly in the face of battle. (Which begs the question: why spend money training them, only to give ’em crap planes and stick ’em in the middle of nowhere with no way to get return on investment)? But there’s obviously a good white guy thrown in, who doesn’t judge based on the color a man’s skin and fights to right this wrong.
On the base it’s all blacks. So no sign of racial tension there. The airmen could come and go as they pleased apparently; so one of the main characters strikes up a romance with an Italian chick he’d waved to from his plane. No racism with the locals either.
In fact, the only other incident is when the same officer goes into the (white) American Officers Club in town. The reception is cool, the word n*gger rears it’s ugly head and a fight breaks out. But even that’s offset, later in the flick, after they’ve witnessed Red Tail courage…and the white guys give a patriotic salute and buy the Tuskegees a drink.
I’m sure the true story of the Tuskegee airmen was riddled with sacrifice, racial struggles and patriotic endeavors, But this treatment was so wishy-washy it didn’t reveal any of that. Even the military back drop was laughable. Heroes are the guys who do what ever the f*ck they want (brain optional); nobody follows orders, because there’s no consequences if they don’t. Even the Red Tails get their big chance, by taking over from a bunch of white pilots who don’t follow orders. (Top brass’s solution to one squadron not carrying out their orders is obviously: let’s ask these other guys instead).
When I looked at the credits it confused me that Cuba Gooding Jr. got such high billing? I mean I admire him as an actor, but he had no more scenes than anyone else. Plus, he didn’t really get a chance to shine here. He kinda reminds me of Michael J Fox, in that he has an eternal baby face. Shoving a pipe in his mouth and casting him as a major didn’t really make him seem any more mature or worldly-wise.
I also wondered why George Lucas would attach his name to this project as Executive Producer? But then again, I guess he’s been side-tracked with Star Wars for the past 35 years. (Star Wars 3D now. What’s next; Star Wars scratch’n’sniff)?
All in all, not one I’d recommend. In fact, if you see this one on the horizon, I’d suggest you bank hard right and do a fly-by instead.
SaveSaveThe Dallas Mavericks announced Thursday that forward Jeremy Evans underwent shoulder surgery and will miss the remainder of the season. The surgery was to repair a torn labrum in his right shoulder.
Since joining the Mavs as a free agent in the summer of 2015, Evans has struggled to find playing time. The former dunk contest champion has appeared in just 30 games, starting two, for a total of 251 minutes. He's averaging 2.4 points and 1.8 rebounds per game.
Early indications that he may be used as a small ball center never panned out and Evans spent time this season in Frisco playing for the Mavericks' D-League affiliate the Texas Legends. Evans, now a six year veteran, requested to be sent to the D-League to work on his game.
Losing Evans won't dramatically impact the team. He is out of Rick Carlisle's rotation.
Evans is making the veterans minimum with Dallas and has one year left on his contract with the team. Here's hoping that he comes back healthy next season and earns a spot in the rotation.UN stops counting Syria death toll after 100,000
GENEVA
Dust covers clothes at a site hit by what activists said was an airstrike by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the Duma neighbourhood of Damascus January 7, 2014. REUTERS photo
The United Nations’ human rights office has stopped updating the death toll from Syria’s civil war, confirming on Jan. 7 that it can no longer verify the sources of information that led to its last count of at least 100,000 in late July 2013.Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the U.N. Office of the high commissioner for human rights, blamed the failure to provide new figures on the organization’s own lack of access on the ground in Syria and its inability to verify “source material” from others.“It was always a very difficult figure,” Colville said in answer to a question by The Associated Press. “It was always very close to the edge in terms of how much we could guarantee the source material was accurate. And it reached a point where we felt we could no longer cross that line. So for the time being, we’re not updating those figures.”Colville said the total number of dead the U.N. had estimated was based on an exhaustive effort to verify six different figures supplied by a variety of nongovernmental organizations in the region. “Over time, they’ve diminished in number,” he said. “For the past year or so, it’s been down to two or a maximum of three, and we simply didn’t feel that it was possible for us to continue in the same way.”But Colville said the U.N. could not endorse anyone else’s count, including the widely quoted figures from the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, whose latest tally in late December 2013 is more than 130,000 killed in violence in Syria since March 2011.The observatory put the number of women and children killed in the conflict so far at 11,709. It said the death toll among rebels fighting the Bashar al-Assad government was at least 29,083. Deaths among the Syrian armed forces and fighters supporting al-Assad were at least 52,290, including 262 fighters from the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah and 286 from other non-Syrian Shiite groups.The detective’s latest reboot is based on the BBC series starring Benedict Cumberbatch as the pipe-puffing protagonist and Martin Freeman as his sidekick Watson
Sherlock Holmes has had many incarnations since he was first brought to life by the pen of Arthur Conan Doyle in 1887. This summer, that most British of detectives, who has appeared as everything from a vampire hunter to a crime-fighting teenager, is being immortalised in Japanese manga.
Out in June, Sherlock: A Study in Pink adapts the BBC series, which started in 2010, transforming Benedict Cumberbatch’s Holmes and Martin Freeman’s Dr John Watson into classic manga images. Publisher Titan Comics said the release would be the first time the manga series, illustrated by manga illustrator Jay, would be printed in English. It launched in Japan four years ago, and according to io9 its popularity has meant there have been a plethora of fan translations since.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A spread from inside Sherlock, the manga comic. An adaptation of the TV show starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. Photograph: Titan Press
“It’s really interesting seeing such a British thing being reinterpreted in Japanese manga,” said Titan Comics editor Andrew James, who acquired the manga series for the publisher. “It’s still dynamic and full of action, but compared to American comics, there’s often a quietness and reflectiveness about manga.”
Titan is offering extended page counts, as well as new art and covers by artists including Alice X Zhang, in its manga series, the first issue of which opens with Holmes and Watson’s first meeting and ends with the pair moving in together.
The pair’s relationship, James said, is “not made any more explicit than it is on the television, but it’s certainly something the television has hinted at... so [the manga] is not a thing with love hearts appearing, but it’s definitely something in which the subtext is just as strong”.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The relationship of Holmes and Watson, played by Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, will be explored in the comics. Photograph: Robert Viglasky/BBC/PA
Danie Ware, from retailer Forbidden Planet, said the manga series was “pitched just right”, and an “interesting crossover”. “It’s a very new thing, putting something which is very British into the manga format. It’s very unusual,” she said. “But ever since Benedict appeared on the television, Sherlock has been on the up and up. [And] there’s a huge following for manga amongst young women of around 21, and I think the same group follows Benedict, so there is a crossover.”
Titan is also the publisher of the Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes series, in which the detective variously deals with alien attacks and vampires, as well as James Lovegrove’s forthcoming Cthulhu Casebooks series, in which he takes on occult forces. In Mycroft Holmes, by the basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the life of his older brother is imagined.
Basketball veteran Kareem Abdul-Jabbar pens story of Sherlock Homes's brother Read more
“As a core starting place, Holmes is the detective – the first one, the one everyone references,” said Titan Books editor Miranda Jewess. “It’s nice to have that point of familiarity, then you can have writers from any genre playing with it... We’ve had Holmes fighting everything – even Frankenstein’s monster.”
According to book sales monitor Nielsen BookScan, hundreds of Holmes-related titles were published in 2015. The most popular was Anthony Horowitz’s authorised sequel, The House of Silk, followed by a miniature edition of Conan Doyle’s Essential Mysteries. Other popular titles included Andrew Lane’s Young Sherlock Holmes books, Tim Dedopulos’s Holmes puzzles, and psychologist Maria Konnikova’s Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes.
Jewess speculated that Conan Doyle himself probably wouldn’t have approved of the industry his creation has spawned. “Luckily, he’s out of copyright, because I don’t think he’d like it,” she said. “He tried to kill Holmes off once, and I’d think he’d want him to die again. But on the other hand, perhaps the fact that he has become more than a character, that he’s an icon, might help ease his mind.”'Get in!': Father who had his penis chopped off by gipsies posts monster fry-up picture on Facebook after leaving hospital - but still faces months of surgery
Kevlin 'Kelly' Hewitt was allowed home from hospital yesterday
He posted picture of his hearty breakfast on Facebook with caption 'Get in'
Friends and family posted messages of support under the photo
The father-of-seven still faces months of plastic surgery
Friends believe attacker may have mistaken Mr Hewitt for someone else
Police are still investigating the incident
A father-of-seven who had his penis cut off in an attack friends believe was a case of mistaken identity has treated himself to a full English on his release from hospital.
Kelvin 'Kelly' Hewitt, 40, was found covered in blood and searching for the severed organ at the side of the A66, near Middlesborough, at 4.50am on March 12.
After weeks of intense therapy, the construction worker was released from hospital yesterday.
Write caption here
One of the first things he did after being discharged was post the picture of the fry-up on his Facebook page, with the caption 'Get in'.
Friends and family of Mr Hewitt have written messages of support under the picture.
Jonathan Hewitt posted: 'Get it down you followed by a few bevies you deserve it'.
While Christopher Bracchi said: 'Now pal I'm glad ya on the mend hope all is well pal I'll see u for a pint sum time bud (sic).'
Despite being allowed home, Mr Hewitt still faces months of plastic surgery.
However, it is possible that he could make a recovery. Dr Raj Persad, a consultant urologist, told MailOnline that a new penis could be constructed even if the original tissue is lost.
He said: 'The best hope is that doctors have kept the tissue in a viable way so the penis can be reconnected. If the tissue is no longer viable, the options are limited.
'It may be possible to make a phallus – rather like that created in gender reassignment surgery.
'Here, tissue expanders can be used to create a flap of tissue that can be rolled into a phallus. The urethra would also have to be reconstructed.'
Police are still investigating the incident are are trying to piece together Mr Hewitt's movements in the 11 hours before he was found by the side of the A66.
Mr Hewitt was found covered in blood by the A66, near Middlesborough, police are still investigating
It is believed he was attacked at a site often used by the traveller community, in South Bank, near Middlesbrough.
While the assault was originally reported as a revenge attack, speaking last week, a close friend of Mr Hewitt told The Daily Mirror he though the assailant had attacked the wrong man.
He said: '‘He has a big family in the area, and it has shocked everyone who knows him. He is no villain.
‘You wonder if he was in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and whoever did this was looking for someone else. We can see no reason for anyone having a go at him like this.'
After the incident, he had to be placed in an induced coma at James Cook University Hospital, Middlesborough.
Once he was woken up, specially trained officers visited him to conduct interviews but, for the first several attempts, he was too traumatised to speak.
A 22-year-old man was arrested in connection with the incident but was later released on police bail while inquiries into the attack continued.
Debbie Lewis, Mr Hewitt's ex-partner and mother of four of his children, previously said the family had been 'devastated' by the attack.TAMPA — A tweet suggesting that the devastation of Hurricane Harvey was "instant karma" for the red state of Texas has cost a University of Tampa professor his job — making him just the latest academic fired for off-duty speech.
The University first distanced itself from sociology professor Kenneth L. Storey on Monday. But a tide of online outrage continued. A #FireKenStorey hashtag spread far beyond the university. Angry Facebook comments piled up.
"Don't think this is a school we will be looking at for my daughter anymore," one commenter said. An alumnus wrote, "Good thing I already paid you, because I'll never send the school another dime again."
On Tuesday morning, the university fired him.
UPDATE: National faculty group urges UT to reconsider Storey's firing
"We condemn the comments and the sentiment behind them, and understand the pain this irresponsible act has caused," spokesman Eric Cardenas said in a statement.
Storey told the Tampa Bay Times that, while saddened, he understands UT's decision. He got caught up in today's political climate, he said, and knows now that every 140-character post needs to be able to stand on its own.
"What they see in those tweets is not who I am," he said. "How I worded it was wrong. I care about people. I love this country. I would never want to wish harm upon anyone."
The university has no clear policy on protections for speech like Storey's, said longtime communication professor Gregg Bachman. Though the tweet was "impulsive, immature and insensitive," Bachman said, he flinched at seeing a fellow professor fired amid blurry boundaries.
"I can feel a slight chill in the air over this," Bachman said. "I want to see that policy, and if it's not there, I want it developed, because faculty can't feel exposed like this."
Meanwhile, a group that fights for civil liberties in academia has taken up the issue, disappointed that UT "caved" to the pressure of "outrage mobs" online.
"Many universities seem to decide, 'Well, it's not worth the trouble of sticking up for our faculty members' rights,' and that's troubling," said Ari Cohn, an attorney with the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. "Other faculty members are going to think twice before speaking publicly, and that's to the detriment of everybody."
Storey has worked as an adjunct professor at UT since 2011. This was his first semester as a visiting assistant professor. Now other sociology faculty will take over his classes.
Storey's controversial tweet, which has been deleted, first drew the ire of conservative websites Turning Point USA and Campus Reform.
Referencing the hurricane, it read: "I dont believe in instant karma but this kinda feels like it for Texas. Hopefully this will help them realize the GOP doesnt care about them."
In a follow-up, he said that "good people" in red states like Texas and Florida "need to do more to stop the evil their state pushes." He continued: "I'm only blaming those who support the GOP there."
As the tweets spread, so did anger. Storey's name was added to a website called Professor Watchlist, a project to "expose and document college professors who discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom."
Eventually Storey removed the entire thread, as well as his profile photo. He posted an apology on Monday.
"I never meant to wish ill will upon any group," he wrote. "I hope all affected by Harvey recover quickly."
Storey said his tweets were taken out of context. In a statement sent to ABC Action News, he said was referring to the "GOP denial of climate change science and push to decrease funds from agencies that can help in a time like this."
Meanwhile, the university took to Facebook, expressing solidarity for Harvey's victims and condemning Storey's tweets. Still, a deluge of calls, emails and comments demanded Storey's firing. Most of the anger came from |
The Trump administration’s decision to phase out the program dealt an especially harsh blow to the Mexican community in the United States because about three-quarters of the 800,000 immigrants protected by the Obama-era program are Mexican.
The decision came as relations between Mexico and the United States have been strained by Trump’s calls to build a wall on the border of the two countries — a move that Videgaray considers “not friendly” — and as negotiations demanded by Trump to revise the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada got off to a rocky start.
Videgaray came to immigrant-friendly California for meetings with state officials in Sacramento and immigrant and business leaders in Los Angeles.
He also helped kick off a new office for mental health services inside Mexico’s consulate in Los Angeles. Officials said the office will help overcome the stigma of seeking assistance with mental health problems and challenges faced by immigrants who lack legal papers.
Videgaray is expected to head to Washington for meetings on Wednesday.The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Transportation on Wednesday for allegedly withholding records pertaining to the use of unmanned aircraft within the United States.
“Drones give the government and other unmanned aircraft operators a powerful new surveillance tool to gather extensive and intrusive data on Americans’ movements and activities,” said EFF Staff Attorney Jennifer Lynch. “As the government begins to make policy decisions about the use of these aircraft, the public needs to know more about how and why these drones are being used to surveil United States citizens.”
Any drone flying over 400 feet needs a certification or authorization from the Federal Aviation Administration, part of the DOT. But there is currently no information available to the public about who specifically has obtained these authorizations or for what purposes.
The group sent a Freedom of Information Act request to the DOT in April 2011, seeking to find which public and civil entities have been granted authorization to fly unmanned aircraft within the United States. Despite acknowledging the request, the agency failed to hand over any records.
The FAA has restrained the domestic use of unmanned aerial vehicles out of concern for the safety of U.S. airspace. But pressure is going on the FAA to make it easier for law enforcement agencies to gain permission to use unmanned aircraft.
There are hundreds of different models of UAVs, from large fixed-wing aircraft to a tiny drone called the Nano Hummingbird (pictured above). The drones employ a wide range of surveillance technology as well, including high-power zoom lenses, infrared and ultraviolet imaging, see-through imaging and video analytics. Some drones are also large enough to be fitted with weapons.
“The use of drones in American airspace could dramatically increase the physical tracking of citizens – tracking that can reveal deeply personal details about our private lives,” said Lynch. “We’re asking the DOT to follow the law and respond to our FOIA request so we can learn more about who is flying the drones and why.”Yes, Hillary Clinton really did steal the Democratic nomination from Bernie Sanders, but most people have absolutely no idea how she actually did it. In the end, it was all about the money. A secret joint fundraising agreement that was made between the Democratic National Committee, the Hillary Victory Fund, and Hillary for America gave the Clinton campaign full control of the Democratic Party nearly a year before she officially won the nomination. Normally, a presidential candidate for a major party would only be permitted to take full control once the nomination had been secured. But in Hillary’s case, her campaign had a stranglehold over the Democratic National Committee virtually the entire time she was engaged in a heated battle with Bernie Sanders for the Democratic nomination.
In her new book entitled Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns that Put Donald Trump in the White House, Donna Brazile gives us the inside scoop about what really happened inside the DNC during this time period. When she first took over the DNC, she actually had no idea of what had transpired, and when she finally discovered the truth it absolutely horrified her. On Thursday, Politico published an excerpt from Brazile’s new book in an article entitled “Inside Hillary Clinton’s Secret Takeover of the DNC”…
I had promised Bernie when I took the helm of the Democratic National Committee after the convention that I would get to the bottom of whether Hillary Clinton’s team had rigged the nomination process, as a cache of emails stolen by Russian hackers and posted online had suggested. I’d had my suspicions from the moment I walked in the door of the DNC a month or so earlier, based on the leaked emails. But who knew if some of them might have been forged? I needed to have solid proof, and so did Bernie.
Brazile ultimately found the proof that she was looking for by following the money. The Democratic National Committee has been in terrible financial shape for years, and by the time Brazile took over it had become completely and utterly dependent on the Clinton campaign for financial support. Here is more from her new book…
The campaign had the DNC on life support, giving it money every month to meet its basic expenses, while the campaign was using the party as a fund-raising clearinghouse. Under FEC law, an individual can contribute a maximum of $2,700 directly to a presidential campaign. But the limits are much higher for contributions to state parties and a party’s national committee. Individuals who had maxed out their $2,700 contribution limit to the campaign could write an additional check for $353,400 to the Hillary Victory Fund—that figure represented $10,000 to each of the 32 states’ parties who were part of the Victory Fund agreement—$320,000—and $33,400 to the DNC. The money would be deposited in the states first, and transferred to the DNC shortly after that. Money in the battleground states usually stayed in that state, but all the other states funneled that money directly to the DNC, which quickly transferred the money to Brooklyn.
But this dependence on the Clinton campaign did not begin once she had won the nomination.
Actually, it started all the way back in August 2015, which was just four short months after Hillary Clinton originally announced that she would be running for president.
Brazile was able to find the joint fundraising agreement that had begun this arrangement, and it is the “smoking gun” which proves that Bernie Sanders never had a fair shot at winning the nomination…
When I got back from a vacation in Martha’s Vineyard, I at last found the document that described it all: the Joint Fund-Raising Agreement between the DNC, the Hillary Victory Fund, and Hillary for America. The agreement—signed by Amy Dacey, the former CEO of the DNC, and Robby Mook with a copy to Marc Elias—specified that in exchange for raising money and investing in the DNC, Hillary would control the party’s finances, strategy, and all the money raised. Her campaign had the right of refusal of who would be the party communications director, and it would make final decisions on all the other staff. The DNC also was required to consult with the campaign about all other staffing, budgeting, data, analytics, and mailings.
How in the world was Bernie Sanders supposed to have a fair chance if Hillary was in full control of “the party’s finances, strategy, and all the money raised”?
The mainstream media has spent months trying to prove that President Trump colluded with the Russians and they haven’t come up with anything.
And yet now we have smoking gun evidence that Hillary Clinton actually did collude with the DNC to cheat Bernie Sanders out of a fair shot at the Democratic nomination, and the big media outlets so far are not making a big deal out of it.
Sadly, most Americans have just become resigned to the fact that our political system has become a cesspool of filth and corruption. Most of us simply accept that it has always been this way and that things will never change.
Well, I happen to believe that things can change if we are willing to fight back. The election of Donald Trump showed us that anything is possible, and we need a new generation of leaders that are willing to go to Washington and drain the swamp.
We cannot let Hillary Clinton off the hook, and so please share this article as widely as possible. Just because she lost the election does not mean that we should forget about her crimes. We tend to get on members of Congress for doing this, but it is our responsibility as well.
It has been said that “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty”, and if we want to take our country back we have to hold corrupt leaders such as Hillary Clinton accountable. Because if we don’t shine a light on this kind of corruption, it will just keep on happening…Gov. Mark Dayton: "We each have very different views about what’s best for Minnesotans."
It’s practically a rite of spring in St. Paul now: The trees blossom, the birds come back — and the workings inside the Minnesota Capitol go dark.
That’s what happened this week, as negotiations over the state’s two-year, roughly $45 billion state budget went from plodding steadily toward a resolution to what seemed like a sudden break, between the Republicans who control the Legislature and Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton.
Those tensions set off a series of moves by Republican leaders that started late Monday and went into Tuesday evening, as GOP lawmakers worked to send their budget bills to Dayton’s desk — without a compromise.
In response, the governor assured reporters Tuesday that he will “veto them all,” leaving everyone in the dark as to what happens next.
The two parties have less than two weeks until May 22, their constitutionally imposed deadline to adjourn the 2017 session. If they don’t finish on time, Dayton can call legislators back into a special session to finish budget bills. But if that doesn’t happen before July 1 — the start of the next fiscal year — state government operations will go into automatic shutdown mode.
It was gonna be different this time
Like most sessions, lawmakers convened in January saying what they almost always say: that they didn’t want things to end this year with closed-door negotiations, late-night maneuvers and deals pushed until the final hours. That it was going to be different this year.
And it was, for a time. Lawmakers bumped up deadlines to get major budget work done and made it to negotiations with the governor earlier than usual. But, as in most sessions, the drama happened anyway.
“It’s had different forms,” Dayton said Tuesday, remarking on how recent sessions have all concluded with last-minute blowups. “We each have very different views about what’s best for Minnesotans. Minnesotans should expect that we’re going to have these very significant differences; the question is how we are going to resolve them.”
The rift came after Dayton and legislative leaders had spent the previous five days in meetings discussing a budget deal, usually emerging from those discussions with few details to share but generally positive remarks about the process. They described talks as “productive” and “cordial,” even though lawmakers still had major differences to work out.
Those differences largely center on what to do with the state’s $1.5 billion budget surplus. Republicans want tax cuts — something north of $1 billion — though they also want to trim spending on health and human services and state government administration. The governor is proposing to raise spending on things like health care, education and state government.
On Monday, budget negotiations moved into the horse-trading phase. Dayton made an offer on four smaller budget areas — public safety, higher education, economic development and agriculture — reducing his proposed total spending by about $74 million, he said.
After the meeting, House Speaker Kurt Daudt emerged and said he’d hoped things were moving faster, but they were still making progress. “Things at the Legislature never move as quickly as I would like them to, and I’m sure the public probably feels the same way, but we are working hard and we are working well together.”
MinnPost photo by Briana Bierschbach After the meeting, House Speaker Kurt Daudt emerged and said he’d hoped things were moving faster, but they were still making progress.
But behind the scenes, things started moving very quickly. Republicans left the meeting with the governor and went into meetings with rank-and-file legislators. Later that evening, they began preparing their own budget bills for a vote, with or without a compromise in hand. On Tuesday morning, Republican Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka said negotiations had slowed down over the weekend and the offers presented by Dayton on Monday were “unacceptable.”
“The steps were so small on the smallest bills that we didn’t know how we could possibly get there,” Gazelka said. “I think they were sincere first offers, but they were unacceptable and would not lead to getting done on time.”
Daudt said they were worried Dayton was “slow-walking” a deal because he would benefit politically the longer negotiations take. “The governor gains leverage if he pushes us to the end,” Daudt said, describing the move to vote on their budget as a “backup plan.”
Republicans and Dayton met again Tuesday afternoon, with Republicans presenting an offer on all of their budget bills, reducing their tax cut proposal from $1.13 billion to $1 billion and spending more on state government and health and human services. Dayton countered that with another offer on the four budget bills discussed the day before, coming down a total of $122 million.
Republicans left the meeting frustrated they weren’t making progress. Within hours, they began taking up their budget bills on the House and Senate floors.
‘I will veto every one of those bills’
What does this all mean for the end of session? At the very least, the move delays further negotiations between Dayton and Republicans. It will take several days for legislators to pass all of their budget bills and send them to Dayton. The governor said that he will veto all of the budget proposals.
“They should know that I will veto every one of those bills, which will leave us with the same differences several days from now that we face today,” Dayton said. “Their actions will make it much more difficult for them to fulfill their constitutional responsibility to send me budget bills, which I can sign, by May 22.”
Dayton added that the actions of the GOP leadership, in the middle of discussions with his office, have changed the tone of negotiations going forward. “All the flurry of activity over the last 12 hours without any discussion with us, without any forewarning,” Dayton said. “It certainly changes the tenor, for sure.”
Republicans and governor are not unfamiliar with discord: They went into a 20-day government shutdown over the budget in 2011, and the last two sessions under divided government have ended in acrimony, special session talks and plenty of unfinished business.
MinnPost photo by Briana Bierschbach Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka: “The steps were so small on the smallest bills that we didn’t know how we could possibly get there.”
For now, all sides say they still want to work together, even if their actions are sending mixed signals about whether that can actually happen. “I’ve done this before and I’ve been involved in a few of the blowups before the breakthrough, and that does happen,” Daudt said Tuesday. “I don’t think this is [a blowup]. We want to work with the governor, we want to get this solved.”
For his part, Dayton remained open to meeting with Republicans on Wednesday, even as they continued to pass budget bills he plans to veto. Dayton’s daily public schedule, which he releases to reporters, read that Wednesday is “intentionally left open to be responsive to the legislative process.”
If that doesn’t happen, perhaps they’ll talk about it Friday. That’s when the governor and legislative leaders are scheduled to be together on a boat in the middle of the Mississippi River in St. Cloud for the state’s fishing opener.Advertisement
A woman is extremely lucky to be alive after her car drove off a rock wall of a car park into a New Zealand harbour and immediately began sinking at a frightening speed.
The petrified woman was squashed up against the rear window as the front end of the BMW was rapidly submerging into the Waitemata Harbour in Auckland at 3pm on Tuesday.
Fortunately witnesses called emergency services as quick-thinking policemen arrived and sprung straight into action by jumping into the water.
Scroll down for video
The petrified woman was squashed up against the rear window as the front end of the car was rapdily submerging into the Waitemata Harbour in Auckland, New Zealand, at 3pm on Tuesday
Fortunately witnesses called emergency services as quick-thinking policemen arrived and sprung straight into action by jumping into the water with one officer attempting to smash the window with a baton
Officers Paul Watts (left) and Simon Russell (right) then dragged the 63-year-old woman from the car to safety
The officers and a bystander couldn't open the doors so one officer attempted to smash the window with a baton with no luck.
Once it became clear that it was not going to penetrate through the glass another officer was handed a rock and managed to shatter the rear window.
The relieved woman was then pulled to safety by the two heroic policemen.
The two officers who saved the woman's life - Paul Watts and Simon Russell - have described the dangerous rescue, and revealed they believe she could have been less than a minute away from drowning.
'When we entered the water, I was talking to one of the (members of the public) who was trying to balance the vehicle and he said he was looking for a rock to try and smash the window,' Mr Russell told the New Zealand Herald.
He said once his baton failed he successfully broke through the window with a rock, but by this time the car was sinking at a rapid rate.
'At that time the car actually started to move very fast into the water. I was trying to hold the car, slowing it down from entering the water,' Mr Russell said.
Mr Watts and Mr Russell then managed to pull the woman from the car to safety, but said they got her out just in time.
'It was pretty close, probably 30 or 40 seconds after we managed to get the female out of the car, the car was already slipping further into the water,' Mr Watts said.
'I'd say she'd probably only had maximum probably another minute, minute-and-a-half if she hadn't got out,' he told the NZ Herald.
Mr Watts described the dramatic rescue as 'pretty much part of a routine job being a police officer' in another interview, saying the whole operation only took about 40 seconds. The car was fully submerged just a minute after the woman was freed from it.
The sunken BMW is frightening proof that the woman would not have made it without the help of the quick-thinking policemen
The woman is lucky to be alive after the frightening accident where her car careered into the harbour
A tow truck starts to pull the car out of Waitemata Harbour in Auckland as a police officer watches on
The two officers received a call from Police Commissioner Mike Bush on Tuesday afternoon, commending them on their efforts.
'It's just another day on the job sir', Mr Watts told the commissioner, according to stuff.co.nz.
Detective Sergeant Callum McNeill said police were still trying to work out how the bizarre incident occurred.
He said the woman, who was naturally in shock, got away with just a 'few cuts and bruises and is lucky to be alive,' stuff.co.nz reported.
Erwin Kampos saw the BMW go straight into the drink after driving over the Northcote Point Ferry Terminal's car park rock wall while he was fishing and immediately went into the water to attempt to smash the window.
'The two police officers smashed the back windscreen, I tried to smash the sides and they didn't want to break. We were running out of time because the vehicle was filling up,' he said.
Another witness saw the car was 'filling up fast' and said the officers got to the woman 'just in the nick of time.'Media playback is not supported on this device Bernstein explains FA decision
The Football Association's board has decided to abstain in the vote for the presidency of Fifa.
Sepp Blatter, the current head of football's world governing body, is being challenged by Qatari Mohamed Bin Hammam, the president of the Asian Football Confederation.
But the FA has chosen not to vote after allegations of corruption against Fifa in recent months.
The presidency vote will take place on 1 June.
In a statement, the FA said: "The FA board has today [Thursday] agreed to abstain in the vote of the presidency of Fifa.
"There are a well-reported range of issues both recent and current which, in the view of the FA board, make it difficult to support either candidate.
"The FA values its relationships with its international partners very highly. We are determined to play an active and influential role through our representation within both Uefa and Fifa.
"We will continue to work hard to bring about any changes we think would benefit all of international football."
The [Fifa] ethics committee is already alerted and alarmed - they are not just lying on the beach Sepp Blatter Fifa president
Two Fifa executive committee (ExCo) members were suspended from voting in the bidding for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups following allegations they had offered to sell their votes.
More corruption claims concerning a further six ExCo members were made last week by former FA chairman Lord Triesman and the Sunday Times.
While England won a meagre two votes in its bid to host the 2018 World Cup, Qatar was successful in its bid to stage the 2022 tournament but its team has been accused of paying bribes to win votes.
Fifa has launched an investigation into the allegations but they have cast a shadow over both Blatter, 75, and Bin Hammam, 62. The latter was an influential figure in securing the 2022 World Cup for his country.
Before the FA took its decision to abstain, Blatter had stated: "I think it is a little bit strange when the number one association in the world, i.e. the FA, have two candidates in front of them and cannot make a decision which one to support."
Blatter, who is aiming for a fourth term as Fifa president, also stated that Fifa is to interview a whistleblower concerning the allegations made about the Qatar bid.
"We have organised and the newspaper have agreed we will bring this whistleblower to Zurich and then we will have a discussion, an investigation," said Blatter.
Analysis Should the FA have used today's long awaited decision to blow a far louder raspberry at the men in Switzerland who run world football? David Bond's blog: Has the FA gone far enough?
Asked if the decision to award the 2022 World Cup could be reversed if the bribery claims were found to be true, he answered: "This is an idea circulating already around the world which is alarming.
"Don't ask me yes or no, let us go step by step."
Blatter added: "We must know if the allegations are true or not true or unproven. If they are not true, then this case is over.
"Then we will see which instrument will work. It is of paramount importance that we have this situation clarified on the 27th [May].
"The [Fifa] ethics committee is already alerted and alarmed - they are not just lying on the beach - and the members will come for the congress and can convene at very short notice."PlayStation Store release includes time-travelling ninja commandos and puzzle/shooter hybrid
Continuing our initiative to bring classic import titles to modern hardware, our team has been hard at work on preparing a very special compilation disc, ADK Damashii, which releases today on PS4.
This compilation disc was originally released on PS2 as a Japan-only release and is a collection of Neo Geo titles that were developed by ADK, also known as Alpha Denshi Corporation. We want to discuss each game included in this compilation and why they are so important to the Neo Geo legacy.
Aggressors of Dark Kombat
This fighting game developed by ADK is a very unique entry in the genre and has a variety of mechanics that set it apart from other classic fighting games.
One of the biggest differences is the ability to walk into the background, in a way that is very similar to what is possible in side-scrolling beat ’em ups. This is controlled with the stick or D-Pad, and as a result jump is actually moved to one of the action buttons. The game also places a large emphasis on grappling moves, including the ability to counter-grab and break free from an opponent. The game also has weapon pick-ups that are actually thrown into the stage by the crowd!
Ninja Master’s Haoh-Ninpo-Cho
Known to most fans simply as Ninja Master’s, this title is one of the rarest and most sought-after Neo Geo cartridges in existence. This title was actually the sixth and final fighting game created by ADK for the Neo Geo. Per the game’s title, the setting revolves around a cast of ninjas each with their own goals and reasons for fighting. The gameplay is very similar to other weapon-based fighting games.
One aspect of the gameplay that differentiates itself from other fights like Samurai Shodown is the ability to switch at will between fighting with your character’s weapon or bare-handed. In certain cases this will actually alter a character’s strategy as the moves can be completely different. The soundtrack in this title is also very unique and is heavily inspired by traditional Japanese music.
Ninja Combat
Ninja Combat is a side scrolling action game developed by ADK, and even among other side scrolling action games at the time is considered extremely difficult!
The main characters use shuriken for their primary weapon, and other weapons can be picked up throughout the levels to add variety. Another aspect that increases replay value is the fact that certain bosses become playable after defeating them.
Ninja Commando
Ninja Commando is another game featuring ninjas, this time in a top-down vertically scrolling action game. The player gets the choice of three different ninja characters, each with differing abilities, as they chase a villain through seven different time periods. A unique aspect of this game is the fact that the character’s special moves are actually activated through classic fighting-game style inputs.
Twinkle Star Sprites
Twinkle Star Sprites is perhaps the most unique title in this compilation, as it is a competitive scrolling shooter that also contains elements common to versus puzzle games. The playfield is split into two halves and each player is restricted to one side. They cannot directly attack each other, and instead send attacks and counter-attacks back at each other by destroying enemies and projectiles on their screen.
This is another import release and does not offer any language options besides Japanese, but with a collection of games like this it should not be missed regardless! We will continue to deliver more import titles to our fans going forward, and are already planning Fatal Fury: Battle Archives Vol.2 as our next release! Stay tuned in the future for more exciting PS2 Games releases from SNK!CAIRO (Reuters) - A riot erupted in a Cairo suburb on Tuesday after a policeman shot three people after an argument over the price of a cup of tea, killing one of them, the Interior Ministry and witnesses said.
Public anger over allegations of police brutality has been bubbling over the past months, with several incidents spilling over into skirmishes and protests, five years after the ministry’s officers were a major focus of the 2011 uprising.
One of the onlookers held up a bullet casing and accused the police of killing “poor” Egyptians.
A crowd quickly gathered, overturning a police vehicle and beating up another policeman at the scene, said a witness, who did not see the shooting but said he arrived at the scene in the well-to-do neighborhood of Rehab shortly afterwards.
“The Interior Ministry are thugs,” chanted the crowd in a video sent to Reuters by the witness. Around 200 people were in the crowd, according to a Reuters estimate from the footage.
Rights activists say police brutality is widespread in Egypt and that there is a culture of impunity. The Interior Ministry says abuses are isolated and incidents are investigated.
Witnesses said on social media the argument on Tuesday was over the price of a cup of tea, which was confirmed to Reuters by security sources. The video, one of several shared by the witness, showed a man lying still on the floor surrounded by angry onlookers.
The Interior Ministry said in a statement that a policeman got into an argument with a vendor over “the price of a drink” and shot him dead, injuring two others in the process.
A judicial source told Reuters the policeman shot the three men with an assault rifle and fled. The victim died from a bullet to the heart, the judicial source said.
“There are clashes between the police and locals. Security forces brought in two riot police vehicles and an armored truck and the victim’s family is here and pelting them with rocks,” said the witness who sent the video and who declined to be named for fear of reprisal.
“Security forces are retreating and promising justice but the crowd is demanding police hand over the killer.”
Anger over perceived police excesses helped fuel the 2011 uprising that ended President Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule and began on a Police Day holiday. Since then, police have regained their power and human rights groups say they have returned to their old ways.
Public anger against police has surged again in recent months.
In February, a policeman shot dead a driver in the street in an argument over a fare, prompting hundreds to protest outside the Cairo security directorate. There were also riots in Ismailia and the southern city Luxor over the authorities’ handling of at least three deaths in police custody in a single week in November.
Egyptian security forces have also faced scrutiny over the killing of Italian researcher Giulio Regeni in Cairo this year. Human rights groups say his death bears the hallmarks of Egyptian security agencies. Officials deny involvement.
“A hundred years of isolated incidents,” wrote one commentator on Twitter.Yet there are reminders of the carnage. People occasionally find shards of shrapnel in the trunks of felled trees. Farmers often must call in a munitions squad to remove undetonated explosives from their fields. Overlooking Château-Thierry is the monument commemorating the Americans who fought at the Marne. Outside the city are two American military cemeteries — the Aisne-Marne and the Oise-Aisne, both maintained by the United States government — which together have rows of white tombstones for more than 9,000 men and women who were sent off to a distant war and never came back.
The United States entered World War I in 1917 with an untested force whose leader, General John J. Pershing, nicknamed “Black Jack,” was opposed to fighting under a French command. He relented when the Germans began major offensives in the spring of 1918 to try to win the war before the Allies could gather strength from the arriving American forces. They retook an important ridge position at the Chemin des Dames, and then blitzed another 40 or 50 miles to the banks of the Marne.
Four years earlier, with the Germans sweeping toward the capital, the French stopped them in the First Battle of the Marne as taxi drivers from Paris ferried reinforcements to the front. That victory led to four years of bloody stalemate in the trenches, but in 1918 the Germans were again on the banks of the river. Historians now doubt that the Germans intended to make an immediate frontal blitz on Paris, but a German victory at the Marne could have been devastating for the Allies.No, this isn’t some hipster version of a David Bowie album… it is the openly declared madness of the Portland AntiFa/Black Bloc rioters.
In an ironic banner, the Black Bloc AntiFa rioters—most of whom are pasty White—openly asked:
“White People What Will We Do To Change Our Legacy Of Violence?”
Protesters marching with what look like large, inflatable black widows. Watch the #MayDayPDX march live https://t.co/LcEuOwQUd1 pic.twitter.com/wZfQxq0VTf — KGW News (@KGWNews) May 1, 2017
Um, perhaps not rioting like spoilt little thugs?
Also, ordering around those giant black spiders like they were slaves would be an improvement as well.
Whether they were being “ironic” or simply proud of being a laughing stalk (or perhaps, even, of being well trolled), one flag openly declared that they were the “Left Wing Cuck Squad“, complete with a unicorn as the center device on the flag’s badge!
The use of the word “cuck” as a derogative is loathsome, but when they use if on themselves…
Oh, Kendell Jenner, a lonely Portland turns its eyes towards you!
A @PDXFire medic was hit by a full @pepsi can thrown during #MayDayPDX protest march. Not injured. — Portland Police (@PortlandPolice) May 1, 2017
TweetHave you ever wanted to have a drink (or two, or three) with your celebrity crush? Well, here’s your chance.
Jennifer Lawrence, a.k.a. one of the sexiest women in the world, is auctioning off the opportunity to join her in California wine country for a picnic and wine tasting as a fundraiser to stop political corruption in the U.S.
Picking the Perfect White Wine:
We know what you’re thinking: People only win celebrity charity auctions if they donate thousands of dollars. But this one is a little different because Omaze, the company running it, set it up as a raffle. If you donate $1, that’s one entry. If you donate $2, that’s two entries, and so on. With a little luck, you’ll be talking about what’s going on in America and drinking your wine of choice with the Hunger Games star.
“It’ll be great,” Lawrence says in a video to promote the fundraiser. “We’ll hang out, we’ll drink some wine, talk politics, drink wine, maybe we’ll call your ex, maybe we’ll call my ex, who knows? The point is, we’ll have fun.”
And Jennifer Lawrence is no stranger to having a good time, especially under the influence of a little bit of alcohol. Earlier this year, she was caught on video dancing on a stripper pole at a friend’s birthday. And although she was a little caught off-guard when she found out millions of people on the Internet had seen it, she was unapologetic about just wanting to let loose. She even poked fun at her lack of core strength. (Jennifer, if you’re reading this, our Men’s Health Anarchy Abs workouts can help!)The combat sports world suffered yet another loss on Sunday when it was confirmed former UFC light heavyweight and notable Canadian MMA fighter Ryan Jimmo had passed away.
Jimmo (19-5 MMA, 3-4 UFC), 34, was the victim of a hit-and-run incident early Sunday morning and was later pronounced dead due to his injuries. The seven-fight UFC veteran made his most recent octagon appearance in May 2015, losing a unanimous decision to Francimar Barroso.
Check below for reactions from the MMA community following the news of Jimmo’s death.
* * * *
RIP Ryan Jimmo pic.twitter.com/ZPMHGhRAGl — Dana White (@danawhite) June 27, 2016
.@RyanJimmo KO'd me in my @UFC debut. But we knew and supported eachother long before that. RIP to a man who was much more than a fighter. — Sean O'Connell (@realOCsports) June 27, 2016
RIP Ryan Jimmo – enough 2016, enough — Thomas Gerbasi (@tgerbasi) June 27, 2016
Wow! Sad to hear about the recent tragic passing of UFC Vet Ryan Jimmo. Terrible! My prayers out to his family during this time. — Chris Weidman (@ChrisWeidmanUFC) June 27, 2016
Jimmo!! 😔😔😔 — tim means (@MeansTim) June 27, 2016
Just heard about Ryan Jimmo passing away. So sad to hear. Thoughts are with his family and friends. — Greg Savage (@TheSavageTruth) June 27, 2016
I knew I could work with @RyanJimmo when he could laugh with me at this pic I made. RIP my brother. pic.twitter.com/dvLzwFVOh8 — Nathan Quarry (@NateRockQuarry) June 27, 2016
Sad news. Only met him a few times but he was always smiling and laughing https://t.co/O4LU1wyCz4 — Chris Clements (@menaceclements) June 27, 2016
Second fighter loses a life to a hit-n-run this year. F#cking sad. Thoughts and prayers with his family and friends. #RyanJimmo — Gorgeous George (@MMAjunkieGeorge) June 27, 2016
He's was such a nice guy! This is terrible. RIP https://t.co/p7CLRXhIko — Ulysses Gomez (@uselessgomez) June 27, 2016
Terrible news again. #RIP Ryan Jimmo condolences to his family. — Frankie Edgar (@FrankieEdgar) June 27, 2016
Hope they find the cowards responsible, too much senseless death this year. #RIPRyanJimmo — Angela Hill (@AngieOverkill) June 27, 2016
Ugh man I'm sincerely gutted my friend @RyanJimmo who i shared an @MaximumFighting title with & interviewed with many times has passed 😢😢😢😢 — Anthony Birchak (@abirchakMMA) June 27, 2016
So so so sad to hear of the passing of my Freemason Brother @RyanJimmo … God's finger touched him and he slept… RIP my Brother. So sad. — MichaelSchiavello WM (@SchiavelloVOICE) June 27, 2016
Wow this is unreal! Was such a laugh to be around him in the practice room! Another good one lost to madness! https://t.co/jOrvBhlQEY — Michael Johnson (@FollowTheMenace) June 27, 2016
So very sad to hear about the tragic loss of Ryan Jimmo. This has been a terrible year in MMA for loss of life. Prayers out to his family — Sam Caplan (@SamCaplanMMA) June 27, 2016
Dam RIP @RyanJimmo. Had the pleasure of training alongside him during a visit to @Powermmafitness. Very kind man, taken too early. — Nick Newell (@NotoriousNewell) June 27, 2016
Sad day, RIP to our good friend and TUF 8 Alumni Ryan Jimmo.. Hit… https://t.co/R72aKpHbrZ — Efrain Escudero (@effyescudero) June 27, 2016
Saddened to hear of Ryan Jimmo's passing. Spoke to him at length in a Brazil airport after his last UFC fight. Genuine guy. RIP, good man. — Jon Anik |
y (22). One change, however, is unlikely to have much impact: the advent of DNA identification technology. DNA evidence is useful primarily in rape rather than homicide investigations. Only 13% of death row exonerations since 1973 (18 of 142) resulted from postconviction DNA testing (13), so the availability of preconviction testing will have at most a modest effect on that rate. Unfortunately, we cannot generalize from our findings on death sentences to the rate of false convictions in any broader category of crime. Capital prosecutions, and to a lesser extent murder cases in general, are handled very differently from other criminal cases. There are theoretical reasons to believe that the rate of false conviction may be higher for murders in general, and for capital murders in particular, than for other felony convictions, primarily because the authorities are more likely to pursue difficult cases with weak evidence of guilt if one or more people have been killed (23). However, there are no data that confirm or refute this hypothesis. We do know that the rate of error among death sentences is far greater than Justice Scalia’s reassuring 0.027% (6). That much is apparent directly from the number of death row exonerations that have already occurred. Our research adds the disturbing news that most innocent defendants who have been sentenced to death have not been exonerated, and many—including the great majority of those who have been resentenced to life in prison—probably never will be. This is only part of a disturbing picture. Fewer than half of all defendants who are convicted of capital murder are ever sentenced to death in the first place (e.g., 49.1% in Missouri as in ref. 24, 29% in Philadelphia as in ref. 25, and 31% in New Jersey as in ref. 26). Sentencing juries, like other participants in the process, worry about the execution of innocent defendants. Interviews with jurors who participated in capital sentencing proceedings indicate that lingering doubts about the defendant’s guilt is the strongest available predictor of a sentence of life imprisonment rather than death (27). It follows that the rate of innocence must be higher for convicted capital defendants who are not sentenced to death than for those who are. The net result is that the great majority of innocent defendants who are convicted of capital murder in the United States are neither executed nor exonerated. They are sentenced, or resentenced to prison for life, and then forgotten.
Acknowledgments We thank the following for their assistance and advice: Dr. Roderick J. A. Little (Richard D. Remington Collegiate Professor of Biostatistics and Professor, Department of Statistics, University of Michigan), Dr. Richard Gonzalez (Professor, Department of Psychology and Department of Statistics and Business School, University of Michigan), Dr. John DiNardo (Professor, Department of Economics and School of Public Policy, University of Michigan), and Dr. J. J. Prescott (Professor, Law School, University of Michigan).
Footnotes Author contributions: S.R.G. and B.O. designed research; S.R.G. and B.O. performed research; C.H. and E.H.K. analyzed data; and S.R.G. and B.O. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
↵*This Direct Submission article had a prearranged editor.
↵ † A reviewer of an earlier draft suggested an alternative analytic approach. The suggested approach postulates a campaign process that gives some but not all death-sentenced defendants the opportunity to be exonerated. Identification of the false conviction rate is then based on independence assumptions between innocence and removal from death row. With more complete data of the sort required for the best realization of this insightful approach, we believe that it would offer a particularly valuable supplement, and test of the robustness, of our findings and conclusions.
This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1306417111/-/DCSupplemental.
Freely available online through the PNAS open access option.On July 19, Jessie Benenson experienced a mother's nightmare.
While Benenson was waiting with her young children to cross the street at the intersection of Southeast Flavel Street and Southeast 72nd Avenue, a car jumped the curb and struck her 18-month-old daughter, Rosemary, and her 5-year-old son, Harry Strong.
Rosemary suffered only minor harm. Harry's injuries were more serious. With a significant skull fracture, the boy's brain was bleeding. It was July 24 before he opened his eyes again.
"He was unresponsive for a whole week after the accident," says Melissa Baker, the family's next-door neighbor in the Mount Scott-Arleta neighborhood. "It took him another bit after that to gain his strength back and his speech back."
Harry remained in the intensive care unit at Doernbecher Children's Hospital until July 26, then was moved to Randall Children's Hospital at Legacy Emanuel.
The community rose up to rally around the family in their time of crisis.
Friends of Benenson and her husband, Ian Terrell, organized a work party to complete the family's project of refinishing their floors, underway prior to the accident. Free babysitting was arranged to help Benenson's mother look after Rosemary while Harry was in the hospital.
The cat got fed. The garden was weeded. The laundry was done. And there was a massive amount of food.
"We mowed the lawn and did anything we could," says next-door neighbor Alex Baker. "People just stepped up to handle things."
Benenson says friends organized a party at the site of the accident -- complete with glitter and magic wands, in honor of Harry's love of wizards -- to "cleanse" the area of its sad association. Another friend sent the family her son's New Orleans Audubon Zoo T-shirt to replace the one Harry had been wearing the day of the accident.
Harry even received a package from Afghanistan. A soldier there heard about the accident and wrote Harry a letter, accompanied by a scorpion encased in plastic and some coins to play with.
Harry Strong Benenson benefits
What:
Two fundraisers to help the family of Harry Strong Benenson, a 5-year-old car accident victim, with his medical bills.
Silent auction and concert:
8 p.m. Friday, Aug. 24, Tonic Lounge,
Admission:
$7 suggested donation at the door
Information:
Silent auction:
1 to 8 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 25, at Lucky Labrador Beer Hall,
Admission:
Free
The outpouring of support didn't stop there.
Alex Baker -- better known as Alex Fast to fans of Portland garage punk -- went to work organizing a benefit to help the family cope with what are sure to be hefty medical bills.
"The Tonic (Lounge) just gave us the night right away," says Baker. His band,
, is joining with Land Between the Lakes, Wizard Rifle, The Decliners, Shannon Tower Band, DJ Hwy 7 and MC Amanda Arnold to raise money for Harry.
Portland authors including Chelsea Cain, Monica Drake, Karen Karbo, Cathy Lamb, Jessica Morrell, Deborah Reed, Cheryl Strayed, Elissa Wald, Shannon Wheeler and Lidia Yuknavitch have donated books to the event.
"Everything is going directly to the family," Alex Baker says.
"Hopefully between the (benefit concert and silent auctions), it will help put a dent in the bills," says Melissa Baker. "It just seems so unfair to have to go through all that, and then have to have the financial burden on top of it. It's awful."
Due to potential legal and insurance issues, Benenson declined to estimate the cost of Harry's care -- from his hospital stay to the therapy he will need.
"I'm very overwhelmed and surprised by the whole thing," Benenson says. "There's no way that I can thank people for the amount of love and generosity that they've showed us.... The only thing we can do really is to pass it forward, and keep aware of when other people are having a hard time."
Melissa Baker notes that people who don't even know Harry have volunteered their time and services.
"It seems like we do have a good community down here."
Nearly a month after the accident, Harry is back at home and playing catch in the yard with the Bakers' daughter. Benenson says he's testing within normal limits for his age, and that he will enter kindergarten at Portland Village School next month.
"The people in our lives who were sending their wishes and their prayers and their teddy bears and everything to us made it possible for Ian and I just to be extremely strong and just to keep it together to take care of our son and to help him get better," says Benenson.
"That's just something that I can never repay adequately. It kept us together, all the love that we got."
-Abstract Astronauts are exposed to a unique combination of stressors during spaceflight, which leads to alterations in their physiology and potentially increases their susceptibility to disease, including infectious diseases. To evaluate the potential impact of the spaceflight environment on the regulation of molecular pathways mediating cellular stress responses, we performed a first-of-its-kind pilot study to assess spaceflight-related gene-expression changes in the whole blood of astronauts. Using an array comprised of 234 well-characterized stress-response genes, we profiled transcriptomic changes in six astronauts (four men and two women) from blood preserved before and immediately following the spaceflight. Differentially regulated transcripts included those important for DNA repair, oxidative stress, and protein folding/degradation, including HSP90AB1, HSP27, GPX1, XRCC1, BAG-1, HHR23A, FAP48, and C-FOS. No gender-specific differences or relationship to number of missions flown was observed. This study provides a first assessment of transcriptomic changes occurring in the whole blood of astronauts in response to spaceflight.
During spaceflight, astronauts experience a variety of physical and psychological stressors, including acceleration at launch, isolation, confinement, high levels of ionizing radiation, sleep deprivation, and microgravity, which have been linked to a variety of physiological changes, including dampened immune function, bone and muscle loss, and increased viral reactivation.1, 2, 3, 4, 5 The molecular basis of spaceflight-induced responses remains unclear and may provide critical insights into health outcomes associated with space travel. Targeted spaceflight-associated changes in cytokine and antibody expression have been previously reported for astronauts,1, 2, 3 and more recently Terada et al reported the effects of spaceflight on hair follicle gene expression in astronauts.6 To evaluate the potential impact of the spaceflight environment on molecular pathways mediating cellular stress responses, we performed a first-of-its-kind pilot study to assess spaceflight-related changes in the expression of stress-response genes in the whole blood of astronauts in response to spaceflight.
Transcriptional profiling of 234 well-characterized stress-response genes was performed using total RNA isolated from whole blood obtained from six consenting astronauts 10 days before launch aboard the space shuttle and 2–3 h after return to Earth (see Supplemental Methods). Four men between the ages of 38 and 47 (mean=43 years) and two women between the ages of 38 and 44 (mean=41 years) participated in the study. Each of these astronauts flew aboard one of four space shuttle missions ranging between 10 and 13 days duration that took place during a 2-year period. Previously published studies using blood and saliva samples from these same crew members before, during and just after spaceflight indicated that all six astronauts displayed increases in Epstein Barr virus reactivation both during and immediately post flight, which is consistent with these individuals being in a stressed state.4,5
Microarray analysis revealed some variation in the gene-expression patterns displayed across individual crew members. This is not surprising given the smaller study size due to the exceptionally rare opportunity for this type of sample collection, as well as other studies that have shown that there can be a wide range of individual and temporal variability in gene-expression patterns in human blood.7 High variability was also observed in gene-expression studies using astronaut hair follicles.6 We found six transcripts that displayed significant (P<0.05) changes in expression in the crew in response to spaceflight when compared with pre-flight levels (Table 1). Two additional differentially regulated transcripts were identified following outlier removal. No gender-specific differences or relationship to number of missions flown were observed. It is important to note that as for many human spaceflight studies, the small number of human subjects available for analysis is a limiting factor to the statistical power. False discovery rate algorithms determined no significant genes were expressed, likely due to these low study group numbers. The NASA Twins Study with astronauts Scott Kelly and Mark Kelly performed during the One-Year Mission may face similar challenges in their gene-expression data interpretation, as there is an n of 1 in each condition (spaceflight and ground). However, one advantage in the Twins Study over the present one is the longitudinal sample collection that could be performed during the year that Kelly spent in space. It will be intriguing to compare the results from gene-expression analyses between the two studies.
Table 1: Differentially regulated genes in astronaut blood in response to spaceflight Full size table
Genes altered in expression encode proteins of known importance for DNA repair (XRCC1 and HHR23A), oxidative stress (GPX1), and chaperones which have key roles in protein folding and/or proteasomal degradation (HSP27 and HSP90AB1). The finding that genes encoding DNA-repair proteins are downregulated supports previous studies which showed post-flight increases in chromosomal aberrations in lymphocytes of astronauts8 and indications of increased DNA damage in astronauts after long-duration spaceflight.9 Kumari et al previously reported that exposure of human lymphocytes to simulated microgravity over the course of 7 days led to increased DNA damage.10 This damage was accompanied by progressive decreases in the expression of a number of representative DNA-repair genes, leading the authors to postulate that impaired DNA-repair capacity could lead to increased damage and mutations. In a separate study, it was reported that 1 week of hindlimb unloading in male BALB/c mice led to the downregulation of multiple DNA-repair genes including ERCC 1, ERCC 3, ERCC5, ERCC6, and XPC in the testes of BALB/c mice.11
Of particular interest was the downregulation of GPX1, which encodes for glutathione peroxidase (GPX1), an enzyme that protects cells from oxidative damage, modulates the immune response (including delayed type hypersensitivity/DTH), and has been associated with increased viral titers in herpes viral infections.12 Given that spaceflight depresses the DTH response,2 alters cellular oxidative functions,9,13, 14, 15, 16, 17 and increases herpes viral reactivation in astronauts on orbit,4,5 additional detailed studies related to glutathione and oxidative stress may fundamentally advance our understanding of mechanisms underlying risks to crew health during a mission. Several previous studies have indicated the potential for alterations in oxidative stress and antioxidant defense status in response to spaceflight and spaceflight-analog models in humans and animals.9,13, 14, 15, 16 Although the reported magnitude and direction of the expression/activity levels of specific redox enzymes (including GPX1) were variable across these studies (likely due to differences in experimental parameters such as the use of human versus animal subjects, mission duration, etc) the overall findings support the potential for increased oxidative stress and/or decreased antioxidant defense capacity in response to spaceflight. It is also interesting to note that GPX1 is a selenoprotein and decreased serum selenium levels have been reported in astronauts post landing as compared with pre-launch.9 Therefore, additional insight into GPX1 and other oxidative defense mechanisms may serve as a guiding principle for establishing nutritional requirements to ensure health safety and performance of the crew during human exploration of space.9,18 When we compared these transcriptomic findings from blood samples to a previously published study using hair samples,6 we did not find similarities in the genes that were differentially regulated pre- and post flight, which could be due to a variety of experimental differences, including sample source (whole blood versus hair follicles) and mission duration (10–13 days in the present study compared with ~6 months in the study by Terada et al6).
To our knowledge, this study represents the first report of transcriptomic changes occurring in the blood of astronauts in response to spaceflight. Several transcripts encoding stress-response genes were suppressed in the crew after exposure to the microgravity environment, including those important for DNA repair, oxidative stress, detoxification, and protein folding/degradation. These processes are vital for maintaining human health by mediating cellular pathways that serve to protect against both environmental and physiological stressors and have been implicated in a broad spectrum of diseases. Since changes in gene expression in peripheral blood may be attributed to a number of factors, including changes in the distribution of blood cellular subsets (which has been detected post flight in the crew),1, 2, 3 future studies designed to establish direct links between specific physiological/cellular adaptations underlying these transcriptomic changes in response to the microgravity environment will be important. It is important to note that no direct correlation can be made between gene-expression changes observed in this study and the disease status or potential for the development of disease in these individuals. This study provides an initial foundation into the molecular genetic response profiles of astronauts during spaceflight from which additional research into alterations in crew health and performance can be investigated. This kind of research could lead to human health countermeasures to mitigate risk during the transition from short-to-long-duration flight and could potentially translate to health benefits for the general public.
References 1. Gueguinou, N. et al. Could spaceflight-associated immune system weakening preclude the expansion of human presence beyond Earth's orbit? J Leukoc Biol 86, –1038 (2009). 2. Sonnenfeld, G. The immune system in space, including Earth-based benefits of space-based research. Curr Pharm Biotechnol 6, 343–349 (2005). 3. Yi, B., Crucian, B., Tauber, S., Ullrich, O. & Choukèr, A. In: Effect of Spaceflight and Spaceflight Analogue Culture on Human and Microbial Cells (edsNickerson C. A., Pellis N. R. & Ott C. M.)Ch. 3, 61–79 (Springer-Verlag: New York, NY, 2016). 4. Pierson, D. L., Stowe, R. P., Phillips, T. M., Lugg, D. J. & Mehta, S. K. Epstein-Barr virus shedding by astronauts during space flight. Brain Behav Immun 19, 235–242 (2005). 5. Pierson, D. L., Mehta, S. K. & Stowe, R. P. In: Psychoneuroimmunology Vol. II (edAder R. 851–868 (Academic Press, 2007). 6. Terada, M. et al. Effects of a closed space environment on gene expression in hair follicles of astronauts in the International Space Station. PloS One 11, e0150801 (2016). 7. Whitney, A. R. et al. Individuality and variation in gene expression patterns in human blood. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 100, 1896–1901 (2003). 8. Obe, G. et al. Chromosomal aberrations in blood lymphocytes of astronauts after long-term space flights. Int J Rad Biol 72, 727–734 (1997). 9. Smith, S. M., Zwart, S. R., Block, G., Rice, B. L. & Davis-Street, J. E. The nutritional status of astronauts is altered after long-term space flight aboard the International Space Station. J Nutr 135, 437–443 (2005). 10. Kumari, R., Singh, K. P. & Dumond, J. W. Jr. Simulated microgravity decreases DNA repair capacity and induces DNA damage in human lymphocytes. J Cell Biochem 107, 723–731 (2009). 11. Dumond, J. W., Singh, K. P. & Ramesh, G.T. Increase of oxidative stress and loss in expression of DNA repair genes by modeled microgravity in the testis of mice. Cancer Res 66, 834 (2014). 12. Sumba, P. O. et al. Microgeographic variations in Burkitt's lymphoma incidence correlate with differences in malnutrition, malaria and Epstein-Barr virus. Br J Cancer 103, 1736–1741 (2010). 13. Baqai, F. P. et al. Effects of spaceflight on innate immune function and antioxidant gene expression. J Appl Physiol 106, 1935–1942 (2009). 14. Hollander, J. et al. Spaceflight downregulates antioxidant defense systems in rat liver. Free Radic Biol Med 24, 385–390 (1998). 15. Kaur, I., Simons, E. R., Castro, V. A., Ott, C. M. & Pierson, D. L. Changes in monocyte functions of astronauts. Brain Behav Immun 19, 547–554 (2005). 16. Rizzo, A. M. et al. Blood and oxidative stress (BOS): Soyuz mission ‘Eneide’. Microgravity Sci Technol 19, 210–214 (2007). 17. Bradamante, S. et al. Oxidative stress and alterations in actin cytoskeleton trigger glutathione efflux in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Biochim Biophys Acta 1803, 1376–1385 (2010). 18. Fang, Y. Z., Yang, S. & Wu, G. Free radicals, antioxidants, and nutrition. Nutrition 18, 872–879 (2002). Download references
Acknowledgements We thank the NASA astronauts who so generously participated in these flight studies. We apologize to any authors whose work could not be cited due to space limitations. This work was funded by USRA Sponsor Award 09930-286-01 (017991-001). We also thank Andrea Throop for helpful discussions during the writing of this manuscript.
Supplementary information Word documents 1. Supplementary Information
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About this article Publication history Received 18 July 2016 Revised 16 September 2016 Accepted 30 September 2016 Published 08 December 2016 DOI https://doi.org/10.1038/npjmgrav.2016.39A long-standing oddity of Windows is that its branded number has for some years now not matched the version number stamped into the kernel and other parts of the operating system. Windows 7, for example, reported itself to software as being version 6.1. Windows 8 is 6.2, and Windows 8.1 is 6.3.
Current public builds of Windows 10 repeat this trend—they purport to be version 6.4—but not for much longer. Chinese site ITHome published a picture showing the version number to be 10.0. Version number 10.0 is also cropping up on BuildFeed which tracks build numbers, and has been further corroborated elsewhere.
Our sources tell us that the version number has indeed changed, and that Windows 10 will be version 10.0, ending a discrepancy that has existed for five years. Prior to the decision to brand the operating system Windows 10, we're told that there were some versions built calling themselves 9.0, too.
The reason that Microsoft stuck on major version 6 for so long was the dreaded burden that is application compatibility. For all manner of reasons, some good, some terrible, applications often query the operating system's version and make decisions based on what they learn. Sometimes this is legitimate; it's occasionally done to avoid Windows bugs, for example, or to selectively take advantage of new features that are useful, but non-essential.
Other times, it's less legitimate; refusing to run on "new" versions of Windows over compatibility and testing concerns, for example, even though the only problem is the very version test itself. Sometimes this is not even deliberate, but simply due to errors in how the version checks are performed.
Windows Vista bumped the major version to 6. This decision, along with Windows Vista's stricter approach to application security and various other decisions, was one of the factors that contributed to that operating system's reputation for application compatibility issues. A generation of applications had assumed that the major version would be 5 and the minor version would be 1 (representing Windows XP) forever, and faced with a major version of 6, they got confused.
Microsoft has long had a system for making point fixes to specific applications. The AppCompat framework inserts small changes into programs, called shims, that slightly modify the operating system's behavior. The most widely used shims are so-called "VersionLie" shims that exist to handle this very situation: as the name suggests, they make the operating system lie about its version whenever the application asks.
However, the AppCompat system was opt-in. Windows has an editable database that specifies which shim or shims should be used on which programs, but if an application isn't in the database—which is inevitable for things like custom line-of-business apps—then no shim will be loaded, and the operating system will tell the truth, exposing bad version checks. The database is periodically updated by Windows Update, and Microsoft has tools to allow administrators to create their own custom entries.
As a result of this, Windows 7 left the major version more or less alone, bumping it merely to version 6.1. Windows 8 did the same, opting for 6.2, and Windows 8.1 likewise, with 6.3.
In the grand scheme of things, none of this matters, of course. It just looks a little strange to anyone who notices it. If the operating system is called Windows 8.1, why aren't its components also version 8.1?
With early public builds of Windows 10 reporting version 6.4, it looked as if Microsoft was going to retain this behavior. But now it looks likely that that won't be the case. Our understanding is that the decision could still be reverted, as the change to 9.0 was, and Microsoft still warns that the change is a breaking change.
But it should not have the same impact that it might have done in the past. That's because Microsoft has, over the last few version of Windows, made it, well, if anything, a little deceitful.
The deceit started in Windows 7. Windows 7 changed the behavior of a handful of APIs in incompatible ways. However, it only exposes those changes to applications that explicitly declare that they support Windows 7, using a thing called an application manifest—a bunch of metadata embedded into the executable. Applications without a manifest get the Windows Vista behavior. To get the Windows 7 behavior, they need a manifest that declares that they support Windows 7. The same is true of certain changes on Windows 8 and 8.1; APIs get the old behaviour unless the apps have a manifest that explicitly says they support the newer operating system version.
Task Manager's "Operating system context" column in its details view reveals this deception. Software that has no manifest will read "Windows Vista" in that column; operating system components will generally say Windows 8.1 (on Windows 8.1); everything else lies in between. Office 2013, for example, aims at Windows 7.
In Windows 8.1, Microsoft took this a step further. The Windows API that lets applications ask for the operating system version was deprecated, and made manifest-dependent. In Windows 8.1, the version API will always report 6.2 (Windows 8) unless an application has a manifest declaring support for Windows 8.1. Going forward, legacy applications will think that they're stuck on Windows 8 forever.
With this change, changing the internal version number has become a lot safer. The big fear over doing so, the fear that applications would see a major version of 10 and then break in some way, can't occur: the only applications that see version 10 will be those that explicitly indicate that they support that kind of thing anyway. It lets Windows 10 safely be version 10, when Windows 8 and Windows 7 could not be versions 8.0 and 7.0, respectively.Then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-Illinois). Win McNamee/Getty Images Sol Sender, the graphic designer who created then-Sen. Barack Obama's (D-Illinois) iconic "O" logo in the 2008 presidential election, had some tough feedback for the current designs unveiled in the 2016 race.
"Overall the quality is poor — bad typography, weak compositions, undifferentiated symbol," Sender told Business Insider on Friday in reaction to the images released for the campaigns of Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), Marco Rubio (R-Florida), and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The logos varied quite a bit. Cruz and Paul both chose flame symbols. Clinton selected the letter "H" with a red arrow. And Rubio opted for a map of the continental US to replace the dot in the "i" in Rubio.
Sender wouldn't say whether he would praise or pan Clinton's "H." But he did find that her "mark looks to leverage the ground we broke with the Obama 'O' … a stand-alone symbol that can function independent of the candidate's name."
"I do think it's wise to aspire to that, though difficult to pull it off," he said. The Clinton, Cruz, Rubio, and Paul logos. Hillary Clinton, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio
Sender didn't have any further reaction to Clinton's choice of symbol, but he noted that if he had been hired to design it, he would have tried to understand the core message of her campaign platform.
"Visually and conceptually there is a limited palette of elements here: her first name, the first letter of her name, the year '2016.' In the past, the use of her last name 'Clinton' has been minimized — which I understand, though the Bushes don't seem to have an issue using theirs over and over again," he said.
Though he found the 2016 presidential logo collection somewhat lacking, Sender did empathize with designers who are commissioned to develop campaign branding because of the quick turnaround.
For a consumer brand, designers are given anywhere between eight and 12 weeks to work on iterations of a brand identity.
"When you're working with a campaign team, you typically don't have that leisure. With the Obama work, we were on a one- to two-week week turnaround with very sparse direction of what was expected," he said.
Sender, who is now a graphic designer and brand strategist at VSA Partners in Chicago, reflected on the role he played in design history with the creation of his "O."
"It's 15 minutes of fame that repeats every four to eight years. I'd like to think that I'll someday lead a team that will do something that will overshadow it," he said of his legacy.
"I did always think that the election of the first female president had the potential for the same level of design energy as the Obama campaign. Perhaps that will still be the case," he added. "It will be interesting to see the rollout and the effectiveness of the 'H.' Should she be the Democratic nominee, the general election would be an easy opportunity to enhance and explore the identity some more."The head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is fueling speculation that he could try to repeal the lynchpin of the federal government’s climate change regulations.
In an interview Thursday with CNBC, Scott Pruitt cast doubt on his own agency’s 2009 conclusion that greenhouse gases “endanger both the public health and the public welfare of current and future generations.”
The so-called endangerment finding was the backbone of the Obama administration’s climate change regulations. Under Obama, the EPA argued that the 2009 finding compelled it to issue greenhouse gas emissions limits for sectors like cars, trucks and power plants.
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But as Pruitt and President Trump look to unwind Obama’s major climate policies, the endangerment finding might be imperiled.
“You know what’s interesting about the situation with CO2, Joe, is we’ve had a Supreme Court decision in 2007 and then the endangerment finding that you’re making reference to in 2009,” Pruitt told CNBC host Joe Kernan, referring to the Supreme Court’s Massachusetts v. EPA decision — the court ruled that greenhouse gases are air pollutants under the Clean Air Act and the EPA has to determine whether they should be regulated.
“Nowhere in the continuum, nowhere in the equation, has Congress spoken. The legislative branch has not addressed this issue at all,” Pruitt said.
“The decision in 2007 was not that the EPA had to regulate. The decision in 2007 was they needed to make a decision.”
Pruitt also stated that “I would not agree that [carbon dioxide is] a primary contributor to the global warming that we see,” a comment that is at odds with the scientific consensus on climate change.
His comments contrast with what he told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee at his January confirmation hearing.
“That is the law of the land,” he said of the Supreme Court ruling and the endangerment finding.
In March 2016, Trump said in a survey from the fossil fuel industry-funded American Energy Alliance that he would review the finding if elected.
Repealing the finding would undermine the basis for some of Obama’s environmental agenda and wipe out a major argument in favor of government regulation of such emissions.
But experts say rolling back the endangerment finding would be a difficult task. The EPA would have to undertake a lengthy rulemaking process — complete with notice and public comment — gather an extensive body of science to justify the change, and then face nearly certain court challenges.
“This would be a very steep climb, because what he said goes against decades of science showing that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and is warming the planet,” said Noah Sachs, a law professor a the University of Richmond and member scholar at the Center for Progressive Reform.
Neither Pruitt nor Trump has committed to a review since the inauguration. But Pruitt’s Thursday comments are stirring hopes and fears.
“I think that Administrator Pruitt’s comments are suggestive of their thinking, and eventually they will decide that it is really necessary to reopen the finding,” said Myron Ebell, an outspoken climate change skeptic who leads energy and environment policy at the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute. Ebell also led the transition efforts for Trump at the EPA.
“I would be hopeful that they do an honest assessment of it. The Obama endangerment finding is a joke,” said Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), vice chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
“It was shoddy, it was full of half-facts. So if Administrator Pruitt wants to go back and do it right, God bless him, and I’ll support him.”
Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (N.J.), the Energy Committee’s top Democrat, said he wouldn’t be surprised if Pruitt, who battled the EPA in court as Oklahoma’s attorney general, went after the finding.
“I’m convinced that Scott Pruitt was sent to EPA in order to undermine all the environmental protections and international agreements however he thinks he can accomplish things,” he said.
“I don’t think anything’s off-limits for him. I don’t think he even believes in the EPA.”
To roll the finding back, the administration would likely have to provide scientific proof that greenhouse gases do not harm the public health and welfare, or that regulatory action could not mitigate that harm.
Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant in the same way that particulate matter or nitrogen oxides are, since breathing it in normal amounts is not dangerous.
But the Supreme Court found that the Clean Air Act had a “capacious” definition of “air pollutant,” and that due to climate change, carbon dioxide fit well within that category.
The finding has already withstood court scrutiny. A coalition of states and industry groups sued the EPA over the 2009 finding, and it was upheld by the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in 2012. The Supreme Court declined to take the case.
Separately, Sen. Lisa Murkowski Lisa Ann MurkowskiHouse to push back at Trump on border GOP Sen. Tillis to vote for resolution blocking Trump's emergency declaration Pence meeting with Senate GOP ahead of vote to block emergency declaration MORE (R-Alaska) and Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) tried unsuccessfully to have it overturned in Congress.
“It’s impossible to compile a record that would undo the endangerment finding, because it was based on sound science,” said Joanne Spalding, the Sierra Club’s head climate attorney.
“It is based on the scientific consensus that has been building and strengthening over the years since the endangerment finding was made,” she said. “Everything points to reaffirming that finding. There is no science out there that would allow the agency to withdraw it.”
Sachs said federal courts would scrutinize the scientific backing for any withdrawal.
“In administrative law, agencies are allowed to change their minds, that’s the natural flow of politics,” he said. “But they have to support their new positions with adequate scientific evidence. And I don’t think that the EPA can do that in this case.”
The Trump administration’s allies are confident that science is on their side.
Ebell said the 2009 finding was not compliant with the Information Quality Act because it used climate models that are not reliable.
“No matter how much they talk about how much the models are improving, it’s still true that the models cannot yield predictions of the future, because the climate is a nonlinear, chaotic system,” he said.
To Barton, the scientific questions have a simple answer: Carbon dioxide is not dangerous.
“I don’t think it’s a harm to humankind. CO2 is a naturally occurring compound. I am creating it as I’m talking to you,” he said. “We’ve got to believe all those esoteric theory about what’s going to happen 100 years from now to think it is.”BATON ROUGE, LA – Acting United States Attorney Corey Amundson announced today the unsealing of a 39-page federal indictment charging 18 defendants in Operation Dirty Bird, an extensive federal, state, and local investigation aimed at dismantling a large scale heroin |
me do??? Reporter: But didn't show up so no update on that apparent beef with host Katy Perry. Great. Reporter: Miley Cyrus danced with genuine older people.??? Reporter: And veteran rod Stewart sang with dance.??? Come on honey tell me so??? Reporter: Do you even know who rod Stewart is. Rod Stewart? I know the name. Reporter: This face at Ed sheeran and fifth harmony had this and Katy and Nicki Minaj with the basketball theme and Ed sheer sheeran, understated speech. Video of the year. Kendrick Lamar. Reporter: Lamar bagged six moon people statues, in all that was the most of the night. He also performed.??? Reporter: On a night when logic sang about mental health and alessia CARA about body shaming and pink delivered a message of love and acceptance. We don't change. We take the gravel and the shell and we make a pearl and we help other people to change so that they can see more kinds of beauty. Reporter: And one more political note. In the wake of the president's transgender in the military band a number of active service transgender military personnel showed up here last night. You know, the big message was art, music is not created in a vacuum. Lara. Indeed. Nick, I want to get back to Taylor Swift. As you said she premiered the video for "Look what you made me do," so many people talking about it. Already has 17 million views in less than 12 hours. Is it us or does she seem a little angry? In the video? Nick? Reporter: I think you're right, Lara. Right off the top she has a bit of a swipe at Kanye and then at the end she actually plays different versions of herself throughout the year, sort of throwing some of the criticism that has been leveled at her. It is a very angry video. You know what, you could watch it a thousand types and could pick apart the symbolism in every two second shot as I mentioned. We thought she was going to show up last night. Maybe bury the hatchet with Katy Perry. That did not happen. She dropped that video. She got loads of buzz. You know, in terms of marketing, Lara, she is playing an absolute blinder. People as you say a lot of people just can't stop talking about Taylor Swift. Absolutely. And the name of that album is "Reputation" and look what she made us do, watch it, listen to it over and over and over again. Nick watt, we thank you so much.
This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.Blackmoon Security Measures
Ilya Remizov Blocked Unblock Follow Following Aug 21, 2017
We at Blackmoon take all the aspects of our platform’s development seriously. Recently we received a number of requests from our community regarding our security policies.
It is no news, that some blockchain crowdsale projects have faced hackers’ attacks. These attacks resulted in temporary disruption of the fundraisings and sometimes in stolen money. The goal of these attacks was to change the project’s wallet addresses to the those in possession of the intruders. This could be achieved by:
DNS phishing or ownership transfer. The operation when hacker funnels the users to the website under her control. Content phishing. Hacking the project’s server to substitute the website contents. DDoS (distributed denial of service). Inability to access target website.
We address these challenges by investing time and money into proper infrastructure because we don’t think that this is the area to cut corners and pinch pennies.
High-end Amazon infrastructure
We use industry-grade high-performance Amazon DNS servers. It is highly unlikely that hackers would be capable to perform a successful DDoS attack on the Amazon infrastructure. The cost for such an attack would be prohibitively high.
All our domains have explicitly switched off transfers what makes it impossible for domain ownership transfer.
The access to the administrative tool is well protected. Firstly only the limited number of users is privileged to have access. To access it, one needs to have a unique URL-address and know the machine-generated user name. On top of we apply two-factor authentication.
In fact, two-factor authentication is mandatory for every team-member at Blackmoon for every application, including email and slack clients.
This functionality is built into your account at Blackmoon Crypto. We encourage you to opt-in two-factor authentication (2FA) as well.
Server security
Our servers are placed to dedicated and isolated VPCs (virtual private cloud) and have no direct access from the Internet. The servers communicate exclusively with trusted nodes and balancers. There is no direct SSH access to the servers. VPC’s service discovery uses private DNS zone, so there is no chance to fake internal endpoint to external networks.
In the case of the penetration attack, i.e. increased failed login attempts on the server, the automated monitoring system will block such clients and shall inform devops. If the attack is confirmed, the access point to the infrastructure will be temporarily terminated and replaced. There will be no impact on the functionality of the running services.
In the normal course of business, we routinely apply autoscale mechanics to boost productivity when the load increases and scale down, when needed.
Every single service is protected by Amazon Shield™ anti-DDoS filter and WAF (web application firewall).
No Blackmoon developer has direct access to production servers. We are using automated deployment system and infrastructure orchestration solutions: CI & IaaC (Continuous Integration and Infrastructure as a Code).
Disaster recovery
We have a contingency plan for unlikely scenario of such an attack that brings down Amazon security. It would take us about minutes to set up from scratch a new AWS infrastructure and switch to it. Data loss in the worst case scenario will be less than a minute.
Thanks to the distributed ledger of the blockchain, we will download the history of the transactions.
All the necessary backups are stored offline under gpg encryption in three copies.
Security of funds
No server stores private keys of the wallets in either text, or photo, or any other format. We use Trezor hardware for multi-signature wallets. The backups are securely stored in bank vaults. Yes, sometimes it’s good to be fiat-guys.
As a result, should the wallets be compromised, intruders won’t be able to transfer funds.
Personal security tips
Keep your wallet’s private keys safe, check the “lock sign” in browser address field that means trusted SSL connection and correct SSL-certificate to a website. Check return-addresses in emails (“From” and “Reply-to” fields). Check personality in Telegram or Slack channels conversations. Do not send passwords. Enable 2FA in your account.LONDON — J. K. Rowling always said that the seventh Harry Potter book, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” would be the last in the series, and so far she has kept to her word. But though she’s written many new things in the intervening nine years, including four adult novels, she’s never been able to put Harry to rest, or to leave him alone.
What’s an author to do when she once seemed to be done? Taking an approach that some fans love and others do not, Ms. Rowling has never made a secret of her continued immersion in Potter-world. Over the years, she has regularly interjected new elements into the old stories, sometimes through sudden Twitter pronouncements, sometimes by other means. (In 2007, for instance, she announced at an event at Carnegie Hall that Dumbledore, whose sexuality in the books was obscure, is in fact gay.)
She also regularly produces fresh ancillary material — new stories, new elaborations — on her Pottermore website, most recently a series of fictional essays about the history of magic in North America.
And now comes “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” a play in two full-length parts that begins previews in London on Tuesday, June 7, opens July 30 and is being advertised as the official “eighth story in the Harry Potter canon.” Set 19 years after the events of “Deathly Hallows,” the play imagines Harry as an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic and focuses on his middle child, Albus Severus, and his struggle to come to terms with his family’s legacy.Guest post by Alec Rawls
Here is the puzzle, as noted by Nigel Calder and others: how can BEST insist that a modicum of additional evidence of late 20th century warming should put skepticism of the CO2-warming theory to rest, while at the same time admitting that they never even tried to examine the possible causes of warming?
Elizabeth Muller’s press statement in support of anti-CO2 alarmism is extreme:
Elizabeth Muller, co-founder and Executive Director of Berkeley Earth, said she hopes the Berkeley Earth findings will help “cool the debate over global warming by addressing many of the valid concerns of the skeptics in a clear and rigorous way.” This will be especially important in the run-up to the COP 17 meeting in Durban, South Africa, later this year, where participants will discuss targets for reducing Greenhouse Gas (GHG)emissions for the next commitment period as well as issues such as financing, technology transfer and cooperative action.
She is strongly implying that BEST’s findings not only support the CO2 theory of late 20th century warming, but justify radical worldwide government action to reduce carbon emissions.
Richard Muller’s statement of ignorance on the cause of the observed warming is equally absolute:
What Berkeley Earth has not done is make an independent assessment of how much of the observed warming is due to human actions.
Contradictory, yes, but also explanatory. Muller et al. must be so ignorant of this climate science subject that they are brand-new to that they are not even aware that the leading competing climate theory, where solar-magnetic activity modulates cloud formation, also predicts and explains late 20th warming. All they know is that the CO2 theory predicts warming, prompting them to see evidence of warming as evidence for that theory.
This is the only logical explanation for Muller vs. Muller, and it would also explain why BEST made such a complete hash of the only part of their data that does have any power to discriminate between CO2-warming and solar-warming.
Opposite temperature predictions for quiet-sun era
If late 20th century warming was mostly caused by the industrial release of atmospheric CO2, then warming should be continuing apace, but if 20th century warming was mostly caused by the 80 year grand maximum of solar activity that waned in the 1990’s and ended in 2005, then planetary temperature (as measured by the heat content of the oceans) should have been falling for several years now. In a less smooth way, surface temperatures would also be passing the peak of the Modern Warm period.
Nature is right now conducting an ideal experiment for determining which theory is right, but on this crucial part of the temperature record—what happened when solar activity waned and then dropped into the cellar—BEST’s presentation is remarkably confused. The sample station analysis that they released shows substantially more post-98 cooling than any of the other land records, while their full data set has recent temperatures going up compared to the other records.
Here is a zoom-in on figure 1 from BEST’s “decadal variations” paper. It shows the most recent temperatures for a sub-sample of temperature stations (“[this] Berkeley Earth data were randomly chosen from 30,964 sites that were not used by the other groups”):
Wow, this sub-sample really favors the sun as the primary driver of climate, certainly compared to the NOAA, GISS and Hadley evidence. The BEST temperatures are equal or above the other temperature records throughout the 80’s and 90’s, then drop precipitously below them over the last ten years, as the sun has gone quiet.
BEST’s full data set tells the opposite story. Here is their 12 month average surface temperature (figure 8 from their “Temperature Averaging Process” paper):
The second part of figure 8 shows the differences. NOAA and GISS both drop off a couple of tenths of a degree relative to BEST after 2000, while Hadley drops off about a half a degree!
Wow, compared to the evidence provided by the other temperature records, BEST’s full sample really favors the CO2 theory over this critical period. Thus on the only part of the temperature record that is probative, BEST displays two strongly contradictory graphs without a word of commentary. That’s a pretty good sign that they are oblivious to the discriminatory power of this part of the record, indicating again that they are not even aware of the GCR-cloud theory and its implications. No wonder they can do such incredibly biased things as calling “the late part of the 20th century,” “the anthropogenic era” (p. 30). Anthropogenic warming is their premise.
BEST evidence is not best evidence
Almost all of the heat capacity of the biosphere is in the oceans. Thus climate change over time means a change in ocean heat content. Land surface temperature is a volatile expression of this global temperature, depending on whether colder or warmer ocean currents are at the surface. That volatility makes surface temperatures an iffy way to track climate change, and today, better evidence is available.
In recent years, ARGO’s automated fleet of temperature sounding devices provides much improved direct measurement of ocean temperature. According to NOAA, data from these floats show ocean heat content for the top 700 meters as close to flat for about 10 years now:
(Bob Tisdale says that NOAA has recently started reporting heat content for the top 2000 meters, but apparently it is still a work in progress, as they don’t display it on their heat content page.)
Ocean heat content can also be measured by sea level, which is determined by the thermal expansion of the oceans, plus net land-ice melt. Here is NOAA’s sea level data, compensated for land-ice melt and variations in salinity. It shows ocean heat content as roughly flat for about the last eight years:
This best evidence indicates that global warming has stopped, which militates against the CO2 theory of late 20th century warming, but the oceans do not show the global cooling that the solar-theory predicts, so it does not clearly favor the cosmic-ray-cloud hypothesis either. The very latest sea level data, however, may finally be telling the tale:
Steve Goddard, September 2011: “The latest sea level numbers are out, and Envisat shows that the two year long decline is continuing, at a rate of 5mm per year.”
That’s actual sea level, not steric sea level. Subtract out the ongoing land-ice melt from our currently warm climate and thermosteric sea level is falling even more rapidly. If cosmic-ray-cloud effects do dominate CO2 effects, we’ll probably have full proof within the next couple of years.
Can BEST actually be unaware of the cosmic-ray-cloud theory, or are they just accepting the CO2-alarmists’ excuses for dismissing solar effects?
Unless Muller is a world-class fruitcake, he can’t have waded into the climate arena without at least being aware of Svensmark’s theory. He must also know that the sun has gone quiet, and his Nobel-physics brain would be able to figure out how this natural experiment provides a test of which theory is right. Yet he might still act as if he is unaware of solar warming theory if he has been convinced by the alarmists’ bogus excuses for why recent warming can’t have been caused by the sun.
Over and over, these folks claim that late 20th century cannot have been caused by the sun because solar activity was not rising over this period. e.g. Rasmus Benestad, 2005:
A further comparison with the monthly sunspot number, cosmic galactic rays and 10.7 cm absolute radio flux since 1950 gives no indication of a systematic trend in the level of solar activity that can explain the most recent global warming.
That reasoning obviously requires an assumption that ocean temperatures had equilibrated to the high level of 20th century solar forcing by 1950. Otherwise the continued high level of solar forcing (the hypothesis under consideration) would cause continued warming until ocean equilibrium was reached. Yet Benestad did not even acknowledge this assumption, never mind make any case for it, and this has been the pattern.
I have written several posts on the alarmists’ excuses for dismissing the solar explanation and how they utterly fail to stand up to scrutiny. But without even going into those details, the more basic point is that the various rationales for dismissing the solar warming hypothesis are theoretical. They are, in effect, part of the CO2 warming theory. Our recently quiet sun offers a test of which theory makes the right prediction. To ignore that test because one already agrees with one of the theories, as BEST seems to be doing, is to put theory over evidence, the opposite of what scientists are supposed to do.
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RedditIn recent days, a cascade of Western media reports has suggested Poland's conservative Law and Justice party (known by the acronym PiS — pronounced "peace" in Polish) is rapidly moving toward dictatorship. Lurid headlines in major Western media have charged that Poland is undergoing a "disturbing tilt to the right," and asserted that PiS has launched a "coup" against the country's democratic order.
Jackson Diehl, the Washington Post's normally sober and astute foreign affairs columnist (and former Warsaw correspondent), added further fuel to the charged atmosphere, suggesting that Poland is lurching towards censorship of the arts and media, appointing extremists to top security positions, and trying to pack the constitutional court.
Fareed Zakaria used his CNN program on December 6 to soberly reassure viewers about the limited scale of the threat posed by extremist Islamism ("a tiny minority"). By contrast, when it came to Poland, he was alarmist, warning "events have taken a very ugly turn," and asserted the party "appears to be bringing back Soviet-style censorship." This denunciation was accompanied by a banner that declared "an American ally turns authoritarian."
First, a look at the facts. Poland's PiS is fundamentally a mainstream conservative party that includes in its ranks both populists and market-oriented pragmatists. Its leaders represent a spectrum that ranges from moderate, pro-business conservatives to cultural conservatives and ultraconservative nationalists.
Many PiS leaders were heroes of Solidarity's struggle for freedom, while others were heroic dissidents of long standing, who spent decades in the fight against Communist rule. Its top leaders make the case that Poland today still suffers from the compromises made by liberals with the Communist leadership to bring about the country's transition to democracy in 1989.
Poland, they assert, needs to undo some of this damage, in particular by reversing what they claim is the left-liberal stranglehold over state media and state-supported arts institutions, which they regard as excessively anti-religious and secular.
Reporting about PiS, moreover, is influenced by its defense of national sovereignty and its resultant Euroskepticism. PiS's image is further battered by allegations that some of its leaders are homophobic and anti-Semitic. It is true that PiS leaders publicly oppose the legalization of gay marriage and assert the Catholic nature of Poland. But while these conservative views put them at odds with prevailing trends in the European Union, it hardly make them avatars of the far right.
* * *
As a party shaped by dissident anti-Communist activists whose organizations often were infiltrated by informants during their years in opposition, PiS is populated by some leaders who still cling to a conspiratorial view of Polish domestic politics and international relations.
That said, their most significant conspiracy theory — one held by PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczyński — is that President Vladimir Putin and the Russian authorities were complicit in the airline crash that killed Kacyzński's twin brother and Polish president Lech in fog on approach to Smolensk, Russia in 2010.
Given the muddled details of the crash, which also took the lives of almost 100 of Poland's leading state officials and political leaders, and given the evidence of Putin's regular resort to clandestine operations, this view, though unlikely, cannot be entirely dismissed.
All these threads are woven by critics into a caricature of the leadership of Law and Justice. This caricature blithely ignores the fact that Poland's new president, PiS's Andrzej Duda, is a pragmatic conservative, educated in Poland's elite institutions, and with a track record of participation in liberal politics before he drifted to the moderate right.
Similarly, new Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydło flirted only a decade ago with the centrist Civic Platform party before joining the ranks of PiS. The meta-narrative about PiS also conveniently ignores that many of the ministers in the new government are sober-minded officials with longstanding track records of probity in academic life, in diplomacy, and in the business world.
* * *
In the context of this distorted narrative, recent actions by the new PiS leadership are setting off very loud alarm bells in the European and U.S. media. Here again, it is important to separate the wheat from the chaff.
On November 25, the newly elected Sejm — in which PiS has an outright single-party majority of 235 legislators out of 460 deputies — voided the election of five new members of the country's constitutional tribunal.
The vote rescinded action taken in the last weeks of the previous parliament, which had rushed to make a series of questionable judicial appointments to the country’s constitutional court when opinion polls showed that PiS was likely to win the October 25 parliamentary elections.
President Duda refused to swear in the new justices and the new government not only annulled the vote, it selected five new court members in their place.
It is this set of votes and actions that has been labeled a "coup" by Western reporting. First, it is clear that it was the actions of the previous Civic Platform-led parliament that ignited this crisis. Yet there was no Western media condemnation or EU debate, most likely because the action had been taken by a party that is firmly a part of the EU establishment and, unlike PiS, has a strong relationship with the international policy and media worlds.
What was at issue was not a constitutional coup, but overreach by the previous Civic Platform-led parliament.
On December 9, the Polish constitutional tribunal ruled that both PiS and Civic Platform were partly to blame. It decided that the previous parliament illegally voted in two justices prematurely but that it had the constitutional right to vote in replacements for three justices whose mandate expired in early November.
In short, what was at issue was not a constitutional coup, but overreach by the previous Civic Platform-led parliament in the case of two improperly elected justices, and by PiS for voting out three replacement justices, who in the view of the court were elected in accordance with the constitution by the lame duck parliament.
Significantly, if examined carefully the new government's and the president's response to the court is hardly a rejection of its arguments or of its authority. And it certainly does not point to a coup. PiS has not rejected the court's decision on the constitutional question of the lame duck parliament's prerogatives nor even of that parliament's legal right to appoint three of the justices. Instead, PiS leaders argue that the three judges' election is invalid because of procedural errors in the rushed vote.
One may disagree with the judgment of Poland's culture minister, but it hardly represented censorship.
Their case rests on the meaning of the regulations surrounding a vote for constitutional tribunal members, which indicate that such elections require the support of the "parliamentary leadership, as well as that of 50 deputies." According to PiS, the previous parliament failed procedurally to fulfill the first part of the required process, thus invalidating the vote.
* * *
Claims that Poland is entering a new era of "Soviet style" censorship are absurd and insulting to politicians who spent years in jail for fighting the Communist system. What was at issue was hardly censorship. Instead, it was government disapproval of the use of public funds and state institutions to support the presentation of sexually explicit on-stage acts in a play by Nobel Laureate Elfriede Jelinek.
One may disagree with the judgment of Poland's culture minister, but it hardly represented censorship, especially in a prosperous country in which the private sector is a major sponsor of the arts and can do as it pleases.
Nor is it unusual for politicians to debate the proper use of public funds for the arts. Indeed, the use of such funds to promote works that are sexually or religiously inappropriate often leads to similar controversies in other democracies. Such controversies have dogged publicly funded arts in such "Soviet-style" backwaters as the New York City of mayor Rudolph Giuliani.
A final line of attack on the new government revolves around the appointment of Mariusz Kaminski as minister without portfolio with responsibility for coordination of the country's security services. Kaminski had been sentenced to three years' imprisonment earlier this year for abuse of power when he headed the state Anti-Corruption Bureau from 2006-2009.
A careful look at the principal alleged charges against the new PiS government suggests they are far less than meets the eye.
The abuses were related to charges that Kaminski had resorted to entrapment in his investigations, but Kaminski's prosecution was viewed by many as heavily politicized and he was granted amnesty by Duda on November 16. Significantly, Kaminski was not punished for prosecuting opposition politicians; instead his alleged abuses were linked to the investigation of corruption in the ranks of the PiS party's former far-right coalition partner. And while this appointment may be regarded as controversial, it cannot in itself be seen as a threat to political freedom.
In short, a careful look at the principal alleged charges against the new PiS government suggests they are far less than meets the eye. Poland, like all Western democracies, can only benefit from media attention and international vigilance. And Poland will not be hurt by a careful and responsible public airing of developments inside its political institutions. But it is ill-served by alarmist, reflex reactions, and an instinctive bias that has greeted the return to power in Poland of a mainstream conservative party.
Adrian Karatnycky is a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council and the former president of Freedom House, a democracy-monitoring group.
This article was corrected to clarify the timing of the judicial appointments made ahead of the parliamentary elections.A longtime GOP staffer who worked on President Trump’s 2016 campaign and interned for Sen. Marco Rubio in 2011 was discovered dead Tuesday after being shot 13 times in his sleep.
Nick Corvino, 30, of Kissimmee, Fla., was shot in his legs, back and head, the arrest affidavit stated, the Orlando Sentinel reported.
Corvino’s roommate, Scott Waddell, 45, who was arrested and charged with first-degree murder, told deputies he “sometimes has homicidal thoughts about killing young men, but has never acted on them,” Osceola County Sheriff’s Office said.
FLORIDA MAN ALLEGEDLY LEAVES CHILD IN HOT CAR THEN ASKS COPS ‘WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL?’
Police were sent to the scene after receiving a report of an alarm going off Tuesday morning.
When deputies arrived at the apartment, Waddell opened the door with blood splattered on his feet and his hands.
Deputies searched the apartment where they found Corvino dead in his bed. Waddell was detained following the discovery of Corvino’s body.
The Orlando Sentinel reported there were cameras in the apartment which captured the moments leading up to the shooting but not the slaying itself.
Deputies said they “believed the fired shots set off the alarms, which turned on the cameras.”
The video showed Waddell shifting Corvinos’s body to the edge of the bed and looking at him for a few minutes, deputies told the Orlando Sentinel.
Waddell said he and Corvino spent time together the night before in the apartment.
Waddell told deputies he was “mentally disabled” and took a few medications before he went to bed. It was not clear what medications he took.
FLORIDA 18-YEAR-OLD ALLEGEDLY RAPED NEIGHBOR, OFFERED ‘YARD WORK’ TO MAKE UP FOR IT
“He said he woke up scared and being in Nicholas’ room where he saw Nicolas covered in blood with a gun lying next to him,” the arrest affidavit stated.
Waddell owned two guns, a shotgun and handgun. He told deputies during the interview that he had no recollection of the shooting and asked if Corvino was dead.
Waddell told deputies he and the victim “were best friends for 10 years.”
Waddell was being held in Osceola County Jail.
Corvino was a longtime campaign GOP campaign staffer who worked on Attorney General Pam Bondi R-Fla. and former Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater’s R-Fla. campaign. Corvino was previously employed at Disney’s Polynesian Resort, according to his Facebook page.
Bondi told the Orlando Sentinel she was “heartbroken” when she heard of Corvino’s death and said he was “a great young man.”
“Nick Corvino was a great young man who had his entire life ahead of him,” Bondi added. “He was charismatic and kind.”The estimated number of tigers living in the wild rose this year for the first time in more than a century, conservation organizations said. New technology, including hidden cameras, are helping to track and count the animals, which may account for some of the increase.
There are now an estimated 3,890 wild tigers, mostly in Asia, up from a worldwide tiger population of 3,200 estimated in 2010, the World Wildlife Fund and Global Tiger Forum announced on Monday. Wild tigers are considered endangered and had seen shrinking numbers because of hunting, poaching and loss of habitat, such as deforestation, particularly in Sumatra, for palm oil, and paper and pulp industries, the groups said. The official count had declined every year since 1900, when tigers numbered an estimated 100,000.
“For the first time after decades of constant decline, tiger numbers are on the rise,” said Marco Lambertini, director general of WWF International, in a statement. “This offers us great hope and shows that we can save species and their habitats when governments, local communities and conservationists work together.”
The report was based on wild tiger data from 13 countries. It was released ahead of a major tiger conservation meeting scheduled to begin Tuesday in New Delhi, with remarks by Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India. The meeting will be the first since governments agreed at a summit in Russia in 2010 to double the wild tiger population by 2022.Musikmesse 2014: Akai Professional today announced the Rhythm Wolf, an analog drum machine and bass synthesizer module with built-in sequencing.
The Rhythm Wolf is an authentic analog instrument that incorporates the sounds of early electronic and hip-hop music into the Akai Professional workflow, enabling musicians to harness “iconic” analog sounds for music production and performance.
The drum machine consists of five “tweakable” drum sounds and includes a kick, snare, open and closed hi-hat, and metallic percussion. On-board controls allow users to separately customize the tuning, amplitude envelopes, and volume of each drum voice for precise real-time adjustment.
The bass synthesizer features a selectable oscillator (sawtooth or square wave), classic filter design, a filter envelope with variable decay, and is capable of creating powerful bass sounds and “squelchy” leads.
The Rhythm Wolf is also outfitted with six MPC pads and a built-in 32-step sequencer, for a responsive interface with a familiar drum machine layout. Drum patterns can be fine-tuned with Swing function, pattern select, and tempo control knobs. A custom distortion signal path is activated by the Rhythm Wolf’s whimsically named “Howl” knob. It also has USB-MIDI, MIDI In/Out, a gate trigger, and the Rhythm Wolf integrates easily with both modern and vintage equipment.
Rhythm Wolf Highlights:
5-voice analog drum machine and synth-authentic analog design that references classic rhythm machines and synthesizers
Legendary analog drum sounds: kick, snare, open and closed hi-hat, and metallic percussion
Synth bass module: selectable square or sawtooth wave
Onboard 32-step sequencer
Six genuine MPC pads for sequencing and finger drumming
“Howl” knob: custom distortion circuit for additional sound design
MIDI connectivity: USB-MIDI and MIDI In/Out
Gate Trigger: for triggering via modular synths, vintage sequencers, or external sound
sources
sources Independent audio outputs: dedicated outputs for the drum machine and synth bass module for more precise mixing
Dedicated outputs for the drum machine and synth-bass
Pricing and Availability
Akai Pro’s Rhythm Wolf will be available worldwide later this summer, with a “street” price of US $199.99. For more information, check out the Akai Professional website.Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency (NSA) leaker, is continuing to speak out. He just wrapped up a public Q&A session from an undisclosed location in Hong Kong, answering moderated questions via live chat on The Guardian’s website on Monday. Snowden gave more details about exactly how NSA encryption works and how the public debate was progressing from his point of view.
Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who first broke Snowden’s story, noted that the chat was “subject to Snowden's security concerns and also his access to a secure Internet connection. It is possible that he will appear and disappear intermittently, so if it takes him a while to get through the questions, please be patient.”
A reader named Mathius1 asked a question probably on the minds of many Ars readers: “Is encrypting my e-mail any good at defeating the NSA surveillance? Is my data protected by standard encryption?”
“Encryption works,” Snowden responded. “Properly implemented strong crypto systems are one of the few things that you can rely on. Unfortunately, endpoint security is so terrifically weak that NSA can frequently find ways around it.”
Another reader asked, "So far are things going the way you thought they would regarding a public debate?"
Snowden insisted the attention on him as a person was unwarranted. "Initially I was very encouraged," he replied. "Unfortunately, the mainstream media now seems far more interested in what I said when I was 17 or what my girlfriend looks like rather than, say, the largest program of suspicionless surveillance in human history."
Many questions came not only from readers, but also from journalists from other media outlets. Kimberly Dozier, the Associated Press’ intelligence correspondent, asked how Snowden responded to American government officials calling him a “traitor.”
US officials say this every time there's a public discussion that could limit their authority. US officials also provide misleading or directly false assertions about the value of these programs, as they did just recently with the Zazi case, which court documents clearly show was not unveiled by PRISM. Journalists should ask a specific question: since these programs began operation shortly after September 11, how many terrorist attacks were prevented SOLELY by information derived from this suspicionless surveillance that could not be gained via any other source? Then ask how many individual communications were ingested to achieve that, and ask yourself if it was worth it. Bathtub falls and police officers kill more Americans than terrorism, yet we've been asked to sacrifice our most sacred rights for fear of falling victim to it.
Snowden again emphatically said his leaks were justified. "I did not reveal any US operations against legitimate military targets," he wrote. "I pointed out where the NSA has hacked civilian infrastructure such as universities, hospitals, and private businesses because it is dangerous. These nakedly, aggressively criminal acts are wrong no matter the target."
In response to a question about whether the documents would continue to leak if he was stopped, Snowden said the cat was definitively out of the bag. "All I can say right now is the US Government is not going to be able to cover this up by jailing or murdering me," he wrote. "Truth is coming, and it cannot be stopped."
NSA uses a “weasel word” to avoid reality of domestic spying
Earlier, New York University professor Anthony De Rosa asked Snowden what he meant by the NSA's ability to have “direct access” to digital communication. He wanted to know if NSA analysts had the ability to warrantlessly listen to the content of domestic calls, and Snowden did not mince words.
1) More detail on how direct NSA's accesses are is coming, but in general, the reality is this: if an NSA, FBI, CIA, DIA, etc. analyst has access to query raw SIGINT databases, they can enter and get results for anything they want. Phone number, e-mail, user id, cell phone handset id (IMEI), and so on—it's all the same. The restrictions against this are policy based, not technically based, and can change at any time. Additionally, audits are cursory, incomplete, and easily fooled by fake justifications. For at least GCHQ [Government Communications Headquarters, a British intelligence agency], the number of audited queries is only 5 percent of those performed. 2) NSA likes to use "domestic" as a weasel word here for a number of reasons. The reality is that due to the FISA Amendments Act and its section 702 authorities, Americans’ communications are collected and viewed on a daily basis on the certification of an analyst rather than a warrant. They excuse this as "incidental" collection, but at the end of the day, someone at NSA still has the content of your communications. Even in the event of "warranted" intercept, it's important to understand the intelligence community doesn't always deal with what you would consider a "real" warrant like a police department would have to. The "warrant" is more of a templated form they fill out and send to a reliable judge with a rubber stamp.
Glenn Greenwald followed up. "When you say'someone at NSA still has the content of your communications,' what do you mean?" he asked. "Do you mean they have a record of it or the actual content?"
Both. If I target for example an e-mail address, for example under FAA 702, and that e-mail address sent something to you, Joe America, the analyst gets it. All of it. IPs, raw data, content, headers, attachments, everything. And it gets saved for a very long time—and can be extended further with waivers rather than warrants.
Intelligence officials “baldly lying to the public”
Noted computer security researcher and Tor developer Jacob Appelbaum asked, "Do you believe that the treatment of [former NSA employee William Binney], [former NSA employee Thomas Drake], and others influenced your path? Do you feel the'system works,' so to speak?"
Binney, Drake, [former CIA officer John Kiriakou], and [Bradley Manning] are all examples of how overly-harsh responses to public-interest whistle-blowing only escalate the scale, scope, and skill involved in future disclosures. Citizens with a conscience are not going to ignore wrong-doing simply because they'll be destroyed for it: the |
,” Ross explained. As in the Ravens-Packers game, this shows that a coach’s end-game calculus may change if he doesn’t believe (as we’ve been assuming) that overtime will be a 50-50 proposition.
After that game in 2001, Billick didn’t get badgered by the press about his unsuccessful two-point maneuver. That’s most likely because the Ravens didn’t recover that final onside kick, making the whole thing moot. Ross, by contrast, was attacked mercilessly after the Lions missed their two-point conversion, then—down four instead of down three—were unable to kick a tying field goal on a subsequent, last-gasp drive. Even the neutral-to-a-fault AP got on Ross’ case: “Next time, maybe Detroit Lion Coach Bobby Ross should go for the sure one, not the risky two.” (Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer did have the coach’s back. “One thing I want you all to appreciate: risk-takers, people who make a difference,” Archer said, adding that “you don’t always win when you take risks; you get a lot of pats on the back when you’re successful.”)
The cases of Billick and Ross aren’t exactly parallel—taking the tying field goal out of play makes the down-by-four two-pointer the significantly worse percentage move. According to Football Commentary’s two-point conversion chart, it makes sense to go for two when trailing by four with six minutes left if you’re likely to make the two-pointer more than 59 percent of the time. (That’s a general figure that doesn’t take into account the strengths of one’s field-goal kicker and various other factors.)
Even so, the huge disparity in the backlash to Billick and Ross reflects that football fans and football coaches confuse outcome with process. The PAT-kicking Cowboys should not be chided because they lost to the Saints in overtime. Rather, they deserve criticism for deploying a strategy that reduced their chances of winning. So, let me also censure Gary Kubiak and the Houston Texans for their behavior against the Jacksonville Jaguars on Nov. 18. In that game, the Texans pulled within 34-26 with 5:39 to go, kicked the extra point, tied the game on another TD and extra point with 1:34 remaining, then won the game in overtime. The Texans got the right outcome from the wrong process. Shame on you, Houston.
If going for two when down eight is a winning strategy, why doesn’t anyone do it? Because—just as in the case of punting on a short fourth down—kicking the PAT minimizes the chance you’ll look dumb. As SportsQuant’s David Annis explains, the extra-point strategy decreases your chances of losing in regulation while increasing your overall chance of losing the game. As a consequence, Annis writes, it seems the typical football coach “really isn’t trying to maximize his chances of winning. Rather he’s attempting to prolong his defeat.”
My correspondent Walter Sun suggests there’s a simple way to get risk-averse, play-not-to-lose coaches to come around to the right way of thinking. “If you go for two when down eight, you not only improve your win probability (the sound mathematical reason), you also control your own fate (the reason fans/management will accept),” Sun says. Even in the age of the NFL’s new, fairer overtime system, the team that wins the OT coin toss still holds the advantage. “In a sport where the phrase ‘controlling your own destiny’ is overused,” Sun continues, this is the one time the cliché makes sense. Come on, NFL coaches—do you really want your fate to depend on whether a coin comes up heads?The largest utility company in Europe, Électricité de France, has been accused of storing nuclear waste in an open air car park in Siberia. An investigative documentary called the "Nuclear Nightmare" that screened on Tuesday in Germany and France accuses the company of sending nuclear waste to a town in Siberia where it is then stored in metal containers in a parking lot.
The containers, the makers of the documentary -- French documentary director Eric Guéret and French journalist Laure Noualhat of the newspaper Libération -- report, are in the Siberian town of Seversk, formerly a secret "closed city" where there are several nuclear reactors, plants for reprocessing uranium and plutonium as well as storage and production facilities for nuclear weapons. Although the Russian town now appears on maps, entry into the area is still restricted to locals. Noualhat told SPIEGEL ONLINE that although they visited the outskirts of the city during their research, they were not able to get in themselves. However, they did interview contacts who worked in the nuclear industry inside the city. And apparently the containers can also be seen via satellite images.
It's Nuclear Waste -- But Not As We Know It
The documentary, which looks into the contentious issues around nuclear waste in Europe, pointed out that France sends around 13 percent of its radioactive waste to Siberia. Research by the documentary filmmakers indicates that, every year, the French firm ships around 108 tons of uranium from La Hague in northern France to Russia.
The documentary makers also point out that the situation revolves around a legal loophole -- recycled uranium or plutonium is not classified as nuclear waste. By law it is merely "radioactive material." Which is why the international shipping of such waste products is not illegal.
"You have to be careful. It is important to differentiate between radioactive material that is being recycled from actual nuclear waste, as the nuclear industry qualifies it," Noualhat told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "What we really wanted to show was that we do not recycle 96 percent of this material, as some people pretend we do." The figure of 96 percent recyclable nuclear waste with four percent being disposed of in high tech storage is one that has been used before by those in the French nuclear industry.
Additionally, Noualhat said, "if (these materials) are so useful, should we really be sending them to the Russians? We should be keeping our raw materials."
Meanwhile, officials at the almost wholly French-owned EDF -- the company manages France's 58 nuclear reactors, which are responsible for producing nearly 90 percent of France's electricity -- responded to the accusations by saying that the nuclear waste in question was not nuclear waste, rather it was reuseable uranium which would be recycled in Siberia.
And while one French anti-nuclear group, Sortir du Nucleaire, suggested that France should ship the waste back and take care of the problem itself, a spokesperson from EDF said that responsibility for the waste products lay with Tenex, the Russian state-owned company that they paid to recycle the uranium.
Vladimir Tchouprov of Greenpeace in Russia told the French journalists that only about 10 percent of the waste being sent to his country could effectively be recycled. "In fact, they are abandoning 90 percent of their materials with us," Tchouprov told the filmmakers.
Nuclear Recycling : 'The Technology Could Be Improved'
Accused of abandoning the waste material, Jacques-Emmanuel Saulnier, a spokesperson for Areva, replied that, "the term abandon is not appropriate. The established international practice is as follows: The enriched material is returned to the client (as is the case with EDF) and the waste material is returned to those responsible for doing the enriching," he said. "But it is true that the technology could be improved. For now, we are technologically obliged to separate the materials."
As a result of the findings, published in an article by Noualhat in Libération on Tuesday morning, the French minister for ecology Chantal Jouanno told Radio France that it would be necessary to investigate further. But she also said she wasn't about to jump to conclusions and that further information was necessary before anyone could come to any kind of verdict.
The documentary was made with the help of the Commission for Independent Research and Information on Radioactivity, a French non-profit organization formed after the Chernobyl catastrophe in 1986 that measures radioactivity in the environment.
Germans Sent Radioactive Materials to Siberia, Too
The documentary's findings could prove particularly interesting to the next German government, a coalition between Angela Merkel's conservatives and the Free Democratic Party (FDP). From 1996 to 2001, Germany sent a lot of its recyclable radioactive material to Seversk as well -- an average of around 1,500 tons a year, anti-nuclear lobby groups claim -- and one of the issues the new coalition government-to-be has in common is a desire to extend the lifespan of Germany's nuclear power plants.
Also of note for the Germans is the fact that the next generation of nuclear power plants is not intended to use uranium. Which means it will no longer be recyclable. And this is why the anti-nuclear lobby wants uranium to be re-classified. If it is no longer recyclable, then it should be considered nuclear waste -- at which stage it would be illegal to ship it out of the country.
On the whole though, Noualhat has been somewhat surprised at the reaction so far in France to the report. "The nuclear industry keeps saying 'but none of this is new.' But we have had what feels like a tsunami of reaction," Noualhat said. "This (the issue about storage in Seversk) is only a small part of the documentary. One-third of it is devoted to the relationship between the nuclear industry and transparency and democracy. And that is the most important thing to us. We have the feeling that these qualities may not be compatible."A few weeks ago, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk was likened to a James Bond villain after he announced his idea to nuke Mars on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. He said it was the most rapid way to induce climate change on the planet. Now the billionaire has clarified those comments a bit further. He doesn't want to nuke the surface of Mars; he just wants to nuke the sky over the Martian poles every couple of seconds.
The idea, he said, is to create two tiny pulsing "suns" over the regions. "They're really above the planet, they're not on the planet," Musk said at an event for Solar City in New York City's Times Square this morning. Every few moments, he wants to send a large fusion bomb over the poles, to create small blinking suns. "A lot of people don't appreciate that our Sun is a large fusion explosion," he said.
"A lot of people don't appreciate that our Sun is a large fusion explosion."
The tiny suns would then warm up the planet and turn any frozen carbon dioxide into gas. CO2 is a potent greenhouse gas, meaning it absorbs and traps heat. The more of the gas that's in the atmosphere, the warmer the surface of Mars becomes. When asked how difficult this would be to pull off, Musk replied, "Yeah, absolutely, no problem." The comment was met with nervous laughter by the crowd.
Musk has been very vocal about his goal to colonize Mars. At the SolarCity event, Musk also noted that SpaceX is currently working on plans for their Mars transit vehicle. In January, Musk said he would reveal the company's plans for reaching the Red Planet later this year.
Verge Video: We found liquid water on Mars. Here's what it means.English Heritage says Jewish architecture is at risk as the community diminishes. Liverpool's Princes Road Synagogue is one of the buildings appearing in a new guidebook. Clifford's Tower in York is one of 300 landmarks highlighted in the book. Many from the city's Jewish community died here in 1190 after seeking refuge from an angry mob. Buildings like Britain's oldest synagogue Bevis Marks in central London have made a "magnificent" contribution to the nation's heritage, say heritage bosses. The guidebook, which includes the Bradford Synagogue Ark, coincides with the 350th anniversary of the re-settlement of Jews in England under Oliver Cromwell after expulsion. The east window of Grimsby Synagogue also appears in the book. English Heritage chief executive Simon Thurley said Jewish buildings must be saved before a "point of no-return". Broadcaster and writer Rabbi Lionel Blue said monuments, such as the Emanuel Memorial Fountain in Southsea, reflected the "ever-changing situation" of Jewish people. The book, called Jewish Heritage in England, reveals Jewish cemeteries, like the Urmston Cemetery in Trafford, also play a part in English history. The interiors of the "cathedral" synagogues are some of the most dramatic, such as at Singers Hill in Birmingham. Some have been demolished recently for redevelopment. Back 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Next
E-mail this to a friendDesign trends are influenced by both form and function, but also bow to limitations of existing technology. When we look back at flat-screen TVs compared to LCDs, then further to the bulky cathode ray tube (remember these?), it's obvious we've come a long way. Within a few years, according to industry reps, we'll say the same about store displays, vehicle lighting and kitchen countertops.
The new technology is aimed at revolutionizing both displays (i.e. TV or smartphone screens) and lighting. OLED stands for Organic Light Emitting Diode, but since the light-producing technology is lightweight and can be applied to bendable surfaces, the term is often used to reference to flexible displays. The "cool" factor of this technology is still in its infancy, in part because most products that will utilize it remain in the minds of designers and haven't yet hit store shelves. Once a few tech hurdles are overcome, there's a gamut of new features you can expect to see.
The Basics
OLED is a series of organic films that, when activated with electricity, will emit light. Early work with OLED was done on glass — for example, the current line of Samsung's Galaxy smartphones use OLED in the display, sandwiched between layers of glass.
In addition to glass, these organic cells can be coated onto plastic or foil, creating a display that is flexible — it can bend without cracking or breaking.
The light is powered with a low voltage current, below 14 volts, and is incredibly thin — 1.8 millimeters. OLED can be used in a personal device like a phone, or be applied to a large surface such as a wall — it won't add bulk and won't heat up the surface.
The Capabilities of OLED
In 2011, Philips did a collaboration with the Black Eyed Peas for a show in Paris. The outfits of the band members were integrated with OLED light panels, controlled remotely to display lighting sequences orchestrated with the set list.
It's not only rock stars that find good use for OLED. The military is also an early adopter, using microdisplays made by eMagin for training. Microdisplays are 1x1 inches or smaller and used in a wireless headset so the user sees a 2D or 3D interface that changes as they look left to right. The headsets are fairly lightweight and therefore easily portable. eMagin is beginning to apply the same technology for gaming, in which wearing the headsets would replace looking at a screen.
Another place OLEDs replace screens is for veterinarians, who could be on-site giving an ultrasound to cattle or sheep — viewing the ultrasound on a headset is much handier than looking over at a screen, a representative from eMagin said.
What Consumers Can Get Excited About
As a light source, OLED promises to be not only a lighter and thinner option, but also transparent. This means your car roof could be a window, letting in sunlight during the day, and at night, the same surface could turn into a light that comes on when the door is ajar. On a glass storefront, a lighted sign could display a sale, but would be transparent when turned off.
Offices could feature windows that bring in sunshine during the day and turn into lights in the evening, and other office lighting could be integrated into furniture or walls, rather than the ceiling. Car tail lights could also be replaced with OLED, allowing them to emit the same brightness with less bulk, so industrial designers of cars could make better use of the space or just provide consumers with a bigger trunk. At a recent conference, the Philips team used OLED-lighted nametags powered by batteries.
Innovation in lighting is great, but the real game-changer is when OLED is used on a flexible surface for a bendable device. "The first benefit will be thinner and lightweight, less breakable displays," say Janice Mahon, VP of Technology Commercialization at Universal Display Corporation.
She describes what industry insiders call a "universal communication device," which is essentially a pen, but with a display that rolls in and out. It seems our aspirations are towards forever smaller devices.
The Challenges Thus Far
It will be roughly 3-4 years before OLED lighting makes it to the mass market, according to a representative from Philips. For flexible displays (such as the ultimate pen), companies including Samsung are working to bring the technology to the marketplace. But a few hurdles remain.
First, OLED must be protected from air and moisture. It can be sandwiched between layers of glass, but for a flexible display it will need to be layered inside plastic, so an impermeable coating must be developed to protect the display. Second, the high-temperature processing that places the OLED on the backplane will melt most plastics.
But many believe that OLED has potential to be cheaper than LCD in the future.
For now, OLED is limited to niche use cases. Designers able to get their hands on it, though, prove the form and function of OLED is something to be desired. Check out this video by Philips, displaying light installations done in collaboration with designers.Fla. officials ruled Tuesday to allow researchers to search for the bodies of former students of the notorious Dozier School for Boys.
Sally and Richard Varnadoe walk to a press conference at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Fla., on June 14, 2013. Two of Varnadoe's brothers were sent to the Arthur Dozier School for Boys. Only one returned and over the last few years Varnadoe and his relatives have been vocal about wanting their relatives' remains returned to them for proper burial. (Photo11: Edmund D. Fountain/ AP Photo) Story Highlights Officials voted Tues. to let researchers search for the remains of victims of The Dozier School
Former students have accused employees of committing severe physical and sexual abuse
Researchers from the University of South Florida hope to identify boys in unmarked graves
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Saying it was time to provide answers from a painful period in the state's past, Florida's top officials voted Tuesday to let researchers dig up and try to identify remains buried at a closed reform school for boys.
Former students have accused employees and guards at The Dozier School for Boys of physical and sexual abuse, so severe in some cases it may have led to death. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigated, but in 2009 the agency concluded it was unable to substantiate or dispute the claims.
Researchers at the University of South Florida hope to identify boys in unmarked graves, and perhaps return them to family members for a proper burial.
In its quest to exhume bodies, the university was rebuffed by a judge and by one state agency before Gov. Rick Scott and Florida Cabinet members approved the plan Tuesday.
Researchers received nearly $200,000 from state legislators to begin their project later this month on the site 60 miles west of Tallahassee. The decision by the governor and others came despite opposition of some Jackson County residents who maintain the effort will result in negative publicity.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said the state needed to act.
"We have to look at our history, we have to go back," Bondi said. "We know there are unmarked graves currently on that property that deserve a proper burial. It's the right thing to do."
The vote triggered a round of applause from former Dozier students at the Cabinet meeting.
John Bonner, who called some of the Dozier employees "vicious," said the university's work could help people and families get answers about what happened at the school.
"There's just so many things that could come out of this that could benefit people," said Bonner, who was at Dozier in the late '60s.
The school opened in 1900 and was shut down in 2011 for budgetary reasons.
Sid Riley, the managing editor of the weekly Jackson County Times, wrote to state officials in July, calling the plans a "terrible project."
"We have an active industrial development program and a tourist development program here. If they proceed with this terrible project, our community will be exposed to over a year of negative publicity," Riley wrote.
Riley said the groups "promoting this effort" would ultimately seek compensation and the "politicians are playing up to the minority voters."
Jackson County Commissioner Jeremy Branch said the project would continue to blemish the county and Marianna, where the school is located. He said he was confused as to what the exhumation of the bodies would discover.
"Are we trying to determine if bad things happened 100 years ago in America?" Branch said. "We know bad things happened in America."
Researchers said they have already used historical documents to discover more deaths and gravesites than what the law enforcement agency found.
Researchers said they verified the deaths of two adult staff members and 96 children — ranging in age from 6 to 18 — between 1914 and 1973.
Records indicated 45 people were buried on the 1,400-acre tract from 1914 to 1952 and 31 bodies were sent elsewhere, leaving some bodies with whereabouts unknown.
In May, a judge rejected a request to exhume bodies from what is called "Boot Hill Cemetery," saying the case did not meet the "threshold" to grant the order.
Secretary of State Ken Detzner, who reports to Scott, said in July his agency lacked the legal authority to grant a permit even though the land is state-owned. That led to a push by Bondi to get approval from the state agency that oversees state land. The agency is controlled by Scott and the Cabinet.
Documents obtained by The Associated Press show State Archaeologist Mary Glowacki in late April distributed a list of recommendations to the head of the state's Division of Historical Resources, raising questions about the project.
The list asked questions about why an entire cemetery had to be disturbed and she raised doubts about the ability of researchers to find and identify everyone buried there.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1cHiCuUIf recent local news stories (and Breaking Bad) have taught us anything, it's that fast food restaurants have become centers of criminal enterprise. It makes sense, if you think about it -- somebody trading money for a mysterious paper sack is much less suspicious at a drive-thru window than on a street corner. However, the underworld masterminds behind this new fast food initiative have yet to iron all the kinks out of the process, and unsuspecting customers are finding all sorts of contraband thrown in with their Value Meals. Advertisement
4 $3,600 $3,600 [inject-module] [inject-module] Three people stricken with late-night munchies in Kentwood, Michigan, decided to take a trip to their local Taco Bell drive-thru and were surprised to find a fat wad of cash totaling $3,600 in their bag instead of the fat wad of refried diarrhea they had anticipated. After some debate -- and presumably also after determining that they couldn't eat the money -- they returned the bag to the restaurant, at which point the cashier responsible broke down into grateful tears. It is unclear what magic combination of words the trio accidentally stumbled upon during their order to trigger this obvious ransom exchange. Getty Images News/Getty Images
"Man, every time I eat here I end up dropping the kids at the pool." ↓ Continue Reading Below AdvertisementOur season-long series covering MLS products loaned out to lower-tier teams in the US and Canada:
It’s all Dom Dwyer, all the time when it comes to USL PRO dominance. Two goals from the Sporting Kansas City forward led Orlando City to a convincing 2-0 victory over the Seattle Sounders on Sunday in MLS Reserve League play in Tacoma, Wash.
It didn’t take long for Orlando to show their talent against the MLS side. Only four minutes into the match, last year’s USL PRO golden boot winner, Dennis Chin, found Dwyer (above) at the back post for the easy put-away. Dwyer’s second came in the 53rd minute with a powerful shot into the top corner, again assisted by Chin.
The Sounders Reserve squad included Steve Zakuani, Jhon Kennedy Hurtado, rising talent Eriq Zavaleta and former US national team goalkeeper Marcus Hahnemann. Seattle did little to trouble Orlando’s defense, though, only forcing two saves from goalkeeper Miguel Gallardo.
Complete MLS Reserve League schedule, standings
The win marks the third consecutive multi-goal game for Dwyer, who continues to lead the USL Golden Boot race, now with 10 goals. Orlando remain in first place with 19 points from eight matches.
Newly loaned Union midfielder Leo Fernandes made a substitute appearance for the Harrisburg City Islanders last Friday and scored a goal in their 4-0 win over Antigua Barracuda. The Brazilian midfielder joined several Philly teammates on the roster last week and it seems to have paid off thus far.
Antigua also fell 4-1 to D.C. United affiliate Richmond Kickers over the weekend, with former DCU striker Joseph Ngwenya bagging a hat trick. Three United players featured in the match, though Casey Townsend did not as he traveled with D.C. in their 2-1 loss to FC Dallas.
Join the Reddit discussion on USL PRO and NASL
In NASL action, Enzo Martinez make his second consecutive substitute appearance on Saturday for the Carolina RailHawks since he arrived on short-term loan from Real Salt Lake. Martinez came on in an attacking midfield position and contributed to the RailHawks' 5-2 shellacking of the San Antonio Scorpions.
Carlyle Mitchell continues to be a mainstay in the FC Edmonton backline as the Canadian club notched its second consecutive home win, 3-0 over the Atlanta Silverbacks on Sunday. Meanwhile, Jeff Attinella played his first for the Ft. Lauderdale Strikers since arriving from RSL, helping them to a 2-1 win over Minnesota on Saturday.
USL PRO:
Phoenix Wolves: 2-1 loss at Pittsburgh Riverhounds
F Will Bates (Seattle Sounders) – Not yet with team
Harrisburg City Islanders: 4-0 win vs Antigua Barracuda
M Jimmy McLaughlin (Philadelphia Union) – Did not play
M Greg Jordan (Philadelphia Union) – Started, played 90 minutes, one assist
F Cristhian Hernandez (Philadelphia Union) – Started, played 36 minutes
M Don Anding (Philadelphia Union) – Started, played 90 minutes
M Leo Fernandes (Philadelphia Union) – Substitute, played 30 minutes, one goal
Rochester Rhinos: 1-0 win at Wilmington Hammerheads
D Bilal Duckett (New England Revolution) – Started, played 90 minutes
F Matt Horth (New England Revolution) – Started, played 86 minutes, one goal
M Gabe Latigue (New England Revolution) – Did not play
D Tyler Polak (New England Revolution) – Did not play
Richmond Kickers : 4-1 win vs. Antigua Barracuda
D/M Taylor Kemp (D.C. United) – Did not play
F Michael Seaton (D.C. United) – Started, played 63 minutes
M Conor Shanosky (D.C. United) – Started, played 90 minutes
F Casey Townsend (D.C. United) – Remained with D.C. United
F/M Brian Ownby (Houston Dynamo) – Started, played 45 minutes
Charleston Battery: 4-2 win vs. Wilmington Hammerheads
M Bryce Alderson (Vancouver Whitecaps) – Did not play
Phoenix Wolves: 4-3 loss at Dayton Dutch Lions
F Will Bates (Seattle Sounders) – Started, played 90 minutes
Orlando City SC: 2-0 win at Seattle Sounders Reserves
GK Jon Kempin (Sporting Kansas City) – Did not play
M Christian Duke (Sporting Kansas City) – Started, played 76 minutes
D Yann Songo’o (Sporting Kansas City) – Started, played 90 minutes
F Dom Dwyer (Sporting Kansas City) – Started, played 90 minutes, two goals
NASL:
Ft. Lauderdale Strikers: 2-1 win vs. Minnesota United FC
GK Jeff Attinella (Real Salt Lake) – Started, played 90 minutes
Atlanta Silverbacks: 3-0 loss at FC Edmonton
F Kellen Gulley (Chicago Fire) – Did not play
FC Edmonton: 3-0 win vs Atlanta Silverbacks
D Carlyle Mitchell (Vancouver Whitecaps) – Started, played 90 minutes
Carolina RailHawks: 5-2 win vs San Antonio Scorpions
M Enzo Martinez (Real Salt Lake) - Substitute, played 27 minutesECONOMIST Jim Power said today that cutting the Universal Service Charge for workers would be a better move for economic recovery than the recent decision to award public sector pay increases.
ECONOMIST Jim Power said today that cutting the Universal Service Charge for workers would be a better move for economic recovery than the recent decision to award public sector pay increases.
He added that as the economy improves, political instability is the biggest risk to its recovery.
He is expecting GDP growth in the economy of 4.5pc this year.
"All economic indicators are suggesting that the recovery underway is robust, however it would be dangerous to be complacent about this recovery and it is imperative that in the run up to a general election, the Government desists from fiscal extravagance and politically popular measures which would jeopardise the recovery," said Mr Power, chief economist at Friends First, in a new economic outlook published today.
“News of the Government’s decision to award public sector wage increases is worrying. A gradual easing of the personal tax burden, particularly for low to middle-income workers would be the most appropriate policy measure to pursue, rather than increasing public sector pay and generally increasing government expenditure,” according to the Friends First economist. “Increasing public sector pay will add to the cost of running the country and will feed through to the private sector, which in turn could undermine Ireland’s cost competitiveness – USC reductions would be a much more sensible way to put money into workers’ pockets. We are once again seeing the primacy of politics over economics.”
He added that the biggest threats to Ireland’s economic recovery are now political, both local and European.
“The most obvious domestic risk factor is now political. An election must be held by April 2016 at the latest and there is no guarantee that the formation of a stable government will be possible due to the growing proliferation of Independents. Political stability has been a key factor in selling Ireland to international investors in recent years and this is now under threat. The Irish electorate needs to be very careful not to undermine the progress that has been made in very difficult circumstances since the economy crashed,” he said.
Total employment in the economy continues to improve and has increased by 87,700 since the Government was elected in the first quarter of 2011.
“There is nothing better than meaningful employment creation to start solving social and financial problems. Ireland is moving in the right direction and sensible people around the country need to ensure that the anti-business hard left are not allowed to derail the progress that is being made,” according to Mr Power.
Commenting on the the Irish housing market, Mr Power says it is not appropriate to talk about another unsustainable bubble in the residential housing market but warns that it is important that demand and supply side measures are implemented early in the recovery cycle in order to prevent economically dangerous price trends from developing.
Online EditorsOther wealthy individuals have also funded a series of reports into the future use of technologies to geoengineer the climate
A small group of leading climate scientists, financially supported by billionaires including Bill Gates, are lobbying governments and international bodies to back experiments into manipulating the climate on a global scale to avoid catastrophic climate change.
The scientists, who advocate geoengineering methods such as spraying millions of tonnes of reflective particles of sulphur dioxide 30 miles above earth, argue that a "plan B" for climate change will be needed if the UN and politicians cannot agree to making the necessary cuts in greenhouse gases, and say the US government and others should pay for a major programme of international research.
Solar geoengineering techniques are highly controversial: while some climate scientists believe they may prove a quick and relatively cheap way to slow global warming, others fear that when conducted in the upper atmosphere, they could irrevocably alter rainfall patterns and interfere with the earth's climate.
Geoengineering is opposed by many environmentalists, who say the technology could undermine efforts to reduce emissions, and by developing countries who fear it could be used as a weapon or by rich countries to their advantage. In 2010, the UN Convention on Biological Diversity declared a moratorium on experiments in the sea and space, except for small-scale scientific studies.
Concern is now growing that the small but influential group of scientists, and their backers, may have a disproportionate effect on major decisions about geoengineering research and policy.
"We will need to protect ourselves from vested interests [and] be sure that choices are not influenced by parties who might make significant amounts of money through a choice to modify climate, especially using proprietary intellectual property," said Jane Long, director at large for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the US, in a paper delivered to a recent geoengineering conference on ethics.
"The stakes are very high and scientists are not the best people to deal with the social, ethical or political issues that geoengineering raises," said Doug Parr, chief scientist at Greenpeace. "The idea that a self-selected group should have so much influence is bizarre."
Pressure to find a quick technological fix to climate change is growing as politicians fail to reach an agreement to significantly reduce emissions. In 2009-2010, the US government received requests for over $2bn(£1.2bn) of grants for geoengineering research, but spent around $100m.
As well as Gates, other wealthy individuals including Sir Richard Branson, tar sands magnate Murray Edwards and the co-founder of Skype, Niklas Zennström, have funded a series of official reports into future use of the technology. Branson, who has frequently called for geoengineering to combat climate change, helped fund the Royal Society's inquiry into solar radiation management last year through his Carbon War Room charity. It is not known how much he contributed.
Professors David Keith, of Harvard University, and Ken Caldeira of Stanford, [see footnote] are the world's two leading advocates of major research into geoengineering the upper atmosphere to provide earth with a reflective shield. They have so far received over $4.6m from Gates to run the Fund for Innovative Climate and Energy Research (Ficer). Nearly half Ficer's money, which comes directly from Gates's personal funds, has so far been used for their own research, but the rest is disbursed by them to fund the work of other advocates of large-scale interventions.
According to statements of financial interests, Keith receives an undisclosed sum from Bill Gates each year, and is the president and majority owner of the geoengineering company Carbon Engineering, in which both Gates and Edwards have major stakes – believed to be together worth over $10m.
Another Edwards company, Canadian Natural Resources, has plans to spend $25bn to turn the bitumen-bearing sand found in northern Alberta into barrels of crude oil. Caldeira says he receives $375,000 a year from Gates, holds a carbon capture patent and works for Intellectual Ventures, a private geoegineering research company part-owned by Gates and run by Nathan Myhrvold, former head of technology at Microsoft.
According to the latest Ficer accounts, the two scientists have so far given $300,000 of Gates money to part-fund three prominent reviews and assessments of geoengineering – the UK Royal Society report on Solar Radiation Management, the US Taskforce on Geoengineering and a 2009 report by Novin a science thinktank based in Santa Barbara, California. Keith and Caldeira either sat on the panels that produced the reports or contributed evidence. All three reports strongly recommended more research into solar radiation management.
The fund also gave $600,000 to Phil Rasch, chief climate scientist for the Pacific Northwest national laboratory, one of 10 research institutions funded by the US energy department.
Rasch gave evidence at the first Royal Society report on geoengineering 2009 and was a panel member on the 2011 report. He has testified to the US Congress about the need for government funding of large-scale geoengineering. In addition, Caldeira and Keith gave a further $240,000 to geoengineering advocates to travel and attend workshops and meetings and $100,000 to Jay Apt, a prominent advocate of geoengineering as a last resort, and professor of engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. Apt worked with Keith and Aurora Flight Sciences, a US company that develops drone aircraft technology for the US military, to study the costs of sending 1m tonnes of sulphate particles into the upper atmosphere a year.
Analysis of the eight major national and international inquiries into geoengineering over the past three years shows that Keith and Caldeira, Rasch and Prof Granger Morgan the head of department of engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University where Keith works, have sat on seven panels, including one set up by the UN. Three other strong advocates of solar radiation geoengineering, including Rasch, have sat on national inquiries part-funded by Ficer.
"There are clear conflicts of interest between many of the people involved in the debate," said Diana Bronson, a researcher with Montreal-based geoengineering watchdog ETC.
"What is really worrying is that the same small group working on high-risk technologies that will geoengineer the planet is also trying to engineer the discussion around international rules and regulations. We cannot put the fox in charge of the chicken coop."
"The eco-clique are lobbying for a huge injection of public funds into geoengineering research. They dominate virtually every inquiry into geoengineering. They are present in almost all of the expert deliberations. They have been the leading advisers to parliamentary and congressional inquiries and their views will, in all likelihood, dominate the deliberations of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as it grapples for the first time with the scientific and ethical tangle that is climate engineering," said Clive Hamilton, professor of Public Ethics at the Australian National University, in a Guardian blog.
The scientists involved reject this notion. "Even the perception that [a small group of people has] illegitimate influence [is] very unhealthy for a technology which has extreme power over the world. The concerns that a small group [is] dominating the debate are legitimate, but things are not as they were |
turning of the wheel it is comprised of. To help us do that I would like to suggest to you a different way of thinking about the relationship between the three turnings of the wheel, not in terms of neyartha and nītārtha, not in terms of higher or lower or medium, but rather in terms of three different subject matters, or three different ways of looking at the world: in terms of which the Buddha chose to teach. I think you will see that each of these ways of looking at the world is important, and I find the sūtras and the shastras contained in each of these approaches to be extremely beneficial.
The idea that I am going to be outlining in the next few minutes is not, I don’t think, at all original to me. I was led to it by a remark His Holiness the Dalai Lama made in a teaching where he set out this idea that it was time to pay more attention to all three turnings because they seem to approach these different domains, and I went home and thought a lot about that idea and went back to these teachings, to these different sets of texts in that light, and I’ve come to believe that His Holiness is absolutely right about that, and that when His Holiness says that, it really calls us to a complete re-appraisal of how many of us – myself included – have thought about these teachings and how they are often treated in commentarial literature.
So let me set this out in brief, and then we will work in more detail. In brief, we can say that the teachings of the first turning set out for us the general characterisation of the nature of reality, the general characterisation of Samsara, its causes, and the means for release from Samsara; the second turning teachings set out the nature of emptiness from the side of objects of knowledge, and the third turning teachings set out an understanding of emptiness from the side of the subject of knowledge. I think that if we see things this way, we see the three sets of teachings as complementary to one another rather than as in competition with one another and therefore as important to each of us.
First Turning
Now let us begin by thinking about the teachings of the first turning. The first turning of the wheel of Dharma by the Buddha took place at the site of Sarnath outside Varanasi, and it was accomplished through a sutta known as the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, the sutta of, or the Discourse of the Turning of the Wheel of Dharma that was delivered to the Buddha’s five initial disciples – I am sure you all know this, and of course the initial teachings of that sūtra are elaborated in enormous detail by the succeeding Pali texts: the discourses that the Buddha gave for the next forty-five years of his human life on earth, as well as in the Pali commentaries and scholastic texts. I want to focus for the next few minutes just on two texts within that tradition: one, the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta itself, and the second a later commentarial text called the Questions of King Milinda that records a possibly historical, part possibly fictional interaction between the monk Nāgasena and a Bactrian king.
If you have not read the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, you should do so immediately. This is the sutta where the Buddha first announced the Four Noble Truths and delivered the results of his insight and awakening. This is the most important sutta in the entire Buddhist literature. If you are sent to a desert island and you get to take one text with you and you are trying to decide whether to take the Heart Sūtra or the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, give the Heart Sūtra to your best friend and take the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, because that will guide your practice.
So, in the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta the Buddha begins by teaching “This entire world is characterized by suffering”. When a lot of people hear this they say: “Oh my God! That’s so depressing! What a depressing religion! What a depressing philosophy! I wanna go some place else. The world is actually very nice: there are blue skies, nice people, I am young and healthy, and life is basically good”. They must say “Shut up Buddha! This is just a total downer”, But … it’s not. And in fact when the Buddha articulates in the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta that the world is characterized by suffering, he makes that very specific: he says that not being able to get what we want is suffering – and of course as the Rolling Stones said “You can’t always get what you want.” Having things that you don’t want is suffering, aging is suffering, death is suffering, separation from those that you love is suffering; and anybody who honestly believes that he or she is living in a world where you are always going to get what you want, you are never going to get what you don’t want, you’re going to be perpetually young and everybody is always going to be nice to you and you will never suffer loss, then you really do need to wake up to the reality of the world; and even if you believe that the life that you have right now is pretty good, just think about what’s happening maybe only a few kilometers from here, or maybe a few doors from here where people really are living lives in great pain, lives of great privation, lives of great uncertainty, lives of sadness; and then you have a choice. You can decide: “Well, that’s them, not me. So I’m not suffering, they are”; or you can suffer the pain of knowing that that’s happening. If the latter, then you too are suffering. If the former, you are suffering from serious mental illness.
The Buddha continued that suffering doesn’t just happen, it’s not a random event, but suffering, like everything else, is brought about by causes and conditions. The immediate conditions of suffering, the Buddha argued, are desire, attraction and aversion, but those attractions and aversions are based on a more fundamental confusion about the nature of reality. That confusion, he taught, isn’t just an absence of knowledge, but a positive superimposition of a false view of reality over the reality that we experience.
We find ourselves in a world in which all phenomena, including ourselves, are impermanent and constantly changing; in which all phenomena including ourselves are dependently originated and depend upon countless causes and conditions for their reality; a world in which all phenomena including ourselves are selfless and don’t have any core or essence; nonetheless, we attribute permanence to things; we attribute independence to things; we attribute substantial existence to things. That’s an act of cognitive superimposition.
I think of this as a mental reflex: something wired into our brains, but which by doing we cause suffering for ourselves because we take ourselves to be separate from other things, substantially existent, going on forever, independent and important. And we teach each other this. We teach our children: “You have to be independent! Stand on your own two feet!” But of course, nobody is independent; nobody stands on their own feet. Where did you get your feet? You got them from your parents. We build this kind of structure of independence, substantiality, difference from the world, a longing to be permanent, that drives the cosmetics industry for instance, and that becomes our source of suffering.
That’s all the bad news, the first two truths, but then there is some better news. Given that we live in a world constituted by suffering, suffering that we bring about ourselves by our own cognitive activity, there is a way to cease suffering. There is a way to escape suffering, and that is to reverse that cognitive activity; and the reversal of that cognitive activity requires fundamental transformation of our minds.
In order to accomplish that, in the fourth Truth the Buddha lays out what we call the Eightfold Path to Nobility. The eightfold path is not a set of eight commandments instead of the Ten Commandments; it’s actually a very interesting structure. I think of it from a Sanskrit point of view as being eight vastus, eight domains, eight areas of concern. What the Buddha doesn’t tell you to do is to do this, don’t do this, do this, don’t do this, but rather: pay attention to these things. Pay attention to your action: your action can either cause suffering or cause happiness; pay attention to what you say, to your speech: your speech can either cause suffering or cause happiness; pay attention to how you earn your living: some ways of earning a living are conducive to happiness and release of suffering, some cause more suffering; pay attention to your views: the way you think about the world is not morally neutral.
A lot of people are puzzled by that: why is the right view part of an ethical discipline? Think about it for a minute. There are certain things that are simply immoral to believe, right? Beliefs that cause pain and suffering. Suppose, for instance, that I think that women are basically dumb and useless and can’t study: then as a teacher I am horrible; I have got an immoral view; I have got a view that causes suffering to those around me. Or if I am a decent feminist then I have got a positive view that can actually benefit the world. So the Buddha emphasised that all of these things: the way we think, the way we meditate, the amount of effort we put into things, the way we earn our livelihood; all of these things are things that we do that can cause happiness or cause suffering. The Eightfold Path asks us to examine our lives constantly, reflectively through thought, and meditatively through deep kinds of concentration that actually transform the way we take up with the world, in order to achieve a release from suffering and to enable others to be released from suffering.
This is but the briefest summary of one very small sutta in the Pali canon, but you can begin to see that here what the Buddha is doing is laying out for us the general framework within which to think about our lives and practice. It is a very profound framework, a framework that challenges us to think and live in ways that are very contrary to those in which many of us live. I think none of us is too good to pay attention to this.
I am going to only mention some things that happen in the Questions of King Milinda so that I can move on to the second and third turnings. In this beautiful little text a number of metaphors are introduced for understanding the ideas developed in the Pali Canon, and that can really deepen our understanding. For instance when the king asks Nāgasena: “Gee, you Buddhists teach this doctrine of no-self. If there is no you, who should I pay homage to? Who wears the robes? Who does the practice?”
And Nāgasena famously asks: “Hey king, how did you get here? Did you walk or did you come in a chariot?” and of course the King says: “Well, I came in a chariot.” Then Nāgasena says: “So was the chariot identical to the wheels? Was it identical to the axle, identical to the seat? Where was the Chariot that you came in? Was it all of these pieces together? What was it?” Then of course the king says: “No, the chariot isn’t the wheels, the chariot isn’t the seat, the chariot isn’t the axle and so forth: the chariot is just a name that we use to talk about all of those things when they are assembled and functioning together.” Then Nāgasena says: “Just so, I’m not my hair, I’m not my teeth, I’m not my feet, I’m not all of these pieces, I am not different from all of these pieces: then my name is just a designation that I use to talk about all of these things when they’re functioning together.” By doing this, The Questions of King Milinda gives us a wonderful understanding of what it is to exist, but to exist selflessly.
There are many other beautiful and very useful similes in this text, which I suggest that you read, but I mention this one only because many of us who study in the Mahāyāna are familiar with this chariot simile. We find it in Candrakīrti’s Madhyamakāvatāra in the sixth chapter, and many of us think: “Aha, this is a definitively Mahāyāna idea.” But I mention this to point out that Candrakīrti is taking it from the Śrāvakayāna. Candrakīrti isn’t so arrogant as to say: “I won’t read Śrāvakayāna texts.” He is happy enough to read them and to borrow from them. And if Candrakīrti can read them, so can you.
Second Turning
Now having convinced ourselves that we should all be reading first turning texts, let’s turn to the second turning and understand what some of its characteristics are. As I said, we can think of the second turning as setting out the idea of emptiness from the standpoint of objects of knowledge. The second turning also involves an understanding of ethics from the standpoint of compassion grounded in an understanding of this emptiness. I want to mention briefly some of what we can learn from two important second turning texts. The first is the Heart of Wisdom Sūtra which is a wonderful sūtra to read because it is a nice condensation of the much longer and sometimes more difficult eight-thousand-line Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra. The second text I’ll mention just a little bit about is one that I have to mention anytime I talk, and that is Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, but I’ll just talk about a couple of verses in that text.
Now, maybe I should say a word or two about the Prajñāpāramitā sūtras themselves, the foundation texts for the second turning. The foundation texts for the first turning are the Pali sūttas. For the second turning they are the Prajñāpāramitā sūtras, as well as a few other sūtras such as the Vimalakīrti. All of these arose some time around the beginning of the first millennium, about one hundred years before the Common Era, and they seem to have been pretty much in the current form by about the second century of the Common Era.
Of course, what I have just said is a bit heterodox. Within the tradition, these texts are regarded as having been taught by the Buddha pretty much simultaneously on Vulture Peak while the Buddha was on retreat there, but there is always a bit of a difference between the way these texts are regarded traditionally and the way that, shall we say boring academic people who study texts think about their origin, and it’s your choice. You can think of them canonically as having been spoken by the Buddha on Vulture Peak, that’s fine, or you can think of them more historically as having been composed some six or seven hundred years after the Buddha’s death, as this new philosophical movement was being generated in India. It’s your choice.
For myself I will say that I believe deeply that Buddhism calls us to be critical and to think and weigh all evidence, and I believe that accepting that these texts were composed by great sages later on does nothing to undermine their authenticity, their profundity or their holiness; but that is just my view. To get even more heretical, I’ll point out that most contemporary scholars believe that the Heart Sūtra was in fact composed in China and translated back into Sanskrit, so things even get more complicated, but it’s still a beautiful, profound and very holy text, and I still want to talk to you about it because it is a text that is of the utmost importance to understanding Madhyamaka.
When we encounter the scene of the Heart Sūtra, the scene is set on Vulture Peak, which is this wonderful place you can visit in Bihar, a very wild and beautiful spot. The Buddha is there with an enormous assembly of Bodhisattvas and celestial beings, and the Buddha is engaged in a very particular meditation. We usually translate the name of this meditation as “the meditation on the enumeration of phenomena”, that is he is really considering the enormous diversity of constantly arising and ceasing dependent phenomena in the world.
Then the disciple Śāripūtra asks a question to a very particular bodhisattva. All of you know the Heart Sūtra: you might not know the Dharmachakrapravartana, but you know the Heart Sūtra. Which bodhisattva does Śāripūtra address? Chenrezig; Avalokiteśvara. This is a really important moment in the Heart Sūtra. It’s significant that it is Avalokiteśvara. You might expect, given that this is a perfection of wisdom sūtra, to find Mañjuśrī brandishing his sword somewhere in the Sūtra because it is Mañjuśrī who is the bodhisattva of perfect wisdom, but Avalokiteśvara, Chenrezig is the bodhisattva of compassion and I take it to be a very important message of the Heart Sūtra that here at the heart of a sūtra on wisdom we have the embodiment of compassion: that the only motivation for developing the kind of wisdom that is being articulated in the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtras that is worthy at all is the motivation of compassion: that we try to gain wisdom in order to be able to benefit sentient beings, not just to say get a good grade in a course or to get a Ph.D. or to become a great scholar. The motivation for wisdom is compassion.
The question Śāripūtra asks Avalokiteśvara is “How should somebody who wants to practice the profound perfection of wisdom practice? How should you practice if this is what you want to do?” And inspired by the Buddha, Avalokiteśvara replies: “Somebody who wants to practice the profound perfection of wisdom should see phenomena in the following way:” And then of course we encounter the four famous lines at the center of the Heart Sūtra: you should see that “form is empty, that emptiness is form, that form is not different from emptiness and that emptiness is not different from form”.
We could spend many days talking about the Heart Sūtra because there is so much to say, but we do not have many days, so I am going to say a few very specific things. When we begin by talking about form and the other aggregates, we are talking about the objects of our knowledge, the things that we encounter, things around us. When we say that form is empty, we are saying that these things are empty. But empty of what? They are empty of essence, empty of inherent existence, empty of independence. And we can say that they’re empty in a number of ways. These things are empty because they lack essence; these things are empty because they arise only in dependence on causes and conditions and disappear in dependence on those causes and conditions; these things are empty because they are merely conceptually imputed; because the identity that they have, like the identity of the chariot, is an identity that comes from the side of the subject, from our imputation, not from themselves. There is nothing from the side of the object that makes it the object it is, and that remains permanent and independent. That’s the fundamental reality of objects of experience.
But why then say that emptiness is form? That is a very different claim, because you might say: “My gosh, form is empty! This microphone – the one in my hand – is completely empty! That means it doesn’t exist! That means there is no microphone in my hand!” That would be wrong, because the emptiness of the microphone depends upon the microphone. We do not want to say the microphone is illusory but its emptiness is real: that the microphone doesn’t exist inherently but its emptiness does. If there is no microphone in my hand, there is no emptiness of any microphone in my hand. Emptiness is not some thing hidden behind here. I can’t say: “Here, you take the microphone, I’ll keep the emptiness”, because emptiness is a property of the microphone. Because it is, it tells us that we can’t reify the emptiness because to reify emptiness would be to deprecate form, to deprecate real things; so the second line in the Heart Sūtra says take reality seriously! It might be empty but it’s the only reality you’ve got! To grasp the emptiness, as if it’s the reality behind it, is to toss away the only world you have.
The Sūtra continues with these third and fourth lines “Form isn’t different from emptiness, emptiness isn’t different from form.” What does that mean? It’s not just that form happens to be empty and that emptiness happens to be the emptiness of form. Try to understand what it is to be a physical thing like a microphone: what is it to be made of stuff, to be physical. It is to be made up of parts and to depend for its existence on parts. That is part of what it is to be a physical object. No parts, no object. It’s to depend upon causes and conditions. That’s part of what it is to be a physical object: if you don’t make a microphone, you don’t get a microphone.
It’s also to be dependent on imputation, because anything like that is part of a vast continuum of things. To carve it out as a single entity in my consciousness is a cognitive activity. So to be a microphone is to be empty. In general, to be physical is to be empty. But then let us ask ourselves “Well, what is it to be empty?” Well, to be empty is to depend upon parts; to be empty is to depend upon causes and conditions; to be empty is to depend upon mere imputation. But that’s just what we said to be physical form is. Form and emptiness don’t just happen to be related. They are the same thing. This is the profound unity of the two truths in Madhyamaka that tells us what the character of objects of knowledge is. To be an object of knowledge is to be conventionally, empirically real, and to be ultimately empty. That’s the lesson we get from the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtras.
It is very good that I am now holding an empty microphone because if I’d been given a non-empty microphone I would have been in real trouble. It would be causally inert, incapable of being acted upon, or of acting. Now, Nāgārjuna picks up these points in a very profound way in Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. In the twenty-fourth chapter of Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, in the eighteenth and nineteenth ślokas, Nāgārjuna says: “Whatever is dependently originated, that’s emptiness: that being a dependent designation is the Middle Way. Since there is nothing that is not originated dependently, there is nothing that is not empty.” In saying this, Nāgārjuna is emphasizing that emptiness and dependent origination are not two distinct characteristics of objects of knowledge: they are the same characteristic of objects of knowledge; that once again when we understand what it is to be an object, what it is to be a phenomenon, something that we can know, whether our self or something external to us, every object of knowledge can be known only because it is dependently originated, only because it depends upon causes and conditions, only because we can impute an identity to it: that is, only because it’s empty. That doesn’t mean that phenomena don’t exist. Emptiness isn’t non-existence: it’s the only mode of existence that phenomena can have.
In the fortieth and final verse of that chapter Nāgārjuna says: “Whoever understands dependent origination understands suffering, and its origin, and its cessation, and the path.” There Nāgārjuna is drawing this profound connection between the understanding of dependent origination and the understanding of the Four Noble Truths. He says that if you understand dependent origination, you understand the Four Noble Truths; but since dependent origination and emptiness are the same thing, that also means that if you understand emptiness, you understand the Four Noble Truths. It also of course means that if you don’t understand emptiness and dependent origination, you don’t understand anything. Now, notice that Nāgārjuna at the end of this very important chapter comes back to the Four Noble Truths, the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta. The Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta was something Nāgārjuna took seriously: he was not too good to read that text. If Nāgārjuna wasn’t too good to read that text, we’re not too good to read that text.
Now, Śāntideva in the Bodhicaryāvatāra, maybe the most beautiful text composed in the Mahāyāna, draws explicitly the very profound connection between an understanding of the emptiness of the objects of experience and the cultivation of compassion. Śāntideva – and this is a long and complex story, one we don’t have time to tell tonight but we’ll tell more of tomorrow night – emphasises that we don’t need to ask the question: “Why should I be compassionate?” Rather the question that we need to ask is: “Why would I ever want to be egoistic?” We all know that suffering is bad, so you don’t need a reason to think that you want to eliminate suffering; but you would need a reason to think: “When I look all over the vast universe of sentient beings there’s actually only one of them who’s suffering is important enough to eliminate. Guess who it is? It’s not you. It’s me. I’m the only one who has suffering that’s worth eliminating.
Well, people tend to fight about who that unique individual is whose suffering is worth alleviating. Śāntideva’s point is that you actually need a reason to believe that you are so important, and in fact we all give ourselves a reason. The reason that we give ourselves is the reality of the distinction between self and others, our substantial existence and difference from everybody else: the fact(sic) that my happiness doesn’t depend upon your happiness, that I am completely independent, and this very reasonable view that I am permanent, independent, substantial and the rest of you are just a bunch of stuff.
Śāntideva points out that that’s the only reason you could be rationally egoistic, and so the way to dissolve egoism is not to sort of say: “Let’s everybody be nice now!” – it doesn’t work – but rather to cultivate the view of emptiness, to cultivate the understanding of the emptiness of all objects and phenomena because then egoism doesn’t have a ground to stand on, and then compassion naturally arises because what compassion is the commitment to alleviating suffering. That we already have: we know that suffering is bad. The only trouble is the construction of the barrier between ourselves’ and others’ suffering. That’s a conceptually constructed barrier. That’s a barrier that’s only possible if you don’t understand emptiness, and so that’s why there is this deep connection in the Mahāyāna between the understanding of the nature of all phenomena as empty, and the spontaneous development of compassion.
It should be clear why we should all study second turning texts: second turning texts are important for developing the profound view of emptiness, for developing the profound understanding of the nature of our objects of experience, and for cultivating the very best possible moral sentiments we have. But notice: nothing that we have talked about in the second turning is inconsistent with anything we talked about in the first turning; it’s rather supplementary. It deepens the idea of view, it extends the idea of path, but it does not in any way undermine or reject anything taught in the first turning suttas.
Third Turning
Now, the third turning of the wheel of Dharma is often called the turning characterised by the teaching of Mind Only, and the foundational texts for that turning are the Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra and the Lankāvatāra Sūtra, which the scholars believe came to be composed a few hundred years after the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtras, probably in about the third or fourth century of the Common Era – canonically they are held to be taught by the Buddha during his lifetime, again you can think about this any way you like – and a set of very important philosophical texts composed by philosophers like Digṅāga, Dharmakīrti, Vasubandhu and Asanga, with the view really articulated most deeply by Vasubandhu and Asanga, who were half-brothers, and by their great commentator Sthiramati (Loten in Tibetan), who really did a great deal to systematize the teachings of the masters.
Often when we hear the term “Mind Only,” we tend to think that the way to understand this view is that the mind is real and nothing else is real, that only the mind is real. It is possible to read those texts that way and that is certainly one of the interpretations we can adopt, but it is not by any means the only or maybe even the most useful way to understand the term. We can also think of the phrase “Mind Only” as saying the mind is the only thing you need to worry about, or the mind is the only thing you can actually work on, or the actual nature of your experience is only the experience of mind; and if we think about it this way we suddenly discover a very profound teaching about the nature of our own subjectivity.
By the way, when we think about it this way we see an important analogy between the third turning and certain second turning texts. In the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa Sūtra when the question is asked “How do you purify a Buddha field?” the answer that the Buddha and Vimalakīrti give is: “You purify your mind.” That is if I want to make the world I experience into a world of pure Buddha action, I don’t do that by transforming each of you and providing some psychotherapy and a little cosmetic surgery here and there and maybe beautifying the environment, I transform myself. I am the only thing I can work on. My mind is the only thing I can work on.
In the Bodhicaryāvatāra when Śāntideva says: “The world is covered with thorns and rocks and it’s very painful to walk on: I could cover the whole world with leather or I just could put on a pair of shoes,” Śāntideva is pointing out that the transformation that we are after when we are involved in moral transformation is fundamentally the transformation of ourselves. In this way when we think of Mind Only as saying: “The only thing you need to worry about is your mind and in fact the only thing you can transform is your mind,” we see a teaching that is much more consistent with the second turning. Now we’ll begin talking about how to understand that in more detail.
Let’s turn now to one of the chapters of the Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra, and this is the Paramārthasamudgata chapter where the bodhisattva Paramārthasamudgata asks the Buddha: “Hey Buddha, you’ve said these things that seem to me to be contradictory, because you’ve said that sometimes things have the nature of arising from causes and conditions, that sometimes things have the nature of having these particular kinds of characteristics, and sometimes you say things are empty of any nature. What were you talking about? It sounds like you were being inconsistent.”
In his answer the Buddha says: “That was a great question, Paramārthasamudgata! Let me explain!” and he explains by distinguishing three natures that phenomena have, and three naturelessnesses, or three kinds of emptiness that phenomena have, arguing that each of the natures that things have are coupled with one of the naturelessnesses: one of the kinds of emptiness. In doing this he provides a very deep explanation of the nature of our experience, that is of what emptiness is like from the side of the subject, an examination of what our minds do to phenomena.
This account of the three natures is developed in much more detail by Vasubandhu in two very important texts. One is his treatise in thirty stanzas Trimśikākārikā. The other is his treatise Trisvabhāvanirdeśa or discourse on the three natures, and in those texts he develops this theory in much more detail. What I’m going to do is to step back from the details and talk about what the three natures are and the three kinds of emptiness, and show you how those provide a model of how our mind works and/or emptiness looks from the subject side.
The three natures are these: the first one is in Sanskrit called the parikalpita-svabhāva or the imagined nature, the second one paratantra-svabhāva or the dependent nature, and the third one the pariniṣpanna-svabhāva or the perfected or the consummate nature. The three kinds of emptiness distinguished in the Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra are: emptiness with respect to characteristics, emptiness with respect to production, and ultimate emptiness. Now what we need is a good example, so we’re going to take the cup. In particular what we are going to look at is how I actually experience the cup, and I want to do this just in a very ordinary, boring way from the standpoint of modern science for a moment.
So here I am gazing fondly at this beautiful cup, and instinctively I think that I am experiencing immediately an external object that is smooth, round, has beautiful flowers on it, contains water and so forth; and if I asked you, iif I were right you would say: “Yes, you’ve got it exactly!”. But on reflection, even if we haven’t studied a word of Dharma, we know that that’s wrong. I am going to tell you a sad story. In fact here’s what’s happening. Light is bouncing off some object out there, it’s being bent by the lens of my eye, passed through a bunch of liquid in my eyeball, where it’s causing electrical activity among nerve cells on the back of my eye. I’m not making this up: it’s in scriptures that we all trust, the scriptures of modern science!
What then happens? Nerve impulses go up my optic nerve into my brain. They go into my occipital cortex, where various visual processing happens, and they interact with the parts of my brain that are involved with language and with motor control to give me the labeled cup and to get my hand to grasp it. I want to make it clear that in order to see this cup I need some light but it is very dark in my brain. So whatever’s happening in my brain, I don’t have a cup in there; and the cup itself is not penetrating my skull and if it did I’d be in big trouble; so where I take myself to be directly experiencing an external object, all that’s really happening is bunch of complicated brain activity that is generating an image and a word and a bunch of action based upon some electrical activity in the back of my eye caused by some thing or other.
This is actually extremely profound, even though it’s just science, and this is actually what the Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra and Vasubandhu are talking about. The imagined nature of the cup, the way that I imagine the object of my experience to be, is that it is external and that it is dualistically related to me as subject, that it is different from my subjectivity. But that’s merely an imagined nature. That’s something that I project, because all I immediately experience is an image and a name. The image and the name are somewhere in my brain not outside. You can’t drink water from an image and a name, but I think that what I am grasping is something from which I can drink water. That’s the imagined nature. I imagine my experience to be external to me, by a mental reflex I project it outside of me but that projection is not part of what I experience at all. What I experience is mind only. It’s only in my mind. Where else could experience be? Experience can’t be somewhere outside of me – that would be crazy.
That’s the first nature of the cup – its imagined nature – and it corresponds to the first emptiness of the cup. When it’s called emptiness with respect to characteristics it means that the cup I experience is empty of all of the characteristics I ascribe to the external cup. I think the external cup is solid and round and beautiful and can be seen; but the cup I experience is something happening in my brain. All those neurons firing are not solid, are not round, are not particularly beautiful and cannot be seen. So the cup that I experience is empty of the characteristics that I attribute to it, and that is emptiness with respect to characteristics and it constitutes the imagined nature of the cup.
But we can say more about my experience of the cup: it depends upon countless causes and conditions, many of which are not made of porcelain. Many of those causes and conditions have to do with my own eyes, with the fact that there is light in the room, with the way that my brain works, with blood pumped by my heart … all of those causes and conditions. So, we also say that the cup has a dependent nature. My experience of the cup depends upon all these phenomena, even though I don’t recognize that dependency in the cup as I perceive it, and that corresponds to the second emptiness of the cup: the emptiness in terms of causality, the emptiness in terms of dependence. So, the cup that I experience is causally dependent, whereas the cup that I take, that I posit, is empty of all of those phenomena. It seems to be a porcelain thing outside of me. I continue to think that I’m experiencing external objects when in fact I am experiencing something that arises due to all of these causes and conditions.
Now, in the Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra and in the Trisvabhāvanirdeśa we read that the consummate nature, the final nature of the cup, is that the dependent nature is empty of the imagined; and so what we now say is that experience of the cup that depends on all of |
and Nao go on their date to see ZHIEND and that’s where the story ends. But not only is that unrealistic but I still would be left without an emotional conclusion. It’s also the fact that I find that “Sword Art Online approach” to be a way to justify a bad show. Why do we feel the need to justify bad things in anime?
Sure Charlotte has a lot of great things in it but that doesn’t mean it is a good show because the things that are bad are glaring. Not only that but the things that are good don’t conclude in a way that matches the earlier parts of the show or are as impactful as they should have been. Maybe if it were flipped and the bad stuff was at the beginning instead of the end I would be more forgiving. But I don’t consider “maybe” when I’m evaluating a piece of art, all I can judge it on is by whats present. So because of Charlottes contrived and misplaced ending I think that I will ultimately remember Charlotte as just a fine, but misplaced show.Play Music for Cunts by DJ Mike Q
In person (we talked via Skype) Mike is the sweetest, most polite gentleman around. We had a quick chat while he packed for his upcoming mini-tour of Canada and cleaned his jewelery with an old toothbrush.
Charlie: When did you start deejaying?
Mike: I didn’t start til maybe 2005. I started making music in 2004, after first going out and getting exposed to the ballroom. I started playing around with the music and making it myself. Deejaying came around a year after that.
Has the music evolved much since then?
It’s a little bit different now because there are so many more people making it. At the time, there were probably only two. The track that I heard first was by a DJ Vjuan Allure. It was pretty much the same as what we’d make today, but at the time, the club only played that track and just two regular house tracks.
Playing at a ball must be really specific, timing the beat to go with the dancing.
Sometimes, I’ll take a sample and play it with another track side-by-side, and when they’re dancing I’ll try to hit it when they drop it. But when I’m playing at Escuelita, I can’t really see the dancers from the booth. I just listen to the commentators to know when to stop the beat, or I can just hear what’s going on to know what to do.
Do you have particular tracks for particular voguing categories?
They can pretty much vogue to anything. I’ll try to play more up beats, more dramatic stuff. That’s what they like to hear. If there’s a certain beat that they’re not feeling, they will ask me to change it, but I pretty much know what they want.
Are you in a house, Mike?
Yes. My first house was LaBeija. Now I’m in Ebony. I’ve been in that house for about three years now. But I don’t vogue or anything.
What does being in a house involve?
It’s almost like a fraternity. You carry the house name, and you walk balls in that house name and try to get trophies. It’s just a family thing.
How do you think the music works outside the ballroom?
I think it really does work. I don’t see many people voguing to it when I play it outside of the ballroom, but I feel that I get more recognition outside of the scene than inside the scene with the same music.
Why is that?
In the scene, we have different categories and statuses of people. Stars, statements, legends, icons, pioneers… Stuff like that. It goes by how many years you’ve been in the scene, how many times you’ve walked and won. A lot of that is based around the walking. Being a deejay is just being a deejay.
Tonight Mike Q is playing The Waldorf Hotel in Vancouver, and on Saturday you can catch him in Toronto at the Black Box Theatre with Zebra Katz & Njena Reddd. He’s also in the booth at Vogue Knights every Tuesday in New York City.
Charlie Porter is a writer based in London. His chat with gay calligrapher Paul Antonio was featured in BUTT 29. Read his amazing blog here.
↓ Download Music for Cunts by DJ Mike Q as MP3Abstract
The functional network topology of the adult human brain has recently begun to be noninvasively mapped using resting-state functional connectivity magnetic resonance imaging and described using mathematical tools originating from graph theory. Previous studies have revealed the existence of disproportionally connected brain regions, so called cortical hubs, which act as information convergence zones and supposedly capture key aspects of how the brain's architecture supports human behavior and how it is affected by disease. In this study, we present results showing that cortical hubs and their associated cortical networks are largely confined to primary sensory and motor brain regions in the infant brain. Our findings in infants stand in stark contrast to the situation found in adults where the majority of cortical hubs and hub-related networks are located in heteromodal association cortex. Our findings suggest that the functional network architecture in infants is linked to support tasks that are of a perception–action nature.
Introduction
A detailed knowledge of the connectional matrix of the human brain, sometimes referred to as the “human connectome” (Sporns et al. 2005), is of central importance to our understanding of human brain function. The term “connectome” is usually used to refer to the anatomical mapping of the large-scale networks that are believed to support the neuronal basis for human cognition. Recent research using, for example, tensor-based diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (DT-MRI) to measure directionality of white matter fiber bundles has revealed the existence of so-called cortical hubs (Sporns et al. 2007) in the cerebral cortex. The term “cortical hubs” is used to describe brain regions that show a disproportionally high degree of anatomical connectivity and are thought to play an important role in the control of information flow (Gong et al. 2008; Hagmann et al. 2008). The aim to map the human connectome has recently been extended to also include in vivo measurements of functional connectivity that are based on resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) (see Fox and Raichle 2007 for a review). Several rs-fMRI studies have demonstrated the existence of functional cortical hubs, predominately situated in heteromodal higher-order association cortex, that consistently show a high degree of functional connectivity in the adult brain (Archard et al. 2006; Salvador et al. 2008; Buckner et al. 2009). Notably, the majority of the strongest cortical hubs found in the adult brain tend to reside in brain areas that previously have been assigned to the brain's default network (Buckner et al. 2009). This finding further emphasizes the potential link between brain network topology and cognitive function.
In parallel, progress has been made to adapt methods for quantitative network analysis, primarily developed within graph theory, to characterize and quantify brain networks (Bassett and Bullmore 2006; Bullmore and Sporns 2009). This methodological development has provided the possibility to assess the topographical properties of brain networks based on data from fMRI, DT-MRI, as well as from electrophysiological recordings. Key concepts to describe and quantify complex brain networks are the presence of cortical hubs, network path length, local clustering coefficients, node degree centrality, node degree betweenness, and the presence of small-world network characteristics (Albert and Barabasi 2002). Interestingly, quantitative measures not only provide information regarding the brain's structural and functional network architecture but are also relevant for the study of brain disease and early brain development (see also recent review by Ment et al. [2009] for a recent review on premature birth and white matter injuries). Quantitative differences in network topology have previously been described in patients diagnosed with schizophrenia (Liu et al. 2008), Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (Wang et al. 2009), as well as in Alzheimer's disease (Buckner et al. 2009; Supekar et al. 2009). Additionally, changes in functional brain network topology related to development in children aged from 7 years and upward have recently been described (Fair et al. 2009; Supekar et al. 2008).
Although it is well known that the cerebral cortex is organized according to a modular organization that includes parallel distributed networks (Goldman-Rakic 1988; Mountcastle 1997), the overall functional network architecture of the human brain at the time of birth is still largely unknown. Previous work in the infant brain has shown that both cortico-cortical and thalamocortical connections are formed during the second half of gestation (Kostovic and Jovanov-Milosevic 2006). At a cellular level, it has been shown that a rapid growth of dendrites occurs during the first postnatal months (Petanjek et al. 2008) and that synaptogenesis as well as synapse elimination is heterochronous in the cerebral cortex (Huttenlocher and Dabholkar 1997). Moreover, previous investigations of short-range connections in the visual cortex have shown that intracolumnar connections develop earlier than intercolumnar projections (Burkhalter et al. 1993). Previous fMRI studies in infants have focused primarily on the emergence of the brain's default network (Gao et al. 2009) and, additionally, on the presence of resting-state networks (Fransson et al. 2007, 2009). In the present study, we aimed to investigate the functional architecture of the infant brain at a high spatial resolution using rs-fMRI functional connectivity combined with network analysis using graph-theoretical measures.
The specific aims of the present study were 3-fold. First, we aimed to explore the potential presence of cortical hubs in the infant brain. Specifically, we focused on characterization of similarities and differences in the anatomical localization of cortical hubs compared with the adult brain. Second, we sought to identify the cortical networks associated with cortical hubs in the infant brain. In particular, we were interested in the extent to which identified hubs belonged to the same network or were involved in separate networks. To do this in an unbiased manner, cohorts of adult as well as infant subjects were divided into 2 independent data sets. The first data set (Data set 1, 9 subjects in each age group) was used to identify the location of candidates for cortical hubs. Candidates for cortical hubs at the level of individual image voxels were identified using 2 metrics. We first calculated the “degree centrality” for each target voxel, which is a measure of the number of brain voxels that are significantly correlated with it. Subsequently, we computed the “degree betweenness” for all voxels. Degree betweenness is a measure of how often a given brain voxel is visited on the shortest path between any 2 pairs of voxels. The betweenness measure complements the calculations based on the centrality metric in that it provides a more formal account of the extent to which a given network node (image voxel) acts as a connector within larger networks. The second data set (Data set 2, 9 subjects in each age group) was used to compute hub-related connectivity patterns based on a seed-based region of interest (ROI) functional connectivity analysis. Finally, we aimed to investigate the overall topographical structure of the functional organization of the infant brain. This was carried out by computing voxel-based measures of graph characteristics such as clustering coefficients and characteristic path lengths using both Data sets 1 and 2. Together, the 2 measures provide a possibility to assess whether the topographical functional network structure of the infant brain possesses small-world characteristics (Watts and Strogatz 1998), a network property that has previously been detected in the adult human brain (van den Heuvel et al. 2008) as well as in children aged from 7 years and upward (Fair et al. 2009; Supekar et al. 2009).
Materials and Methods
Subjects
In the cohort of infant subjects, fMRI imaging data from 18 infants were included in this study. All infants were born at full term, scored a normal Apgar score, and were born via planned caesarean section. All infants were scanned during natural sleep. To facilitate sleep and successful scanning, all infants were fed prior to the MR examination. Anatomical MR images were analyzed by an experienced pediatric neuroradiologist, and all MR scans were found to be normal without any visible brain abnormalities. All included infants were appropriate for their gestational age with regard to birth weight, height, and head circumference (mean gestational age: 38 weeks and 5 days, mean age at MRI: 39 weeks and 2 days; see Supplementary Table 1 for a complete list of all included infants). Further information can be found in Fransson et al. (2009). The cohort of adult subjects consisted of 18 subjects (age 22–41 years, mean 29 years) with no history of neurological or psychiatric illness (Fransson 2006). All MR examinations were carried out according to the ethical guidelines and declarations of the Declaration of Helsinki (1975). The study was approved by the local ethics committee in Stockholm, and parental consent was given prior to examination.
Table 1 Adults Infants Region Coordinates Normalized intensity Region Coordinates Normalized intensity 1. Precuneus 0,−70,40 3.08 1. SMA/cingulate cortex 0,−20,40 1.76 2. Dorsomedial PFC 0,40,55 2.73 2. Left temporal cortex −45,−20,0 1.53 3. Medial PFC 0,65,20 2.66 3. Left sensorimotor cortex −30,−15,35 1.40 4. Posterior cingulate cortex 0,−55,25 2.60 4. Superior right sensorimotor cortex 5,−30,50 1.40 5. Ventromedial PFC 0,55,−5 2.47 5. Visual cortex 0,−50,15 1.30 6. Left parietal lobule −45,−75,50 2.36 6. Right parietal lobule 25,−40,35 1.28 7. Left temporal cortex −65,−25,15 2.17 7. Right inferior sensorimotor cortex 40,−5,20 1.27 8. Left visual cortex −15,−60,5 2.07 8. Left parietal lobule −25,−35,40 1.26 9. Right insula region 55,15,−10 1.98 9. Dorsolateral PFC 10,40,−5 1.22 10. Left insula region −50,20,−15 1.88 10. Right sensorimotor 15,−30,40 1.15 Adults Infants Region Coordinates Normalized intensity Region Coordinates Normalized intensity 1. Precuneus 0,−70,40 3.08 1. SMA/cingulate cortex 0,−20,40 1.76 2. Dorsomedial PFC 0,40,55 2.73 2. Left temporal cortex −45,−20,0 1.53 3. Medial PFC 0,65,20 2.66 3. Left sensorimotor cortex −30,−15,35 1.40 4. Posterior cingulate cortex 0,−55,25 2.60 4. Superior right sensorimotor cortex 5,−30,50 1.40 5. Ventromedial PFC 0,55,−5 2.47 5. Visual cortex 0,−50,15 1.30 6. Left parietal lobule −45,−75,50 2.36 6. Right parietal lobule 25,−40,35 1.28 7. Left temporal cortex −65,−25,15 2.17 7. Right inferior sensorimotor cortex 40,−5,20 1.27 8. Left visual cortex −15,−60,5 2.07 8. Left parietal lobule −25,−35,40 1.26 9. Right insula region 55,15,−10 1.98 9. Dorsolateral PFC 10,40,−5 1.22 10. Left insula region −50,20,−15 1.88 10. Right sensorimotor 15,−30,40 1.15 View Large
Table 1 Adults Infants Region Coordinates Normalized intensity Region Coordinates Normalized intensity 1. Precuneus 0,−70,40 3.08 1. SMA/cingulate cortex 0,−20,40 1.76 2. Dorsomedial PFC 0,40,55 2.73 2. Left temporal cortex −45,−20,0 1.53 3. Medial PFC 0,65,20 2.66 3. Left sensorimotor cortex −30,−15,35 1.40 4. Posterior cingulate cortex 0,−55,25 2.60 4. Superior right sensorimotor cortex 5,−30,50 1.40 5. Ventromedial PFC 0,55,−5 2.47 5. Visual cortex 0,−50,15 1.30 6. Left parietal lobule −45,−75,50 2.36 6. Right parietal lobule 25,−40,35 1.28 7. Left temporal cortex −65,−25,15 2.17 7. Right inferior sensorimotor cortex 40,−5,20 1.27 8. Left visual cortex −15,−60,5 2.07 8. Left parietal lobule −25,−35,40 1.26 9. Right insula region 55,15,−10 1.98 9. Dorsolateral PFC 10,40,−5 1.22 10. Left insula region −50,20,−15 1.88 10. Right sensorimotor 15,−30,40 1.15 Adults Infants Region Coordinates Normalized intensity Region Coordinates Normalized intensity 1. Precuneus 0,−70,40 3.08 1. SMA/cingulate cortex 0,−20,40 1.76 2. Dorsomedial PFC 0,40,55 2.73 2. Left temporal cortex −45,−20,0 1.53 3. Medial PFC 0,65,20 2.66 3. Left sensorimotor cortex −30,−15,35 1.40 4. Posterior cingulate cortex 0,−55,25 2.60 4. Superior right sensorimotor cortex 5,−30,50 1.40 5. Ventromedial PFC 0,55,−5 2.47 5. Visual cortex 0,−50,15 1.30 6. Left parietal lobule −45,−75,50 2.36 6. Right parietal lobule 25,−40,35 1.28 7. Left temporal cortex −65,−25,15 2.17 7. Right inferior sensorimotor cortex 40,−5,20 1.27 8. Left visual cortex −15,−60,5 2.07 8. Left parietal lobule −25,−35,40 1.26 9. Right insula region 55,15,−10 1.98 9. Dorsolateral PFC 10,40,−5 1.22 10. Left insula region −50,20,−15 1.88 10. Right sensorimotor 15,−30,40 1.15 View Large
MR Image Acquisition
All infants were scanned during natural sleep on a Philips Intera 1.5 Tesla scanner equipped with a 6-channel receive-only head coil. Echo-planar imaging (time repetition [TR]/time echo [TE]/flip = 2000 ms/50 ms/80 degrees, matrix size = 64 × 64, field of view = 180 × 180 mm) of the infant brain was performed during 10 min. A spatial resolution of 2.8 × 2.8 × 4.5 mm3 was obtained by acquiring 20 axial slices (slice thickness = 4.5 mm) acquired in an interleaved fashion. Further information regarding anatomical image acquisition in infants is given in Fransson et al. (2009). MRI acquisition in the adult cohort was carried out on a General Electric Twin-Speed Signa Horizon 1.5 Tesla MR scanner. Functional MR images sensitized to the blood oxygen level–dependent (BOLD) contrast was acquired using an echo-planar image sequence (TR/TE = 2000/40 ms, matrix size 64 × 64, field of view = 220 × 220 mm, flip = 80 degrees, 29 axial slices, slice thickness = 5 mm) yielding a spatial resolution of 3.4 × 3.4 × 5 mm3. The adult subjects were instructed to rest and to fixate on a black cross-hair centered on a white screen for throughout the 10 min during which 300 echo-planar image (EPI) volumes were acquired. In addition, 4 dummy scans were acquired in the beginning of each scan to accommodate for T 1 -equilibrium processes.
fMRI Data Preprocessing and Statistical Analysis
All image preprocessing (both Data sets 1 and 2) was conducted using the SPM5 software platform (Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience). First, the image realignment algorithm within SPM5 was used to correct for head motion and to create a mean EPI volume. Adult functional images were spatially normalized to the Montreal Neurological Institute EPI template in SPM, whereas the infant images were normalized to an MR infant template (Kazemi et al. 2007). Both adult as well as infant brain volumes were resampled to 5 × 5 × 5 mm3 isotropic voxels to facilitate computational efficiency and to reduce potential effects from the different raw data voxel sizes used. No further spatial smoothing of the data was performed. All functional MRI time series were band-pass filtered (0.012–0.1 Hz). Besides the spontaneous, low-frequency signal fluctuations that are of relevance for the current study, several nonphysiological sources of signal variance are known to exist in BOLD fMRI signal intensity time courses (Birn et al. 2006). Therefore, influence from spurious sources were minimized by regression of nuisance variables, including the global signal averaged over the whole brain, signals averaged from spaces occupied with cerebrospinal fluid (three separate ROIs located in the lateral and fourth ventricles), and signal from deep white matter as well as the 6 subject motion parameters generated from the image realignment. In addition, inclusion of temporally shifted versions of the nuisance parameters resulted in the inclusion of 22 nuisance parameters in the linear regression model. Only positive correlations were considered in the subsequent graph-theoretical and seed-based ROI correlation analysis due to the ongoing discussion regarding the potential risk of introducing artificial negative correlations by regressing out the global brain mean signal (Fox et al. 2009; Murphy et al. 2009; Chang et al. 2009).
Computation of Cortical Hubs
The basic strategy behind the idea of studying connectivity information obtained in neuroimaging data using graph theory is to treat each image voxel, or alternatively, image region, as a node (voxel) in complex graph. Further, a link (edge) between any 2 nodes (voxels) in the graph is said to exist if the 2 nodes are functionally connected. In this framework, a graph is thus a mathematical description of a complex functional network that consists of nodes and edges (Bullmore and Sporns 2009). The voxel-based graph-theoretical analysis of infant and adult image data used in the present study resembles the analysis strategies employed in previous voxel-based investigations in the adult brain (van den Heuvel et al. 2008; Buckner et al. 2009). In brief, our investigation of functional brain network connectivity in infants and adults was based on a correlation analysis for which the pairwise correlation coefficient for each target brain voxel with respect to all other voxels was computed. This resulted in a correlation matrix of 4966-by-4966 and 12 805-by-12 805 elements for infants and adults, respectively. Binary, undirected adjacency matrices that represent a graph for each subject were computed by considering voxels x and y to be functionally connected if the correlation coefficient between them exceeded r = 0.3. Since it is plausible that different choices of thresholds might yield qualitatively different results, cortical hubs were also calculated on the basis of adjacency matrices for which either higher or lower threshold coefficients were used. However, although the spatial pattern of cortical hubs changed quantitatively for different choices of threshold, they did not change qualitatively (see Supplementary Fig. 1).
Cortical hubs were first assessed by computing the degree of centrality for each node. The degree of centrality for each node was determined by counting the number of nodes that were significantly correlated with it. Maps of degree of centrality were standardized across subjects by converting the numbers to Z-scores for each node. Nodes that displayed peak Z-values in the averaged and standardized maps were considered as candidates for cortical hubs. Local maximum was selected as candidates for cortical hubs if they were separated at least 15 mm apart in space. Further, we computed the degree of betweenness on a node-by-node basis. Degree betweenness is defined as the ratio between all possible paths between nodes that includes the target node and all paths between nodes that are defined as the shortest paths between the 2 nodes. This implies that nodes that occur on shortest paths between other nodes have a higher betweenness than those that do not. Degree betweenness was computed using the Floyd–Warshall algorithm as implemented in the MatlabBGL software package (http://www.stanford.edu/∼dgleich/programs/matlab_bgl/).
Calculation of Networks Associated with Hubs
The 10 strongest candidates for cortical hubs based on the degree centrality measure calculated from Data set 1 were used to define spherical ROI (radius = 5 mm) centered on the peak coordinates. Signal intensity time courses were extracted from all ROIs and subjects in Data set 2, and after data preprocessing described above, a correlation analysis with respect to all other voxels was performed for each candidate hub (Fox et al. 2005; Fransson 2005). Networks associated with each candidate hub were assessed by computing statistical parametrical maps at the individual level, and a subsequent t-test was performed at the second level (P < 0.005) for each cortical hub candidate.
Calculation of Small-World Network Properties
Based on the adjacency matrices (data from both data sets used), the global topographical organization of the infant and adult brain was assessed by a voxelwise computation of the local clustering coefficient C and characteristic path length L. The clustering coefficient supplies information regarding the local connectedness of a network. Formally, it is defined as the ratio between the number of links between directly neighboring nodes of the target node and all possible links between these neighboring nodes. Moreover, an estimate of the global efficiency of the cortical topology in the infant brain is provided by the characteristic path length. Formally, it is defined as the average number of links or connections that has to be traveled from each node to every other node in the network. Networks that have been observed to show small-world characteristics typically have a clustering coefficient that is larger than that found in a random network of comparable size. Importantly, the high clustering coefficients are paired with characteristic path lengths that are within the short range observed in comparable random networks (Watts and Strogatz 1998). Our investigation of the small-world characteristics of the infant brain followed the procedure outlined in previous investigations in the adult brain (van den Heuvel et al. 2008, 2009). In brief, the small-world properties of functional networks in the infant brain were assessed by computing the ratio γ defined as C/Crandom and λ defined as L/Lrandom using the MatlabBGL software package (http://www.stanford.edu/∼dgleich/programs/matlab_bgl/).
Estimates of Crandom and Lrandom were based on the original binary adjacency matrices as previously described (van den Heuvel et al. 2009). Briefly, for each node in the graph, all connections were randomly reconnected to random nodes in the graph network. This implied that the total number of connections for each node was kept similar to the original graph and thereby ensuring that the total degree and degree distribution were comparable to the brain graphs. Subsequently, Crandom and Lrandom were defined as the average clustering coefficient and path length for these random networks. Taken together, the parameters γ and λ provide information regarding the level of local neighboring clustering as well as the average traveling distance within the cortical network relative to a network with random properties. A network is commonly said to have small-world characteristics if γ » 1 and λ is close to 1. Since all graph characteristics are dependent on the threshold (r) used to create the binary adjacency matrices, we computed the relevant parameters for different choices of thresholding (0.20 ≤ r ≤ 0.40, in steps of 0.05) for the infant brain. Choices of r higher than r > 0.40 resulted in more than 5% of the nodes in the graphs becoming isolated and was thus not evaluated in the present analysis.
In the context of graph-theoretical investigations of brain connectivity, it deserves to be mentioned that there is an ongoing discussion regarding which spatial scale that is optimal to use in the sense of providing an accurate network representation (Butts 2009; Zalesky et al. 2010). Broadly speaking, previous investigations have either chosen to let each node be represented by individual image voxels (van den Heuvel et al. 2008, 2009; Buckner et al. 2009), identical to the strategy chosen here. Alternatively, a considerably coarser spatial scale for brain network graphs has successfully been used, in which each node is represented by larger regions of the cortex where the borders between brain regions are defined using different parcellation schemes (Liu et al. 2008; Wang et al. 2009). Importantly, it has been shown that graph topographical measures are not independent with respect to scale. For example, a voxel-based approach to node definition leads to increased values for graph topographical parameters compared with region-based approaches (Zalesky et al. 2010). On the other hand, a voxel-based node definition has been found to be more robust with respect to network fragmentation (Hayasaka and Laurienti 2010). Thus, it is important to note that the topographical network parameters reported here should be viewed in the spatial context for which they were evaluated in. This also implies that a quantitative comparison in terms of differences in the absolute magnitude of degree betweenness and degree centrality across age cohorts is not informative. However, a quantitative comparison between different nodes within each age cohort is indeed valid.
Results
Presence of Cortical Hubs in the Infant and Adult Brain
The spatial distribution of candidates for cortical hubs based on the degree centrality measure is shown in Figure 1, whereas the peak coordinates of the 10 strongest cortical hubs is given in Table 1. In adults, candidates for cortical hubs were predominately found in heteromodal areas of association cortex, in the ventrolateral and posterior medial parietal cortex, medial prefrontal cortex (PFC), the insula region, and the temporal cortex. In contrast, the centrality degree metric suggests that in infants strong candidates for cortical hubs are largely to be found in motor, sensory, auditory, and visual primary cortex and to a lesser extent to be found in higher association cortex such as the insula region, precuneus, and the ventromedial PFC. A quantitative table of the degree centrality measure in both adults and infants are given in Supplementary Figure S2A,C that shows the full distribution for all nodes (voxels). In addition, zoomed-up versions (Supplementary Fig. S2B,D) show the location of the candidates for cortical hubs in each distribution. The pattern of candidates for cortical hubs in adults and infants based on the degree betweenness is shown in Figure 2, which shows a large spatial congruence with the distribution of cortical hubs provided by the centrality metric in Figure 1. The 10 strongest candidates for cortical hubs based on the degree betweenness measure are given in Table 2. Taken together, our results for adults are in agreement with previous results that have shown that cortical hubs predominantly reside in brain areas implicated in the default network (Buckner et al. 2009). However, the strong correspondence between the spatial localization of cortical hubs and the brain's default network was not found in the infant brain. Rather, in the infant brain, cortical hubs seem to a rather large degree to be located within or adjacent to primary sensorimotor cortices.
Table 2 Adults Infants Region Coordinates Normalized intensity Region Coordinates Normalized intensity 1. Medial PFC 0,60,30 4.03 1. Left dorsolateral PFC −20,35,15 2.01 2. Dorsomedial PFC 0,50,50 4.56 2. SMA 0,−20,30 1.97 3. Right insula region 55,15,−10 3.23 3. Left temporal cortex −40,−20,10 1.89 4. Precentral gyrus 0,−30,80 3.11 4. Left sensorimotor cortex −30,−10,35 1.88 5. Precuneus −5,−75,55 3.10 5. Superior visual cortex 10,−60,20 1.82 6. Left insula −50,20,−15 3.06 6. Left parietal lobule −15,−60,10 1.81 7. Posterior cingulate 0,−45,20 3.04 7. Medial PFC 0,25,10 1.81 8. Ventromedial PFC 0,55,−5 3.01 8. Left insula region 35,15,−5 1.79 9. Right parietal lobule 65,−25,25 2.87 9. Right sensorimotor cortex 15,−30,40 1.71 10. Left parietal lobule 40,−65,55 2.86 10. Right posterior temporal/occipital cortex 35,−35,−10 1.64 Adults Infants Region Coordinates Normalized intensity Region Coordinates Normalized intensity 1. Medial PFC 0,60,30 4.03 1. Left dorsolateral PFC −20,35,15 2.01 2. Dorsomedial PFC 0,50,50 4.56 2. SMA 0,−20,30 1.97 3. Right insula region 55,15,−10 3.23 3. Left temporal cortex −40,−20,10 1.89 4. Precentral gyrus 0,−30,80 3.11 4. Left sensorimotor cortex −30,−10,35 1.88 5. Precuneus −5,−75,55 3.10 5. Superior visual cortex 10,−60,20 1.82 6. Left insula −50,20,−15 3.06 6. Left parietal lobule −15,−60,10 1.81 7. Posterior cingulate 0,−45,20 3.04 7. Medial PFC 0,25,10 1.81 8. Ventromedial PFC 0,55,−5 3.01 8. Left insula region 35,15,−5 1.79 9. Right parietal lobule 65,−25,25 2.87 9. Right sensorimotor cortex 15,−30,40 1.71 10. Left parietal lobule 40,−65,55 2.86 10. Right posterior temporal/occipital cortex 35,−35,−10 1.64 View Large
Table 2 Adults Infants Region Coordinates Normalized intensity Region Coordinates Normalized intensity 1. Medial PFC 0,60,30 4.03 1. Left dorsolateral PFC −20,35,15 2.01 2. Dorsomedial PFC 0,50,50 4.56 2. SMA 0,−20,30 1.97 3. Right insula region 55,15,−10 3.23 3. Left temporal cortex −40,−20,10 1.89 4. Precentral gyrus 0,−30,80 3.11 4. Left sensorimotor cortex −30,−10,35 1.88 5. Precuneus −5,−75,55 3.10 5. Superior visual cortex 10,−60,20 1.82 6. Left insula −50,20,−15 3.06 6. Left parietal lobule −15,−60,10 1.81 7. Posterior cingulate 0,−45,20 3.04 7. Medial PFC 0,25,10 1.81 8. Ventromedial PFC |
Now with three startups under his belt, Adam is leaving his mark on the startup scene in Atlanta.
Paving His Own Path
Adam graduated from the University of Georgia in 2007 with a degree in Real Estate and certificates in Personal and Organizational Leadership and Music Business. His initial thought was that he could follow his parents in real estate and leverage their connections. UGA’s real estate program was also ranked No.2 in the nation which was a big draw. But it wasn’t through his real estate major where he discovered his passion for entrepreneurship, it was through his certificate programs. Through leadership and music business, he realized that his greatest strengths were not crunching numbers, but rather thinking outside the box. With this realization he decided he wanted to be an entrepreneur and started his first official company, GoRankem, during the spring semester of his senior year.
“Once I started working on my first entrepreneurial venture, I knew I wanted to be in an early stage, fast-paced environment. Commercial real estate was not going to lend itself well to that as you typically start out as an analyst and have to work your way up. I wanted to be able to make a difference early on, so I had to pave my own path. ”
After completing his music business certificate during his senior year, he became infatuated with the new music technologies that were emerging like Pandora and Shazam. That’s when he started working on his first start up, GoRankem, during his fifth fall. GoRankem was the Wikipedia for music discovery, crowdsourcing the opinions of each artist’s fans to ensure that music was tailored to interests instead of what was most popular. At this time, he also started applying to work at some music technology companies, but abandoned those pursuits to focus on his startup.
“While I do believe I could have benefited from experiencing another workplace environment right out of school, I thought there was no time to spare on getting GoRankem out to market.”
The Entrepreneurial Bug
By the time he graduated he had already started his first start up, crowdfunded it and was ready to do more. He worked on GoRankem for four years before deciding to move onto his next venture, Insightpool.
“All three ventures have started with noticing problems in need of solutions. It comes down to being exposed to a wide variety of experiences and settings. Always be observant. Always be asking questions. Just because it’s been one way, does not mean it has to be that way forever.”
Insightpool is a social insights and optimization platform that allows companies to identify and connect with their target audience online. Brands such as Coca-Cola, the Hawks, Cox Communications and NBC Universal have used Insightpool in their social strategy. Adam worked on that project for three years before deciding to move on and focus on his current startup, SidePrize.
Noticing the issue with buy-ins for fantasy leagues and the rise of daily fantasy sports, Adam co-founded SidePrize. SidePrize bridges the gap between traditional fantasy sports and daily fantasy sports, partnering with platforms and leagues to bring additional game types, real-money contests and fast payments. He was determined to bring his latest idea to the same success as his previous ventures. The only problem was that he wasn’t getting paid to create it from scratch. With the work he accomplished in the social space, he attracted the CEO of the Atlanta Hawks, who asked him to consult on their social media and digital strategy. This allowed him to make extra income and go full-time with SidePrize.
Creating a startup is no joke. It requires dedication, hard-work and many endless nights; Adam was no rookie to that. SidePrize is now two years old and still growing.
Some Advice for You
If there is anything he could have done differently as an undergrad, he says it would have been to take an HTML course. Learning to write code, even at a basic level, is valuable and can make a difference in the pursuit of internships and full-time positions. It can even make a difference in salary amounts.
Adam also encourages working for a startup post-graduation. There’s a lot to learn from a startup, while also getting hands-on experience and being able to grow with the company.
“There will never be a better time in your life to work at a startup than when you’re fresh out of school. You’ll be exposed to so many aspects of running a business that it will grow you wise beyond your years overnight. You can always pursue the corporate path at a later date when you need stability and a larger income. Startups are an exhilarating ride and offer a different type of ‘grad school’.”
Adam has been recognized as one of the Top 40 Digital Strategists by the Online Marketing Institute, an InsideSales Top Sales Expert and a Finalist for Up-and-Coming Entrepreneur of the Year by TIECON Southeast. He has been the founder and CEO of several startups in Atlanta and was previously a digital and social media consultant for the Atlanta Hawks. He is currently the CEO of SidePrize. See more from Adam through his Twitter.
Have questions or comments about Adam’s story? Leave them below.Apple just introduced its next generation iPads. But before it discussed the faster, thinner iPad 2, it took a moment to reflect on how successful this product has been for Apple.
CEO Tim Cook pointed out that in the past 12 months, the iPad has shipped more units than any of the major PC makers.
Apple CEO Tim Cook shares iPad Shipments numbers Business Insider/Julie Bort
Cook shared a few other stats about the iPad business. "We sold more iPads in first 4 years than any other product. Sold 225 million."
There are now 675,000 apps, too.
We have to note that collectively, the PC makers still sold more PCs, but the iPad's success is still impressive. A decade ago, no one would have predicted a chart like that.First act today was to lay flowers at memorial to Communist resistance
Greece's new leader has nodded to his Communist influences - and his country's fraught history within Europe - by laying flowers for resistance fighters killed by the Nazis in his first official act.
Alexis Tsipras, the leader of the triumphant ant-bailout party Syriza, visited the National Resistance Memorial in Athens as his first official act after being sworn as the country's leader today.
The act was seen as highly symbolic, given Syriza's policies have put it in conflict with other countries across Europe and particularly Germany.
On May 1, 1944, occupying Nazi soldiers executed more than 200 Greek Communist resistance fighters and political prisoners at the site, a former rifle range.
Scores of supporters joined him as he made the pointed gesture towards the country which is now one of Greece's major creditors and an architect the fierce austerity policies enforced on its people.
The 40-year-old former communist party youth activist swept to victory overnight on a promise to renegotiate Greece's €240billion (£179bn) international bailout deal.
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Symbolism: Alexis Tsipras lays flowers on the National Resistance Memorial in Athens, on the site where on May 1, 1944, 200 communist resistance fighters and political prisoners were executed by German soldiers
Making history: Alexis Tsipras, the leader of Greece's far-left Syriza party is sworn in as prime minister, which at 40 years old, makes him the youngest leader for more than 150 years
He has also pledged to reverse many of the reforms that EU creditors demanded in exchange for keeping Greece financially afloat since 2010.
That has placed the country on a collision course with Germany over its massive bailout deal, with Angela Merkel effectively saying the new Greek government can forget any kind of debt relief.
The win has been hailed by left and right-wing parties across Europe - led by Spain's Podemos, which is vowing a similar general election win this year.
But Spain's conservative Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy warned austerity-weary voters against the temptation to back Podemos. 'We cannot bet our future and that of our children in a frivolous game of Russian roulette,' he said.
Tsipras, 40, was sworn in this afternoon, making him the youngest Greek Prime Minister for more than 150 years and the country's first radical left-wing leader.
Breaking with tradition: Tsipras - characteristically without a tie - took a civil instead of a religious oath, pledging to 'always serve the interests of the Greek people'
Alexis Tsipras arrives for his swearing-in ceremony as Greece's first leftist prime minister at the presidential palace in Athens
Victory salute: Newly elected Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras waves to journalists upon his arrival at the the Prime Minister's offices in Athens
Wearing an open-necked shirt, the former Communist youth organiser also broke with tradition by taking a civil instead of a religious oath, pledging to 'always serve the interests of the Greek people'.
Other groups from Britain and Ireland to France, Italy and Portugal also praised Syriza's win as a reproach to the tough budget cuts imposed by their mainstream rivals in the recent economic crisis.
'The Greeks are going to have a true Greek president, not a delegate of German Chancellor Angela Merkel,' said Pablo Iglesias, leader of Podemos, which has topped several opinion polls and is aiming for an absolute majority in Spain's election due in November.
Parties such as Podemos accuse Merkel and other European leaders of forcing hardship on citizens through spending cuts and tax hikes in the crisis, which saw unemployment soar.
News of Syriza's win sent the euro plummeting to an 11-year low against the dollar, trading at $1.1088 in Tokyo in early morning trade, the lowest level since September 2003.
The single currency has also tumbled against the pound, with sterling hitting a seven-year high of around €1.34.
Elsewhere, eurosceptic British party UKIP and France's National Front, one of Europe's most powerful far-right parties, hailed Syriza's victory.
Jubilant: Syriza supporters celebrate victory in the Greek general election, in which the anti-austerity party triumphed over ruling conservatives
Emotional: Projections suggested Syriza was due to receive between 149 seats - just short of the 151 it would need for an overall majority
Syriza's supporters (pictured) were told the party will help Greece 'come out of a vicious circle of debt' by axing austerity measures
'Our priority above all will be to restore the country's lost dignity,' Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras, 40, told a rally of thousands of supporters
The radical left party leader, whose son is named after Che Guevara, promised to clash with 'old establishments' and the'regime of corruption'
UKIP leader Nigel Farage called it 'a desperate cry for help from the Greek people, millions of whom have been impoverished by the euro experiment'.
French National Front leader Marine Le Pen called it 'a monstrous democratic slap in the face by the Greek people to the European Union'.
Also in France, one of Syriza's left-wing allies, Left Front leader Jean-Luc Melenchon, said: 'The arrogant all-powerfulness of the economic liberals and their so-called miracle formulae to save the economy... have failed in Greece.'
He hoped that 'by a domino effect Europe will be refounded and reorganised in a completely different way'.
Italy's main eurosceptic parties hailed the Greek election result as an overdue signal that austerity policies were not working.
Matteo Salvini, leader of the anti-immigrant Northern League, called it 'a lovely big slap in the face for the Soviet Union of Europe and the euro of unemployment and the banks'.
Cheering: Syriza's supporters celebrated having an estimated 36 per cent of the vote, compared to the conservatives' 28 per cent
The supporters were told: 'Our priority from tomorrow will be to restore popular sovereignty in the country, to give justice, to clash with old establishments. To clash with the regime of corruption. To promote reforms in the state, public administration, everywhere'
Uncompromising: Greece has built up years of resentment to austerity and bailout measures imposed by the European Central Bank
Jubilant: Syriza supporters waved everything from rainbow flags to those bearing Communist symbolism as they heard of their victory
Emotional: After being crippled by debt, Greece has undergone enforced austerity with a youth unemployment rate of 50 per cent
The euro has been falling in value against the pound and the dollar for more than a year, and there are fears about the impact of Syriza's election victory in Greece on the stability of the eurozone
Q & A: WHAT'S NEXT FOR GREECE? Q: Does Syriza's victory mean Greece is now on a collision course with the EU over its debt? A: Angel Merkel has already indicated that Greece must uphold its commitment to its creditors, but there may be chance the deadline for the bail-out could be extended beyond February 28 as it would be in the interest of all parties to do so Q: Will an extension to the EU bailout help? A: It will allow the European Central Bank to continue providing much-needed cash to Greek banks at a time of political uncertainty. It would also give the new Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras time to consider his options Q: Will Greece pull out of the Eurozone? A: Eurozone governments don't want that - and neither do most Greeks, making it politically risky for Mr Tsipras to do so. But he will have to keep the far-left factions of his party in check
Several parties in Ireland, which like Greece and Portugal was bailed out by international creditors in return for imposing tough money-saving measures, also hailed Syriza's win.
Paul Murphy, an Irish lawmaker from the leftwing Anti-Austerity Alliance, called the result a 'decisive rejection by the Greek people of savage austerity and a campaign of fear run by the Greek and EU establishment'.
Syriza vows to seize back control of Greece's financial affairs have struck a chord among other bailed-out states.
Pearse Doherty, spokesman for Irish republican party Sinn Fein, said: 'Syriza has promised to renegotiate Greece's debt... and to call for a European debt conference, which would be in Ireland's interests also.'.
In Portugal, some members of the small radical Left Bloc and leaders of a popular protest movement known as Get Lost Troika say they are planning to found a new party named Juntos Podemos - 'Together We Can' - in a nod to Podemos of Spain.
Syriza's victory raised warnings by economists of a potential return to the financial uncertainty in the eurozone that peaked in 2012.
A similar result in a much bigger country like Spain could cause far worse jitters.
Spain's government leapt to play down the parallels. Like Greek leaders, it imposed tough budget cuts in the economic crisis, and says the measures are now helping the economy recover.
'Greece cannot be compared to Spain,' said Spain's Economy Minister Luis de Guindos in an interview published in Spanish financial newspaper Expansion.
'Spain avoided being bailed out and that is the key to the economic recovery we are now undergoing.'
Leading Spanish newspapers El Pais and El Mundo also played down parallels between Syriza's win and Podemos's electoral chances.
But conservative newspaper ABC warned of 'an anti-establishment and anti-Europe convergence of extreme groups that claim the support of angry populations'.
Syriza won 149 seats in the 300-member parliament, just two seats short of outright rule.
But Tsipras quickly gained the key backing he needed to form a government by creating a surprise alliance with a small right-wing party.
A banner of Greece's Syriza left-wing party is dismantled at the party's kiosk in central Athens at the end of the successful general election campaign
Coverage of Syriza's win is plastered across the front pages of Greek papers in Omonoia Square, Athens
Chairs and electoral material are seen on the floor of the campaign kiosk of the PASOK party in Athens
Ms Merkel responded to Syriza's win by insisting Greece must continue with its commitment to debt prepayments.
'In our view it is important for the new government to take action to foster Greece's continued economic recovery,' Ms Merkel's spokesman, Steffen Seibert, told reporters.
'That also means Greece sticking to its previous commitments.'
Outgoing Prime Minister Antonis Samaras had earlier warned the result would leave Greece on the 'brink of catastrophe' and David Cameron said it would 'increase economic uncertainty across Europe'.
As Mr Samaras phoned Mr Tsipras to concede defeat last night, jubilant supporters waved flags on the streets of Athens.
'The Greek people have spoken', said Mr Samaras in a televised statement. 'Everyone respects their decision. My conscience is clear.'
The gathered masses heard the party leader say: 'We have a great opportunity for a new beginning both in Greece and in Europe'
Winds of change: Supporters (left) put their faith in 40-year-old Alexis Tsipras (right), who is known for his laid-back style
A message to Merkel: Syriza supporters on the streets of Athens wished the German Chancellor good night as they romped home to victory
THE MOTORBIKE-RIDING FORMER ENGINEER WHO NAMED HIS SON AFTER CHE GUEVARA: HOW ALEXIS TSIPRAS ROSE FROM FLAT IN WORKING-CLASS ATHENS TO BECOMING THE YOUNGEST GREEK PRIME MINISTER IN 150 YEARS He prefers motorbikes to limousines, refuses to ever wear a tie and lives in a block of flats in one of the most densely populated areas of Greece. Incoming Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is regarded as a true man of the people, a world away from Greece's political elite which has been characterised by corruption. With the help of his youthful good looks and down-to-earth nature (he happily takes out the rubbish), he has swept to power on a promise to smash the EU's grip on the country's finances. Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras greets supporters following his victory in the election in Athens Right behind her man: Mr Tsipras, followed by his partner Peristera (Betty) Batziana, greets his supporters outside Syriza's headquarters after his Syriza party's win in Sunday's general election Mr Tsipras and Ms Batziana got together in 1987 when they were at high school together in Athens By his side: Ms Batziana convinced Mr Tsipras to join the Communist Youth of Greece in 1990 after they had met three years earlier at high school in Athens Breaking the stereotype of Greek politics, Mr Tsipras is known for his relaxed attitude: travelling around Athens on motorbikes and preferring open-necked shirts to a suit and tie. He lives with his partner, Betty Batziana, an electrical and computer engineer, with their two boys - Phoebus and Orpheus - in an apartment block in Kypseli, a modest, working-class area of Athens. Their youngest son's middle name is Ernesto – a tribute to Che Guevara, one of Mr Tsipras's idols. He had never been that interested in politics, instead throwing his energy into sport at a young age until he was sidelined with a knee injury. But after meeting Ms Batziana, something of a firebrand student, in 1987 when they were at high school together in Athens, she convinced him to join the Communist Youth of Greece in 1990. Humble: The ramshackle block of flats where Tsipras with his partner, Betty Batziana, an electrical and computer engineer, live with their two children in one of the most densely populated areas of Athens Armonias (Harmony) Street where Tsipras lives in a seven-storey block in the Kypseli district of Athens Supporter Eleni Sarli, 54, told The Times: 'He is the good guy everybody wants to be and the honest politician everyone wants to trust.' After training as an engineer, Mr Tsipras eventually went into politics full-time. was a member of the youth wing of the Greek Communist Party, the KKE, rising to prominence as candidate for the mayor of Athens in 2006. Tsipras became leader of Syriza in 2008 at the age of 34 at the height of Greece's economic crisis. Syriza was formed in 2004 as a coalition of moderate Communists, Trotskyists, ecologists and other leftist groups, but has occasionally found it difficult to present a united front. The Kypseli district of Athens, one of the most densely populated areas of Greece, where Alexis Tsipras lives He has also become the undisputed star of the radical European left, standing against Jean-Claude Juncker in May's election for European Commission president. A year later, the pair found themselves at the centre of student protests against unpopular education reforms. Tsipras spearheaded sit-in demonstrations at their school that saw students living and sleeping in the building for weeks. Ms Batzianas was right by his side then - and still is now - with many seeing her as the driving force behind her partner's leadership. According to friends from the University of Patras, where she graduated in electrical engineering, she is strong-willed, militant and dynamic. She once hauled one of her professors to court when he tried undermine her work on a doctoral thesis, it was reported by the Greek Reporter. She also hates spending hours shopping, doesn't like going for regular trips to the hairdressers and won't spend money on clothes. WISH LIST OF A CHE GUEVARA FAN A major renegotiation of Greece's debts and deep cuts in repayments on its £185billion international bailout
Writing off the bank debts of people who can't afford to pay – a move some experts fear could result in a run on lenders today
Heavy new taxes on the rich including wealth taxes, new levies on luxury goods and an end to tax breaks for Greek shipping magnates
A massive job creation scheme to tackle Greece's 25 per cent unemployment rate, and a 50 per cent increase in the minimum wage
Deep cuts in defence spending and possible withdrawal from Nato
Mr Tsipras told a rally of thousands of supporters he would defeat 'austerity which destroys our common European future', his speech backed by the booming sounds of Rock the Casbah by The Clash.
'I would like to reassure you that the new Greek government will be ready to co-operate and negotiate for the first time with our partners for a mutually beneficial and sustainable solution so Greece comes out of a vicious circle of debt,' he said.
'We have a great opportunity for a new beginning both in Greece and in Europe. For a new policy, for a new model of relations based on mutual respect.
'Our priority from tomorrow will be to restore popular sovereignty in the country, to give justice, to clash with old establishments.
'To clash with the regime of corruption. To promote reforms in the state, public administration, everywhere.
'Our priority above all will be to restore the country's lost dignity. We regain hope, we regain smiles, optimism and dignity for our people.'
Despondent: Outgoing Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said: 'I received a country which was almost destroyed and I was asked to take the hot potato and I did that... My conscience is clear. Most people didn't give any prospects that we would endure'
Congratulated: At the age of 40, Syriza party leader Alexis Tsipras, 40 (left and right hugging a supporter) is due to become Greece's youngest Prime Minister for 150 years. He has been congratulated by the Greek PM, who conceded defeat, and French premier Francois Hollande
An EU source conceded Sunday that a new deal on the bailout would have to be struck with the new force in Greek politics.
'We will not escape a re-negotiation,' the source told the AFP news agency.
Hours after the victory was confirmed, the small nationalist Independent Greeks party said it will join a coalition under Syriza, giving the government a majority of 162 seats.
'From this moment on, there is a government, we will give a vote of confidence to the new prime minister,' leader Panos Kammenos said after meeting Tsipras.
A Syriza source added that the two parties 'will ally themselves to secure a majority in parliament and form a government.'
Yanis Varoufakis, who is tipped to be Syriza's finance minister, celebrated the win this morning, but said the party was faced with a 'poisoned chalice'.
Speaking on Radio 4's Today programme, he said: 'Tragically our state became bankrupt and Europe decided to deal with this by placing the largest loan on the poorest shoulders on the condition that we would have to shrink our income to a quarter.
'Anyone could see this would be bad news and this fiscal waterboarding turned Greece into a dead state.
'The one glimmer of the light is that the Greek democracy decided to elect us. And to quote your Dylan Thomas we tried to go into the light and did not go gentle into that night.'
Referring to the Eurozone bailout, he said: 'My dear fellows, the problem is that you've paid far too much – €240billion and less than 10 per cent has gone near Greece. It has gone into the dark pit of creditors.
'We have to end that never-ending vicious cycle. We plan to come up with genuine reforms needed to put an end to corruption and bureaucracy.
'We want to create a rational plan for debt structure. There obviously has been a lot of posturing, but we want to sit down and discuss a way to cut the debt.
'We want to increase the minimum wage as we do not believe a hideously low minimum wage is conducive to growth.'
He said an exit from the Euro was not on the cards and the party did not plan to be confrontational with Brussels.
He said: 'Europe has a degree of fragility and we must be careful not to have too much loose, fast talk. We are sure there is room for mutual gains and benefits.'
Rally: Thousands of anti-austerity supporters gathered and cheered in the centre of the capital Athens as the result was announced
Syriza party spokesman Panos Skourletis said it was 'a historic victory that sends a message that... concerns all European peoples'
Greece's economy was saved by bailouts totalling more than €240billion (£180bn) from the EU and the IMF after its economy collapsed in the global financial crisis from 2007.
But in order to qualify for the money, it had to make sweeping public sector cuts.
The outgoing Prime Minister was unrepentant. He said: 'I received a country which was almost destroyed and I was asked to take the hot potato and I did that.
'Most people didn't give any prospects that we would endure... We had to take difficult measures and there were some mistakes and injustices but we averted the worst.
'I am handing over a country that has no deficit, secure for the citizens... a country that gets out of the crisis in an organised way.
'I wish sincerely that my predictions do not come true, but I had to warn everyone.'
Syriza is led by the 40-year-old Alexis Tsipras, who looks set to be Greece's youngest Prime Minister for 150 years.
He is known for his relaxed attitude, travelling by motorbike and preferring open-necked shirts to a suit and tie.
He lives in an apartment block in a working-class suburb of Athens with his partner and two children – the youngest of whom has the middle name Ernesto after revolutionary Che Guevara.
His party wants to renegotiate the terms of Greece's 240billion euro bailout with the EU and the International Monetary Fund.
It says repayments are stifling Greece's chances of recovering from a six-year recession - but its popularity spooked markets which fear a new financial crisis could push Greece out of the Euro.
Syriza party spokesman Panos Skourletis said it was 'a historic victory that sends a message that does not only concern the Greek people, but all European peoples.
'There is great relief among all Europeans. The only question is how big a victory it is.'
Left-wing French president Francois Hollande phoned the party leader to express his 'desire to pursue the close cooperation between our two countries in service of growth and the stability of the Euro zone, in a spirit of progress, solidarity and responsibility that is at the heart of the European values we share.'
Victory: Supporters of Greek anti-austerity party Syriza react to the first exit polls which suggested it had a huge lead over the conservatives
Jubilant: Syriza (whose supporters are pictured) called the victory a 'historic' message to all Europeans about austerity measures
Tied for third place on 6 to 7 per cent of the vote in exit polls were the centrists To Potami and the far-right party Golden Dawn, which critics have slammed as being neo-Nazi and racist.
New Democracy party leader Antonis Samaras, the country's Prime Minister, had already urged voters not to push Greece to the 'brink of catastrophe'.
Mr Samaras defended harsh austerity measures in a speech to fellow members of his conservative New Democracy party, saying he had no choice as the'ship was sinking'.
The apparent Syriza victory means that a eurozone crisis could now form the backdrop to a second successive General Election in Britain.
Tory Party chairman Grant Shapps raised the prospect that Britain could end up in similar to trouble to Greece if Labour wins power and fails to tackle the deficit.
He said: 'Five years ago Britain had the same sized deficit, as a proportion of our economy, that Greece had.
'We took one route, which was to sort out, take the difficult decisions and sort out our economy. Greece has not done that and you see the chaos they're in.'
But the Labour former Cabinet minister Peter Hain welcomed the prospect of a Syriza victory, saying it would reopen the debate about austerity.
Mr Hain, a close ally of Ed Miliband, said: 'I hope Syriza wins because it will be a big kick to the orthodoxy – the austerity – gripping most of Europe and most of the world, including Britain.'
The general election was held almost two years early and was crucial for Greece's financial future.
As he voted yesterday, the Prime Minister appealed to undecided voters to ensure Greece stays on the path of stability and reforms.
'Today we are deciding if we move ahead with power, safety and confidence or if we get into an adventure,' Mr Samaras said after voting in the western Pelopponese region.
'I am optimistic because I believe no-one will risk the European course of our country.'
Response: Supporters took to the streets of Athens waving flags after a landmark victory which threatens a standoff with Germany
But opinion polls also showed a significant portion of Greek voters were undecided two days before the general election.
The Syriza win represents another turning point for Europe after last week's announcement by the European Central Bank of a massive injection of cash into the bloc's flagging economy.
The bank has spent years trying to clamp down on budgets and pushing countries to pass structural reforms.
Some 9.8 million Greeks were eligible to vote. After its most severe crisis since the fall of the military junta in 1974, Greece's economy has shrunk by some 25 per cent.
Thousands of businesses have closed, wages and pensions have been slashed and more than half of young people are unemployed.
At the same time, its massive public debt has climbed from 146 per cent of gross domestic product in 2010 to 175.5 per cent last year, the second highest in the world.
The country's creditors insist Greece must abide by its commitments to continue receiving support, and investors and markets alike have been spooked by the anti-bailout rhetoric.
Greece could still face bankruptcy if a solution is not found, although talk of 'Grexit' - Greece having to leave the joint currency - and a subsequent potential collapse of the Euro itself has been far less fraught than during the last general election in 2012.
The Prime Minister's campaign focused on the gradually improving economy, which grew for the first time in six years in the third quarter of 2014, and has promised to reduce some taxes if re-elected.
Judgement day: The left-wing Syriza party, led by Alexis Tsipras, was tipped as the favourite as ordinary Greeks cast votes around the country
Big decisions: Greeks voted in an early general election crucial for the country's financial future - and austerity was the only topic
He has warned of the potentially dire consequences of reneging on bailout conditions — to the point that his critics accused him of running a fear campaign.
But Syriza's promises of ending the crushing austerity Greeks have been living under since 2010 have wooed many voters infuriated by the deterioration in their standard of living and ever increasing tax bills.
The big question is whether any party will win the required 151 of parliament's 300 seats to form a government alone.
The Greek political scene has fractured during the financial crisis, with voters abandoning the two formerly dominant parties — the conservatives and the socialists — in favor of a smattering of smaller parties.
In their final day of campaigning on Friday, both leaders appealed to the undecided voters, which opinion polls put at around 10 per cent in the days before the election.
Without the required 151 seats, whichever party wins will have to try forming a coalition government with another party. The first three parties each have three days to try and form a coalition government to avoid a second election being called within a month.
Another option, however, would be for the winner to seek support for a minority government, where other parties would vote along government lines without participating itself in a power-sharing deal.
EU leaders' real fear? Greece quits and thrives
COMMENTARY by DANIEL HANNAN, CONSERVATIVE MEP
Every time Eurocrats declare that the economic crisis is over, it comes back with a vengeance. For six years, the Brussels elites have been periodically assuring us that the Eurozone has shaken off the bug; yet, like some chronic condition, it keeps returning. Usually in Greece.
Yesterday, Greeks voted for a party that, though it says it wants to keep the euro, rejects the conditions that the other members have set. In particular, it insists on a big debt cancellation.
The EU has made clear that it will not write off any more Greek debt. Doing so would, it fears, encourage other struggling Eurozone states to default, and so cause the project to unravel. But Syriza, the party that won yesterday's general election, is equally uncompromising. Its leader, the telegenic Alexis Tsipras, tells voters that he will cancel the austerity and repayment programme 'on my first day in office'.
Both sides claim they want Greece to stay in the monetary union. But a game of chicken is now under way and neither player can easily swerve aside. For Mr Tsipras, any compromise with Brussels would mean a betrayal of his supporters and his convictions. He fought the previous election on an anti-euro platform, and seems genuinely relaxed about going it alone.
The EU has, if anything, even less room for manoeuvre. It has repeatedly eased Greece's bailout terms, yet every such loosening produces more importunate demands.
Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, has let it be known that she is prepared to let Greece leave the euro if necessary – a reversal of her position in 2011.
Crucial vote: Greece's Prime Minister Antonis Samaras casts his vote at a polling station in Pylos, southern Greece
The bailout funds are now in place, she reasons. Many of the banks that had lent money to Greece have been repaid, and Europe's banks are in a stronger position than they were four years ago, and the EU has a large fund in place to support other Eurozone states. In any case, she would hardly be human if she were not getting tired of being caricatured as a Nazi by the people she is subsidising.
Until now, I have thought a Greek exit – a Grexit – extremely improbable. The Brussels elites, I reckoned, were prepared to pay any price in order to keep the single currency together. Or perhaps I should say 'inflict any price' since they personally will receive lavish tax-free salaries in any event.
On balance, I still think a Grexit is unlikely; but it is no longer impossible. These things rarely happen as a result of deliberate policy. They come about, rather, by mishap, by miscalculation, by misadventure. Bluffing is a dangerous business and Greece might end up slipping out of the Eurozone accidentally.
Most Greeks say they want to keep the euro: the number insisting that they should stay in the monetary union 'at all costs' has risen to 74.2 per cent.
Yet one almost never hears economic arguments for the single currency. The case, rather, is sentimental: the euro is cherished as a symbol that Hellenes are modern Europeans rather than backward Levantines.
It would, indeed, be very difficult to make an economic case for euro membership.
The past six years have seen a greater depression in Greece than that of 1929 to 1935. Output is down by an almost unbelievable 25 per cent. A quarter of all Greeks – half of all youngsters – are unemployed, and tens of thousands more have emigrated in search of jobs.
Urging: As he voted, Prime Minister Samaras appealed to undecided voters to ensure Greece stays on the path of stability and reforms
Mr Tsipras talks of the policies that the EU has forced on Athens as 'fiscal waterboarding' and you can see his point.
Middle-class Athenians can be found rummaging in bins. Farmers are bringing supplies to their urban cousins. On cold nights, a pall of woodsmoke rises, because people can no longer pay heating bills.
Syriza airily promises to stop all this. It says it will increase pensions, hike the minimum wage, expand healthcare, give free electricity to 300,000 households and renationalise a chunk of the economy. Oh, and it expects overseas creditors to offer Greece substantially better terms while it does all this. In normal times, and in a normal country, Syriza would be a joke party on the furthest fringes of the ultra-Left.
It is a coalition of Trotskyists, Maoists, eco-protesters and Occupy types. Mr Tsipras has only recently removed the Che Guevara poster from his office (his son carries the name 'Ernesto' in honour of that bloodthirsty South American revolutionary).
But these are not normal times. Many Greeks have switched directly to Syriza from the Centre-Right out of sheer despair.
And Mr Tsipras himself does not share his countrymen's emotional attachment to the euro. If forced to choose, he would pick the drachma over more austerity.
What then? Well, given the rest of Syriza's economic programme, Greece's prospects would be dark either within or outside the single currency.
On course to win: The leader of Greece's anti-austerity Syriza party Alexis Tsipras just before casting his ballot in the country's elections
But at least a default and devaluation would offer a fresh start. Although the |
of the driver to call someone and the driver agreed to give it.The driver was later detained and his testimony was taken by police. He reportedly said the attacker spoke Turkish.Detentions have been carried out since the attack, mostly of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan citizens living in the Istanbul district of Zeytinburnu, where the police raided eight different addresses. Police also carried out operations in the Istanbul district of Başakşehir, and two foreign nationals were detained in connection to the Reina attack at Istanbul Atatürk Airport on Jan. 3.Elsewhere, footage of the alleged attacker that he himself recorded in Taksim has emerged, in which he can be seen filming himself and the places nearby. Officials are now evaluating whether he was surveilling the area or sending ISIL a message to say he was in Taksim. Other footage that has emerged shows the attacker at an exchange bureau in the Istanbul neighborhood of Laleli.Meanwhile, the initial autopsy reports on the victims of the attack have been completed. According to the reports, several people were killed with the same bullet, and the victims were mostly hit in their chests, heads and backs.Nobody was killed due to jumping into the Bosphorus in order to escape the attack, according to reports.Blues, Soul and Rock N Roll Music T-Shirts, Apparel & Merch Now carrying Authentic Hendrix™ Jimi Hendrix T-Shirts and Merch.
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The bill would block, for one year, most federal payments to Planned Parenthood. At least 89% of federal funding of Planned Parenthood would be blocked by this bill. The bill would repeal a number of major components of the Obamacare health law, including two of the major provisions that will lead to rationing of lifesaving care — the “Independent Payment Advisory Board” and the “excess benefits tax.”
Senators voted 52-47 (see bottom for roll call) for the reconciliation bill which would de-fund Planned Parenthood and repeal major portions of Obamacare.
The bill now goes back to the House and will head to President Barack Obama once the House approves the measure. Though Obama will veto the bill, the vote makes it clear that, under a pro-life president, Congress can get a de-funding bill approved with a majority vote that the president would sign into law.
“Tonight’s vote is a landmark victory for all who prioritize comprehensive women’s health care over abortion industry profits. We thank Senate Leadership for following through on their promise to advance this defunding provision to the President’s desk,” said Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser.
“The debate over the reconciliation process has continued the national conversation on Planned Parenthood and established an important precedent for the next administration,” continued Dannenfelser. “If Americans elect a pro-life president next year, and safeguard our pro-life majorities in Congress, this bill – and many others – could be law by 2017.”
Leading up to a vote on the bill, the Senate defeated an amendment from pro-abortion Senators Patty Murray of Washington and Ron Wyden of Oregon that would send $1 billion in taxpayer dollars to Planned Parenthood and abortion businesses.
SIGN THE PETITION! Congress Must De-Fund Planned Parenthood Immediately
National Right to Life and other pro-life groups urged the Senate to defeat the pro-abortion amendment in letters leading up to the vote.
“The Murray-Wyden Amendment would strike Section 101, and replace it with language to authorize $1,000,000,000 for “eligible services” (with no exclusion for abortion) for any person “determined by a woman’s health clinic or provider to need services,” and for clinic “security.” Only organizations that provide elective abortions would be eligible to receive these funds,” National Right to Life explained.
The Senate voted 54-46 to table or kill the amendment, which would strike the section of the bill that de-funds Planned Parenthood. The vote saw Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia vote with Republicans to kill the pro-abortion amendment while pro-abortion Republican Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois voted with Democrats to support abortion.
The Senate then defeated 52-48 a second pro-abortion amendment sponsored by Kirk and Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) to strip the Planned Parenthood de-funding section from the ObamaCare repeal bill.
Sen. Mike Enzi, a pro-life Republican from Wyoming, rebutted claims that pro-life people are violent and that’s why they are targeting Planned Parenthood for de-funding or that they somehow oppose women’s health care.
“We certainly don’t condone any of the violence anywhere in the United States,” he said. “The best way to ensure that women and men have affordable healthcare is to pass this bill and repeal ObamaCare.”
Family Research Council’s Vice President for Government Affairs, David Christensen, made the following statement about the defeated amendments:
“The defeat of the Murray and Collins amendments is a victory for the American people. Across the country, people are tired of being forced by the federal government to partner with the abortion industry, including those engaged in the selling of baby body parts. This legislation protects women’s health by reallocating funds to community health centers that provide a broader array of health services.
“The pro-life community stood together to advocate removing the flow of most tax dollars to Planned Parenthood through the budget reconciliation process, and the Senate rightly rejected efforts to force federal complicity in funding abortion groups. We look forward to final passage of the bill later this evening,” concluded Christensen.
Obama is threatening to veto the de-funding measure and the threat comes after President Barack Obama warned pro-life people not to “demonize” Planned Parenthood in the wake of the shooting.
Obama is threatening to veto the de-funding measure and the threat comes after President Barack Obama warned pro-life people not to “demonize” Planned Parenthood in the wake of the shooting.
Obama has repeatedly threatened to veto any bill that stops taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood, issuing a veto threat in September and in July.
In August, Senate Democrats defeated an effort to revoke taxpayer funding for the Planned Parenthood abortion business by filibustering the bill and preventing a vote on it. Republicans were unable to secure the 60 voted needed to invoke cloture and stop debate on the bill, allowing an up or down vote. Republicans could only get 53 votes to shut off debate.
Then, in September, Senate Democrats voted to defeat a government funding bill that would de-fund the Planned Parenthood abortion business after it was caught in a series of 10 videos selling aborted babies and their body parts. The Senate voted 52 to 47 against ending debate.
Dozens of leading pro-life groups have already indicated their support for the bill, including the National Right to Life Committee. In a letter to members of Congress that NRLC provided to LifeNews.com, the group indicated it strongly supports the bill to de-fund Planned Parenthood.
“NRLC strongly supports the language in the bill that would block, for one year, most federal payments to affiliates of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA). It would close the largest pipeline for federal funding of Planned Parenthood, Medicaid, and apply as well to the CHIP and the Title V and Title XX block grant programs, thus covering roughly 89% of all federal funds to Planned Parenthood. The amounts denied to Planned Parenthood in effect are reallocated to community health centers,” the pro-life group explained.
“Over one-third of all abortions in the U.S. are performed at PPFA-affiliated facilities. Longstanding objections to the massive federal funding of PPFA have been reinforced by recent widely publicized undercover videos, which illuminate the callous brutality that occurs daily in these abortion mills,” NRLC added.
The reconciliation bill also repeals portions of Obamacare,including its rationing components. With regard to the rationing aspects of Obamacare, NRLC strongly supports a repeal.
“In addition, NRLC has always opposed the Obamacare law and advocated its repeal. With respect to H.R. 3762, we particularly endorse the components that would repeal the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) and the “excess benefits tax” (“Cadillac Tax”), both dangerous mechanisms that would ultimately contribute to the rationing of lifesaving care,” the right to life group said.
Leading pro-life groups that also support the reconciliation bill to de-fund Planned Parenthood include Susan B. Anthony List, National Right to Life, Family Research Council, March for Life, Concerned Women for America, Students for Life, Priests for Life, Operation Rescue, and American Life League, among others.
A new Congressional report finds that de-funding the Planned Parenthood abortion business — even for one year — would save “several thousand” unborn babies from the nightmare of abortion. The report also finds de-funding Planned Parenthood would save the federal government $235 million.
The expose’ videos catching Planned Parenthood officials selling the body parts of aborted babies have shocked the nation. Here is a list of all eleven:
In the first video : Dr. Deborah Nucatola of Planned Parenthood commented on baby-crushing: “We’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that, so I’m not gonna crush that part, I’m gonna basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact.”
: Dr. Deborah Nucatola of Planned Parenthood commented on baby-crushing: “We’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that, so I’m not gonna crush that part, I’m gonna basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact.” In the second video: Planned Parenthood’s Dr. Mary Gatter joked, “I want a Lamborghini” as she negotiated the best price for baby parts.
Planned Parenthood’s Dr. Mary Gatter joked, “I want a Lamborghini” as she negotiated the best price for baby parts. In the third video: Holly O’Donnell, a former Stem Express employee who worked inside a Planned Parenthood clinic, detailed first-hand the unspeakable atrocities and how she fainted in horror over handling baby legs.
Holly O’Donnell, a former Stem Express employee who worked inside a Planned Parenthood clinic, detailed first-hand the unspeakable atrocities and how she fainted in horror over handling baby legs. In the fourth video: Planned Parenthood’s Dr. Savita Ginde stated, “We don’t want to do just a flat-fee (per baby) of like, $200. A per-item thing works a little better, just because we can see how much we can get out of it.” She also laughed while looking at a plate of fetal kidneys that were “good to go.”
Planned Parenthood’s Dr. Savita Ginde stated, “We don’t want to do just a flat-fee (per baby) of like, $200. A per-item thing works a little better, just because we can see how much we can get out of it.” She also laughed while looking at a plate of fetal kidneys that were “good to go.” In the fifth video : Melissa Farrell of Planned Parenthood-Gulf Coast in Houston boasted of Planned Parenthood’s skill in obtaining “intact fetal cadavers” and how her “research” department “contributes so much to the bottom line of our organization here, you know we’re one of the largest affiliates, our Research Department is the largest in the United States.”
: Melissa Farrell of Planned Parenthood-Gulf Coast in Houston boasted of Planned Parenthood’s skill in obtaining “intact fetal cadavers” and how her “research” department “contributes so much to the bottom line of our organization here, you know we’re one of the largest affiliates, our Research Department is the largest in the United States.” In the sixth video: Holly O’Donnell described technicians taking fetal parts without patient consent: “There were times when they would just take what they wanted. And these mothers don’t know. And there’s no way they would know.”
Holly O’Donnell described technicians taking fetal parts without patient consent: “There were times when they would just take what they wanted. And these mothers don’t know. And there’s no way they would know.” In the seventh and perhaps most disturbing video: Holly O’Donnell described the harvesting, or “procurement,” of organs from a nearly intact late-term fetus aborted at Planned Parenthood Mar Monte’s Alameda clinic in San Jose, CA. “‘You want to see something kind of cool,’” O’Donnell says her supervisor asked her. “And she just taps the heart, and it starts beating. And I’m sitting here and I’m looking at this fetus, and its heart is beating, and I don’t know what to think.”
Holly O’Donnell described the harvesting, or “procurement,” of organs from a nearly intact late-term fetus aborted at Planned Parenthood Mar Monte’s Alameda clinic in San Jose, CA. “‘You want to see something kind of cool,’” O’Donnell says her supervisor asked her. “And she just taps the heart, and it starts beating. And I’m sitting here and I’m looking at this fetus, and its heart is beating, and I don’t know what to think.” In the eighth video : StemExpress CEO Cate Dyer admits Planned Parenthood sells “a lot of” fully intact aborted babies.
: StemExpress CEO Cate Dyer admits Planned Parenthood sells “a lot of” fully intact aborted babies. The ninth video : catches a Planned Parenthood medical director discussing how the abortion company sells fully intact aborted babies — including one who “just fell out” of the womb.
: catches a Planned Parenthood medical director discussing how the abortion company sells fully intact aborted babies — including one who “just fell out” of the womb. The 10th video : catches the nation’s biggest abortion business selling specific body parts — including the heart, eyes and “gonads” of unborn babies.The video also shows the shocking ways in which Planned Parenthood officials admit that they are breaking federal law by selling aborted baby body parts for profit.
: catches the nation’s biggest abortion business selling specific body parts — including the heart, eyes and “gonads” of unborn babies.The video also shows the shocking ways in which Planned Parenthood officials admit that they are breaking federal law by selling aborted baby body parts for profit. Unreleased Videos : Unreleased videos from CMP show Deb Vanderhei of Planned Parenthood caught on tape talking about how Planned Parenthood abortion business affiliates may “want to increase revenue [from selling baby parts] but we can’t stop them…” Another video has a woman talking about the “financial incentives” of selling aborted baby body parts.
: Unreleased videos from CMP show Deb Vanderhei of Planned Parenthood caught on tape talking about how Planned Parenthood abortion business affiliates may “want to increase revenue [from selling baby parts] but we can’t stop them…” Another video has a woman talking about the “financial incentives” of selling aborted baby body parts. The 11th video: catches a texas Planned Parenthood abortionist planning to sell the intact heads of aborted babies for research. Amna Dermish is caught on tape describing an illegal partial-birth abortion procedure to terminate living, late-term unborn babies which she hopes will yield intact fetal heads for brain harvesting.
SIGN THE PETITION! Congress Must Investigate Planned Parenthood for Selling Aborted Baby Parts
The full, unedited videos have confirmed that revelations that some aborted baby remains sold by Planned Parenthood go to biotech companies for the purpose of creating “humanized” mice. Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood has been exposed as having sold body parts from aborted babies for as much as 15 years.
The federal law that technically prohibits the sale of aborted babies and their body parts was written by a pro-abortion Congressman decades ago and essentially spells out a process by which sellers of aborted baby body parts can meet certain criteria that allows the sales to be legal. That’s why a Colorado congressman has introduced legislation to totally ban the sales of aborted baby body parts.
ROLL CALL VOTE ON BILL TO DE-FUND PLANNED PARENTHOOD – Yea vote = pro-life, Nay vote = pro-abortion
YEAs —52 Alexander (R-TN)
Ayotte (R-NH)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Blunt (R-MO)
Boozman (R-AR)
Burr (R-NC)
Capito (R-WV)
Cassidy (R-LA)
Coats (R-IN)
Cochran (R-MS)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Cotton (R-AR)
Crapo (R-ID)
Cruz (R-TX)
Daines (R-MT)
Enzi (R-WY)
Ernst (R-IA) Fischer (R-NE)
Flake (R-AZ)
Gardner (R-CO)
Graham (R-SC)
Grassley (R-IA)
Hatch (R-UT)
Heller (R-NV)
Hoeven (R-ND)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johnson (R-WI)
Lankford (R-OK)
Lee (R-UT)
McCain (R-AZ)
McConnell (R-KY)
Moran (R-KS)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Paul (R-KY) Perdue (R-GA)
Portman (R-OH)
Risch (R-ID)
Roberts (R-KS)
Rounds (R-SD)
Rubio (R-FL)
Sasse (R-NE)
Scott (R-SC)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Sullivan (R-AK)
Thune (R-SD)
Tillis (R-NC)
Toomey (R-PA)
Vitter (R-LA)
Wicker (R-MS)
NAYs —47 Baldwin (D-WI)
Bennet (D-CO)
Blumenthal (D-CT)
Booker (D-NJ)
Boxer (D-CA)
Brown (D-OH)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Cardin (D-MD)
Carper (D-DE)
Casey (D-PA)
Collins (R-ME)
Coons (D-DE)
Donnelly (D-IN)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Franken (D-MN) Gillibrand (D-NY)
Heinrich (D-NM)
Heitkamp (D-ND)
Hirono (D-HI)
Kaine (D-VA)
King (I-ME)
Kirk (R-IL)
Klobuchar (D-MN)
Leahy (D-VT)
Manchin (D-WV)
Markey (D-MA)
McCaskill (D-MO)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Merkley (D-OR)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Murphy (D-CT) Murray (D-WA)
Nelson (D-FL)
Peters (D-MI)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Schatz (D-HI)
Schumer (D-NY)
Shaheen (D-NH)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Tester (D-MT)
Udall (D-NM)
Warner (D-VA)
Warren (D-MA)
Whitehouse (D-RI)
Wyden (D-OR)Pompey delivered the highest point of Enda Stevens’ football career.
And it has been a life-changing two years the Irish left-back will forever cherish.
Enda Stevens, with Kyle Bennett, Michael Doyle and chairman Iain McInnes at the parade on Southsea Common. Picture: Joe Pepler
The lure of Championship football with Sheffield United prompted a departure from Fratton Park following 99 appearances and one goal.
There was also the League Two title and those emotional Fratton Park scenes, thankfully displacing the devastating play-off semi-final defeat to Plymouth.
No player made more appearances during Paul Cook’s opening two seasons at the helm than Stevens.
And it’s a silverware-winning association with the club he will always treasure.
It is honestly the best group of boys I’ve worked with, I’ve met some great people Enda Stevens
He said: ‘People don’t get many highs in football but I can look back at Portsmouth and say that was the highest point in my football career.
‘There are so many games which were unbelievable to be part of, then to finish it with the League Two title was incredible.
‘I’ll always remember Newport when I scored my first goal for the club as we came back to win 3-2, while Crawley was special and the turning point of our season.
‘Colchester away was probably the most enjoyable game I played in – in terms of performance of the team, then of course Notts County and Cheltenham.
‘I am so glad it ended on a high note and I know they will kick on next season. This club will continue going from strength to strength.
‘It is honestly the best group of boys I’ve worked with. I’ve met some great people I’m going to keep in contact with, such as Kyle Bennett, Gary Roberts, Christian Burgess, the lot of them.
‘Marbella was a good little send-off and I’m still chatting to the boys on the group WhatsApp.
‘As for the fans, they accepted me from day one and I cannot thank them enough.
‘They have always been great with me and I’ll miss playing at Fratton Park.
‘It was wonderful to get the player awards and personal accolades, which count even more knowing we won the title. I’m thankful for that.
‘It has been the best of my time playing football – and one I will never forget.’
Stevens was crowned as The News/Sports Mail player of the season in recognition of his outstanding efforts.
And he is quick to credit those who ensured his time on the south coast was so special.
He added: ‘Paul Cook came under a lot of pressure at times during the season.
‘He stuck to his guns, stuck by his players, backed us all the way and it was great to hand him the league title.
‘I’ll miss Benno. He’s one of my best mates in the squad. I love playing with him. Down that left-hand side, Benno, Doyler and myself had a great relationship, with Matt Clarke as well.
‘As a player, I definitely improved, discovered my form and found what I am good at.
‘We all bounced off each other, knew our strengths and had good relationships on and off the pitch.
‘As for Gaz Evans, he should go down as a legend for his performance during the parade! It was brilliant to see someone having that interaction with the fans.
‘I’ll miss them all.’Newt Gingrich isn't the only politician who's freaked out by China and Russia's online spying. But the new Republican presidential frontrunner may be the highest-profile political figure all but openly calling for cyberwar with Moscow and Beijing.
"I think that we have to treat state-based covert activities as the equivalent of acts of war," Gingrich said in response to a question about countries that target U.S. corporate and government information systems. "And I think that we have to respond to that and create a level of pain which teaches people not to do it."
American officials have grown increasingly concerned about massive and strategic efforts by China and Russia to use U.S. network vulnerabilities to steal American know-how. "Trade secrets developed over thousands of working hours by our brightest minds are stolen in a split second and transferred to our competitors," Robert Bryant, the national counterintelligence executive, said in November. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, who chaired a classified task force on the subject, called it "the biggest transfer of wealth through theft and piracy in the history of mankind."
But most American policymakers have been reluctant to publicly entertain the idea of attacking China or Russia in response to that economic espionage. The U.S. is trying to work with Moscow and Beijing to corral rogue states from Iran to North Korea. The three countries already share information on terror threats. Most importantly, the economies of the three nations are rather deeply intertwined, which means an overt online attack could harm more than just the intended target.
Nevertheless, Gingrich told the Coffee & Markets podcast in December that he's "much more inclined" to "develop capabilities that allow us to punish countries that engage in this kind of behavior."
"I think this ought to be a very high-level conversation at the presidential level, as it relates, for example, to both China and to Russia [where we say], 'Look, there are games we're not going to tolerate being played. And we either need an armed truce or we're going to engage as aggressively as you are,'" Gingrich added.
When it comes to matters of online war and peace, Gingrich has long been at least a half-step more extreme than the vast majority of U.S. officials. While military and intelligence leaders have quietly enjoyed the havoc that the Stuxnet worm wreaked on the Iranian nuclear program, Gingrich called on the U.S. to "wage real cyber warfare against Iran." While the heads of the Pentagon and the National Security Agency have publicly worried about a surprise and catastrophic online attack, Gingrich has written that "a cyber Pearl Harbor is not a question of if, but when." While the Pentagon has vigorously prosecuted Pfc. Bradley Manning for allegedly giving files to WikiLeaks, Gingrich called members of the secrets-spilling group enemy combatants. "No one from WikiLeaks should feel comfortable the rest of their lives. These are bad people doing bad things, and they're gonna get Americans and our allies killed. And we should recognize that, and recognize that it is in effect an act of war against the United States."
Gingrich has a famous fondness for information technologies, of course. In 1971, he foresaw a day when "computer time may be as inexpensive as using the telephone is today." In 1995, he ridiculed his fellow futurist Al Gore as "totally Second Wave." But Gingrich's love of network theory has often outpaced his use of actual networks. At the same time he was blasting Gore as being clueless noob, Gingrich was forced to admit that he didn't use e-mail himself. "When you ask the Speaker how much time he spends roaming the Net, he answers, 'Not as much as I'd like,'" Wired noted in issue 3.12. "When you ask him what he does in those sadly infrequent moments, he falls silent for at least five seconds – an eternity for him – and then responds, blankly: 'I play.'"
Photo: Flickr/GageSkidmoreIn listening to the reaction to Justin Trudeau’s move last week to force all Senators from the Liberal Party’s national caucus, it was curious to hear some of the continued misunderstandings and misapprehensions about the Senate and its role by long-time reform advocates. Most disturbing were some of those who had led the charge for Senate reform for years.
For example, the president of the Canada West Foundation believes that “sober second thought” is a quaint and passé notion, which is a surprise to anyone who has spent any amount of time observing the Senate, or who has seen amendments to bills that come out of the Senate. Same with the times that bills get more and better scrutiny on the Senate side, owing to a less rigid committee structure and a less partisan atmosphere, where more substantive questions are asked rather than those designed simply to score points. But oh, apparently that’s just a relic of times past.
One of the other, more fraught considerations is that of provincial weighting in the Senate. The slogan-driven rallying cry of Triple-E – as in “elected,” “equal” and “effective” – constantly comes back to haunt the current debate over Senate reform without any particular understanding that proposal’s origins or limitations.
The Triple-E model was largely the child of the backlash to the National Energy Program and the 1986 decision to award the CF-18 maintenance contract to a Montreal firm rather than one in Winnipeg. The theory went that such a reformed Senate would have its senators more beholden to regional interests than party ones, and that they could have prevented either of those decisions. The flaw in the logic, of course, is that these elected Senators would have party affiliations – an absolute necessity when it comes to contesting elections in this country given the organizational and financial demands that would come with running a province-wide campaign. As well, even if it were a vote based on regional lines, there is the fact that the oil consuming provinces would have supported the NEP over the oil producers and still carried the votes, and the added fact that a decision like the CF-18 maintenance contract is based solely on Crown prerogative and never would have made it to a vote in the Senate in the first place.
As well, the fundamental model behind a Triple-E chamber is an attempt to graft an American institution into a Westminster context without understanding the other dynamics at play, including the various checks and balances or relationship between executive and legislative powers. American states have proportionately less constitutional power than Canadian provinces do, and therefore the design of their Senate makes more sense in their context. It creates for a false sense of portability that the systems could be so easily swapped.
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The notion of provincial equality in the Senate is also curious considering that it is based on a model of regional equality – 24 senators for each of the four major regions (the Maritimes, Ontario, Quebec and the West) plus six senators for Newfoundland and Labrador and one each per territory. Because the Senate was built along regional, rather than provincial lines, this was seen as the way to achieve equality and to balance out the representation-by-population of the Commons. But the dialogue around how places like BC and Alberta are “under-represented” in the Senate betray that sense of both regionalism and counterbalancing rep-by-pop. Indeed, if you look at population figures for each Senate region, you’ll find that three of the four are fairly close – Ontario with 13.5 million people, Quebec with 8 million, and the four western provinces with nearly 11 million. The Maritimes and Newfoundland of course have a fraction of that population, but the same number of seats as their protection for their minority interests in the federation.
Upsetting the balance by redistributing seats is something that should not be taken lightly. There is merit in having a conversation about potentially rebalancing the regional makeup of the Senate, such as with the proposal put forward by now retired Senators Jack Austin and Lowell Murray several years ago, which would have given BC 12 seats of its own, and redistributed its six seats from the Western region so that Alberta gained four, and Saskatchewan and Manitoba one more seat each. It was a novel idea, which still required a constitutional amendment, but nevertheless would likely have had a deleterious effect on the regional equality of the Senate, not to mention the fact that Alberta’s population has nearly caught up to BC’s, and there would soon be complaints about unfairness to Alberta and its interests. Which brings me back to the president of Canada West Foundation, who says “no elections without Triple-E” given how it would supposedly disadvantage Alberta and BC.
The other consideration is the effect on the Senate as a whole would be with capacity. If you simply had five or six Senators per province, you would greatly diminish the capacity of the Senate with the loss of nearly half of its seats. All of the committee work that happens right now requires those hundred senators that currently exist. Losing that would mean the loss of the kinds of serious policy work that goes on right now as the focus shifts more to the day to day scrutiny of legislation, with Senators having to take on more committee work as there are fewer of them to go around. As well, the current constitutional guarantees that there can’t be more Senators than MPs for each province would either have to be amended for the sake of PEI, or it would need to gain even more MPs relative to its population.
Talk of Senate reform is frequently full of big ideas that aren’t well thought through. We need to ensure that any proposals would have the substantive changes that would benefit the system, rather than simply be a slogan that would make for a far worse system than currently exists – which Triple-E certainly would be.
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Other articles by Dale Smith
Should Trudeau be able to charge speaking fees?
The Angus Standard On Election Rules
Follow Dale Smith on twitter: @journo_daleWARREN: Have you ever managed or overseen a trillion dollar loan program.
DEVOS: I have not.
WARREN: How about a billion dollar loan program?
DEVOS: I have not.
WARREN: Okay. So no experience managing a program like this. How about participating in one? I think it is important for the person who is in charge of our financial aid programs to understand what it is like for students and their families who are struggling to pay for college. Mrs. DeVos, have you ever taken out a student loan from the federal government to help pay for college?
DEVOS: I have not.
WARREN: Have any of your children had to borrow money in order to go to college?
DEVOS: They have been fortunate not to.
WARREN: Have you had any personal experience with a Pell Grant?
DEVOS: Not personal experience, but certainly friends and students with whom I have worked.
WARREN: So you have no personal experience with college financial aid or management of higher education.This article is about the engineer and inventor. For the film director, see Oliver Blackburn
Oliver Blackburn Shallenberger
Oliver Blackburn Shallenberger (May 7, 1860 – January 23, 1898) was an American electrical engineer and inventor. He is associated with electrical inventions related to alternating current. He is most noted for inventing the first successful alternating current electrical meter, the forerunner of the modern electric meter. This was critical to general acceptance of AC power.[1]
Early life [ edit ]
Shallenberger was born in Rochester, Pennsylvania, on May 7, 1860. His parents were Aaron T. Shallenberger and Mary (Bonbright) Shallenberger. He attended public schools of Rochester in Beaver County. He also went to Beaver College in Beaver County for a short time. He then attended the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis as a cadet engineer in 1877. William Shadrack Shallenberger, a member of Congress, was his uncle and helped him get into the Academy. He was head of a list of 126 candidates and took special interest in their physics courses. For the first year he was at the top of his class. During the second year in an accident he dislocated his wrist, broke an arm, and suffered vision impairment. He graduated in 1880 and was third of his class. Among the electricians and inventors that attended the Naval Academy around this same time were Frank J. Sprague, Dr. Louis Duncan, W. F. C. Hasson, and Gilbert Wilkes.
Mid life and career [ edit ]
Shallenberger then served the customary two year commitment serving on a government ship, assigned to the U.S. flagship Lancaster in the Mediterranean. He witnessed the Bombardment of Alexandria. He returned to the United States in 1883. Shallenberger then joined the Union Switch and Signal Company of Pittsburgh in 1884 under the management of George Westinghouse. The company was organizing an electric light department using alternating current and he became their Chief Electrician. He then for the next few years spent his winters in Colorado and his summers in Rochester at a research laboratory of the Westinghouse company. Shallenberger ran the experiments of alternating current apparatus which had been imported from Europe. This research was the foundation for the organization of the Westinghouse Electric Company. He was appointed chief electrician, which continued at the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company. He was elected an associate member of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers in 1888. In 1891, poor health required him to resign from the Westinghouse company but he continued as a Consulting Electrician.
In 1897 he organized the Colorado Electric Power Company, becoming its President until his death. He settled permanently in Colorado Springs in 1897. Shallenberger was recognized as a worldwide authority on electricity. He was one of the promoters of the Rochester Electric Company.
Shallenberger's Meter
Patent of Shallenberger's Meter
Inventions and innovations [ edit ]
Shallenberger did much in electrical experimentation and original research. He invented a street-lighting system in |
, al-Masih notes:
"Whoever reads verse 91 of Sura al-Anbiya' 21 carefully could be embarrassed. It is scandalous how Muhammad and his spirit of revelation lift Mary up as the most important of all women, and at the same time tear away her veil of chastity. Her self-protection is not described in a euphemism, but is calculated brutally, as in a business deal: And she guraded her vagina [farj] so we breathed into her of our spirit. (Sura al-Anbiya' 21:91) This revelation is not an honour, but an exposition. Maybe it was customary among Bedouins to speak contemptuously and carelessly about women. But this only shows the rule of Arabic men and their contempt for women. If the best of women is spoken about like this, what about others! The men are never written about like this. They remain covered, holier-than-thou and self-righteous." (Abd al-Masih, Who Is The Spirit From Allah In Islam? [Light of Life, P.O. Box 13, A-9503, VILLACH AUSTRIA], pp. 46-47)
The author goes on to comment on S. 66:12:
"The second problem is caused by the Arabic language. In Arabic, Allah does not say: so we breathed into her of our spirit, but into him. Who is it, into whom the spirit was breathed? The embryo 'Isa? That is difficult to accept, for then 'Isa would have existed in Mary's womb already before the spirit was breathed into her. That would mean that Allah created 'Isa beforehand or that he existed before he was conceived. Both options are out of the question for Islamic scholars. Who is it then, into whom the Spirit from Allah was breathed? IT IS ALMOST UNSPEAKABLE, but the last expression in the previous sentence, which is masculine in Arabic, IS THE EXPRESSION FOR MARY'S GENITALS. [43] The literal meaning of Allah's statement in Arabic is then, so we breathed into her vagina [farj] of our spirit. This turns the stomachs of some of our readers. Rudi Paret, the best translator of the Qur'an into German, confirms the meaning of this phrase in a footnote. This seems not only to us, but also to many Islamic scholars to be a blasphemy. Ibn Mas'ud went so far as to suggest that the Qur'anic text should be changed to read so we breathed into her [Mary] of our spirit. It is comforting to see that there are Muslims who prefer the possibility of a fallible Qur'an to a blasphemy like this. Other commentators explain the expression into him as Mary's heart or body, which are masculine in Arabic, but not mentioned in the text. These are nothing but attempts to cover up the problem, but the problem itself remains. The assumption that it was an unclean spirit that spoke through Muhammad is obvious. It is almost impossible to imagine that Muslims claim that Jibril himself did this. Here the false statement of an unclean spirit stands against the noble Holy Spirit." (Ibid., pp. 53-54; capital emphasis ours)
In the above indicated footnote, the author states:
43. According to al-Nasafi: "in her vagina" (Madarik al-Tanzil, vol. 4, p. 272). (Ibid., p. 53)
Another rather explicit reference to a woman's sexual area includes:
"Surely for the godfearing awaits a place of security, gardens and vineyards, and maidens of SWELLING BREASTS (kawa'ib), like of age, and a cup overflowing." S. 78:33 Arberry (see also Dawood, Rodwell)
Ibn Kathir comments on the meaning of kawa'ib:
<And vineyards, and Kawa'ib Atrab,> meaning, wide-eyed maidens WITH FULLY DEVELOPED BREASTS. Ibn 'Abbas, Mujahid and others have said, <Kawa'ib> "This means ROUND BREASTS. They meant by this THAT THE BREASTS OF THESE GIRLS WILL BE FULLY ROUNDED AND NOT SAGGING, because they will be virgins, equal in age..." (Tafsir Ibn Kathir, Abridged, Volume 10, pp. 333-334; bold and capital emphasis ours)
Another famous commentator, ar-Razi, stated in his Tafsir (Volume 8, p. 311) that:
"The kawa`ib are the buxom girls (nawahid) whose breasts have become FULL (taka``abat) and ROUND (tafallakat)." (bold and capital emphasis ours)
Interestingly, one Sunni Muslim writer quotes certain Muslim authorities who acknowledge that the Quran's language can be quite erotic and that this particular reference can even cause persons to get aroused. In response to the unfairness of men having up to 70 wives whereas women will only have one husband in paradise, G.F. Haddad states:
We do not know with certainty that there will be such a restriction on women even if the reverse would hardly be mentionable to a decent woman. A woman in the traditional world would and does consider it a horrible thing to say to her that "You can have all the men you want"! The Qur'an would never use inappropriate language. However, the Qur'an does mention that for the inhabitants of Paradise - male and female - {There wait on them immortal youths} (56:17), {There serve them youths of everlasting youth, whom, when you see them, you would take for scattered pearls} (76:19). If this does not make a believing woman happy then, as Imam al-Shafi`i said to the one WHO IS NOT MOVED BY EROTIC POETRY, "You have no feelings." As for the believing men, as one of the Awliya said, some of them will need GHUSL just FOR HEARING THE VERSE {Same-age young-bosomed girls} (78:33). As for us hard-hearted analphabets we may read it and read it without effect. (Haddad, Sex with slaves and women's rights; source; capital and underline emphasis ours)
Ghusl refers, in this specific context, to the ritual bathing of the body that a Muslim must perform after sexual intercourse or because of a seminal discharge. What the author is essentially saying is that Surah 78:33 can cause a person to be aroused to such an extent that he ends up having an emission!
To imagine that in paradise one finds women with firm round breasts for sexual pleasure is rather incredulous to say the least.
The idea of having sexual relations in Paradise has led some Muslims to interpret these passages metaphorically. This in turn has prompted the assumption that the description is merely a poetic attempt to describe that which is indescribable.
Unfortunately for these Muslims, Muhammad will not allow for such an interpretation. In Sahih Muslim, no. 6793 and 6797, we are told:
"In Paradise... every person would have two wives (so beautiful) that the marrow of their shanks would glimmer beneath the flesh and there would be none without a wife in Paradise."
In Mishkat Al-Masabih, Muhammad indicates:
"The believer will be given such and such strength in Paradise for sexual intercourse. It was questioned: O prophet of Allah! Can he do that? He said: 'He will be given the strength of one hundred persons.'" (Bk. IV, chp. XLII, Hadith no. 24; transmitted by Tirmizi who classified this Hadith as sound)
Bilal Philips, in responding to Yusuf Ali's "spiritualizing" of the passages relating to sexual pleasures in paradise, writes:
"In an attempt to appeal to the Western reader of Christian background, some translators of the Quran have wrongly interpreted its clear references to the sexual pleasure of paradise in a symbolic fashion. For example, in his commentary on the verse, And for them therein (in paradise) are wives who are Mutahharatun (pure) (Soorah al-Baqarah 2:25), the Quranic translator Abdullah Yusef Ali states the following: Then there is companionship. If sex is suggested, its physical associations are at once negatived by the addition of the word Mutahharatun pure and holy. The Arabic is in the intensive form, and must be translated by two adjectives denoting purity in the highest degree. The companionship is that of souls and applies to both sexes in the physical world of men and women. (A. Yusef Ali, The Holy Quran, (Trans.), (Brentwood, Maryland: Amana Corp., 1983) p.22. ft n. 44). There are many Quranic verses and Prophetic traditions which address the physical aspects of men and women in paradise. Hence, it can not be accurately claimed that the companionship is that of souls and not that of beings possessing both souls and bodies. The term Mutahharatun actually only confirms that bodies in paradise will be free of the defects and decay of bodies in this life as the wine, honey, and milk of paradise will not sour or intoxicate. Mutahharatun (purified) from filth and waste matter. His student Mujaahid said, (Purified) from menses, feces, urine, phlegm, spittle, mucus and childbirth. (See Muhammad Alee as-Saaboonees, Mukhtasar Tafseer Ibn Katheer, (Beirut: Daar al-Quraan al-Kareem, 7th ed., 1981), vol. 1, p. 44). Based on his mistaken interpretation, Yusef Ali was obliged to mistranslate all the obvious references to the physical pleasures of paradise. For example, in Soorah an-Naba (78) he translates verse 33 (wa kawaaiba atraaban) as companions of Equal Age, (The Holy Quran, (Trans.), p. 1676). Atraaban does mean of the same age according to Ibn Abbaas (Mukhtasar Tafseer Ibn Katheer, vol 3., pp 434 and 593), however Kawaaiba does not mean companion. Kawaaib is the plural of Kaaib which means a girl whose breasts are beginning to swell or one WHO HAS PROMINENT BREASTS (E. W. Lane, Arabic English Lexicon, vol. 2, p. 2616). Kawaaib means BUXOM GIRLS (J. Milton Cowan, ed., A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic, (Beirut: Libraire Du Liban, 1980), p. 831). Ibn Katheer quoted both Ibn Abbaas and Mujaahid as saying, Kawaaib means Nawaahid. He then went on to explain, They (Ibn Abbaas and Mujaahid) meant that their (women of paradises) breast are prominent and not sagging because they are virgins (see also Soorah al-Waaqiah 56:35-37 (Mukhtasar Tafeer Ibn Katheer, vol. 3, p. 593). Thus, the verse actually refers to the women of paradies as HIGH BREASTED females all having the same age). This view of Yusef Ali has been refuted at length by Mujlisul-Ulama of South Africa's book, A Discussion of the Errors of Yusuf Ali, (Transvaal, Rep. South Africa: Young Mens Muslims Association, n.d.) pp. 16-26, 44-50." (Ibn Taymeeyahs ESSAY ON THE JINN (DEMONS), Abridged, Annotated and Translated by Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips [Published by International Islamic Publishing House, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 1998], pp. 28-30, fn. 2; bold and capital emphasis ours)
Even more amazing is Ibn Kathir's commentary on S. 56:35-37:
Abu Dawud At-Tayalisi recorded that Anas said that the Messenger of Allah said, <In Paradise, the believer will be given such and such strength for women.> Anas said, "I asked, 'O Allah's Messenger! Will one be able to do that? He said, <He will be given the strength OF A HUNDRED (MEN)> At-Tirmidhi also recorded it and said, "Sahih Gharib." Abu Al-Qasim At-Tabarani recorded that Abu Hurayrah said that the Messenger of Allah was asked, "O Allah's Messenger! Will we have sexual intercourse with our wives in Paradise?" He said, <The man will be able to have sexual intercourse WITH A HUNDRED VIRGINS IN ONE DAY.> Al-Hafiz Abu 'Abdullah Al-Maqisi said, "In my view, the Hadith meets the criteria of the Sahih, and Allah knows best." (Tafsir Ibn Kathir - Abridged, Volume 9, Surat Al-Jathiyah to the end of Surat Al-Munafiqun, pp. 429-430; bold and capital emphasis ours)
In light of the preceding examples, we find the explanation given by the Learner to be without merit. Both the Quran and Islamic traditions are quite explicit in describing the sexual body parts of women, often in quite graphic details. Therefore, based on the Learner's own criteria, the Quran cannot be categorized as decent literature due to its graphic depiction of a woman's sexual organ, or the claim that Allah breathed into a woman's sexual organ causing her to conceive, or of its statement that maidens in paradise will have firm round breasts. In the report of the conception of Jesus the language of the Quran is just plain vulgar and out of place. Regarding the description of the maidens of paradise there is another aspect still. It is not a neutral statement of factual information (as the statement "these maidens will be perfect in every regard" would have been) but the description is designed to awake sexual desire in the listeners, and the longing to make it to this place where those maidens are waiting for the faithful. As such the Quran is using a direct appeal to the sexual desires of men to convince them to believe in and fight for the cause of Islam. This is very similar to the tricks in modern day commercials where the advertizing companies use images of naked women to sell cars or any other products. Finishing this detour, we conclude that the Learner's explanation seems to be more of an attempt to save the Quran from a gross scientific error than a correct interpretation of the text in question.
In light of the preceding considerations, we find that the interpretation of S. 86:5-7 proposed by Dr. Badawi, Dr. Naik and the Learner is more of a private interpretation that seeks to make science the standard by which the Quran is understood and judged. In so doing, these individuals must ignore the authentic interpretation of their Prophet and his companions in order to avoid the gross scientific errors contained within both the Quran and Hadith. Hence, it is no longer the Quran that is God's Criterion to distinguish between truth and error. Rather, it is science that now judges and critiques God's alleged "revelation".
Note- In all fairness, the Learner does affirm that the Quran is not a scientific textbook and that the verses in question must be understood in light of its historical context. The Learner does claim that these verses had significance to those who first heard the Quran in the seventh century. Hence, in order to understand the meaning of the Quran we must first seek to know what these verses meant to those who first heard them, as opposed to applying modern scientific knowledge upon the correct interpretation of the Quran. Yet, once this is done we discover that the early Muslim understanding of S. 86:5-7 is completely incompatible with modern scientific understanding.
Qur'an and Science
Further articles by Sam Shamoun
Answering Islam Home PageStill from VICE documentary The Islamic State
Of the Danish Muslims who go to Syria, some want to do humanitarian work, while others want to wage jihad. But very little is known about those who go to Syria and then return to Denmark. That's what the leader of the section for prevention of radicalization and extremism at Eastern Jutland’s police, Allan Aarslev, told me, anyway.
Nevertheless, the risk of so-called homegrown terrorism is treated very seriously. But instead of confiscating passports and threatening them with prison—measures recently brought to Denmark that are similar to suggested laws in the United Kingdom—Allan and his team are trying a different approach with returning Muslims. They offer therapy and guidance while reaching out to the parents in the community. They do this both preemptively and after the young men have come back to their communities, the idea being to reintegrate the young men into Danish society.
We gave Allan a call to hear more about the operation.
VICE: Tell us about the different aspects of your efforts.
Allan Aarslev: First of all, we provide counsel and guidance to the young men thinking about leaving for Syria. However, since it’s not illegal to travel to Syria, we can’t keep them from actually going. When someone does leave in spite of our counsel, we contact their family. They often call us when their sons return, sometimes even on the day of their arrival. We then invite them over for a talk. We get to know their situation, and figure out how we can help them return to Denmark in proper fashion.
What do you tell the young men thinking of going to Syria?
First of all, the parents are far more receptive to our messages. If we can equip them with the right knowledge, they can guide their children far better than we can. When we do talk to young people, we let them know what they’re actually signing up for in Syria. Some tell us they’re compelled to do aid work there because of their religion. We acknowledge that, but no matter their intentions, it’s almost impossible to know what you’re really getting involved in down there. Even if you just help out in a refugee camp, it might turn out that it’s run by the Islamic State. Doing that would be a criminal offense, as it’s illegal to aid organizations on the EU’s terror list. These camps also serve as recruitment stations, and they might try to send you into battle.
It’s a muddy situation, for sure.
Exactly. We urge them to use their commitment in a different way. Many of these young folks are very religious, making it difficult for us to provide guidance. In that case we ask them whether supporting the Islamic State really is the right way to achieve a caliphate.
How do they respond to that?
Sometimes they just tell us what they think we want to hear. We can’t expect them to turn themselves in, telling us about their crimes, either.
Of course not. But are you aware of any Danish individuals who travel to Syria with a militant agenda?
It is our impression that some leave for militant purposes, but we don’t actually know that. Quite a few people have left from Aarhus, so realistically some of them must have committed crimes. It’s impossible to document what goes on in a war zone, though. We just know that the returnees don’t tell us the whole truth.
And when they do leave, you stay in touch with the parents?
We have a network for parents. There are both parents whose children are likely dead, some whose sons are in Syria, and some who are nervous their boys might leave for Syria. Through the network, they support each other. We also stay in touch with them, informing them of their options. However, we’re heavily critiqued by the parents. They feel powerless and disappointed that the authorities can’t do more to keep their kids from going to Syria.
Understandably so, though it seems that might change now. Tell us, are the parents typically in contact with their children?
Some of them are. Others haven’t heard from their kids for a year. There’s a psychologist connected to the parents network who help them communicate with their children.
How should the parents handle these conversations?
Start by listening to their sons, acknowledging their decision while making sure that the sons know their parents are loyal to them. From there on, the parents can try to convince their sons to come home. It’s a very difficult situation, fearing for the life of your children.
What happens if they do return?
The parents call and tell us that their son just came home. We then call him up, and see how we can help him get a grip on life, so he doesn’t become a walking security threat. Some we’ve been able to help resume their education, which is great, because then they have something to keep them occupied. These are intelligent, young folks—most of them.
What’s your impression of the returnees?
Some have been totally stripped of extremism, while others are still radicalized. Some wanted to make a difference in Syria, but were disillusioned by the uphill situation. One came back just saying he wanted his old life back, that he’d made a mistake.
I’m sure you also have to consider whether they pose a threat to their community?
We’re very upfront about it. We let them know that we hope to help them, but that doesn’t change the fact that we’re keeping PET [the Danish military intelligence service] in the loop about their status.
Doesn’t that compromise the therapeutic process?
Surprisingly not. The fact that we’re open about our position seems to foster respect more than anything else.
Do you help the returnees with health problems too?
Yes. We help them to queue up properly within the Danish healthcare system. Some have PTSD, others have physical injuries. One was shot.
Many of them must have PTSD, right?
Well, research suggests that those of serious faith aren’t affected as much by being in a war zone. In our experience, the returnees aren’t as afflicted as others might have been.
That's surprising. What kind of results have you had with the program?
We’ve established a dialogue with certain communities, who are realizing they need to work with authorities on this. They’re very well aware of how it would affect their community if a returnee from Syria committed terrorism at home. So our efforts almost benefit integration. And we’re helping these kids, of course.
Has it decreased the number of men traveling to Syria?
There’s fewer traveling to Syria now compared to last year. We can’t say whether it’s thanks to our efforts, or just that the situation has become worse in general. But since we started a dialogue with the mosque on Grimhøjvej, close to none with relations to the place have traveled to Syria.
Al Jazeera calls your efforts a “soft-hands approach." Do you see any risks in a softer approach?
I wouldn’t call it that. It makes it sound like we’re giving out prizes to people who’ve committed murder in Syria. No, it’s a dialogue-based approach where we look for alternative ways to prevent crime. The debate at home is sometimes too much about punishing as many people as possible, instead of actually preventing crime in Denmark. Our methods are not the only way to go about the problems, but they are a great, cheap supplement.
How do you feel about the more conservative solutions, like confiscating passports?
It might have an effect, but it won’t solve the problem. You can’t punish your way out of people being willing to risk their lives in Syria.Ivanka and Donald Trump in September. Mark Makela/Getty Images
First daughter Ivanka Trump is set to assume a "voluntary" position in the White House described as her father's "eyes and ears," but experts say it could put the Trump administration in questionable ethical territory.
She will get an office in the West Wing, security clearance, and government communications devices, all while maintaining ownership of her eponymous fashion and jewelry brand.
The latest move by Trump's White House has some legal ethics experts wondering whether the administration has breached boundaries that govern conduct in the country's highest office.
Ivanka Trump has long been a trusted adviser to her father, from her capacity as executive vice president of real-estate development and acquisition in the Trump Organization, to her past involvement in Trump's administration.
Before her arrival in the West Wing, Ivanka participated in a number of events with the president, including meetings with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe; trips with the president and his cabinet members; bill signings in the Oval Office; and meetings in the West Wing.
Trump's decision to further involve Ivanka in his inner circle, reported on Monday, is already raising red flags for scholars who have voiced concern over the first daughter's growing influence in her father's administration.
Gary Cameron/Reuters
A gray area
The first and most frequently raised question is whether the Trump White House is flouting antinepotism laws by giving his daughter an office in the West Wing. The federal antinepotism statute prohibits public officials — including the president — from appointing relatives to positions in agencies over which they preside.
Based on the text of the law, one might think it would be illegal for the president to give his daughter - and his son-in-law Jared Kushner - a position in the White House.
However, whether this administration has crossed a line is still a gray area that goes back to a 24-year-old judicial ruling involving Hillary Clinton when she was first lady. At the time, President Bill Clinton appointed Hillary to head up a healthcare task force. After a lawsuit brought by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons against Hillary Clinton, two federal judges ruled that the federal antinepotism statute did not apply to the White House in the same way it did to other federal or executive agencies.
In other words, "it appears based on [the ruling] that certain positions in the White House may not be considered [executive-agency] positions" because the White House hasn't always been classified as an agency, "which is what the law was limited to," said Scott Amey, a lawyer at the Project on Government Oversight.
"We doubt that Congress intended to include the White House or the Executive Office of the President" within the constraints of the antinepotism law, Judge Laurence Silberman wrote in the 1993 ruling involving Hillary Clinton.
He added: "So, for example, a President would be barred from appointing his brother as Attorney General, but perhaps not as a White House special assistant... The anti-nepotism statute, moreover, may well bar appointment only to paid positions in government."
Though it's been disputed by legal scholars, the 1993 decision could have paved the way for Trump to appoint his son-in-law Jared Kushner to a White House position, and it may apply in Ivanka's situation as well, particularly because she will not be a paid government employee, and the judges' interpretation of the law stipulates that it may apply only to paid positions.
The Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel, which serves as an interpreter of federal law as it applies to the president, decided in 1972 that the antinepotism statute covered the White House in the same way as it did federal agencies, thereby preventing former President Richard Nixon from appointing a relative to his White House staff.
However, the day after Trump was sworn in, the OLC changed its decision to exclude White House staff from the statute, saying in a legal opinion that the president "enjoys an unusual degree of freedom" when selecting his staff, "which Congress found suitable to the demands of his office." It pointed to a separate 1995 ruling by the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, which said the antinepotism law's definition of an executive agency did not include the executive residence of the White House.
"It doesn't make much sense to exclude the White House from an antinepotism statute, but that's the law's interpretation as it stands," said Jon Michaels, an expert on the government, constitutional law, and national-security law at the UCLA School of Law. "Why exempt White House staff from the law when they're part of the federal government?"
He added that things are further complicated by the fact that Ivanka, unlike Kushner, is serving in a voluntary capacity and will not hold an official title, nor receive a salary.
But calling it "voluntary" could raise other ethical and legal questions about Ivanka's role. The Antideficiency Act is a 1982 law that prohibits federal employees from, among other things, accepting voluntary services rendered to the US, except in cases involving the safety of human life or the protection of property.
REUTERS/Gary Cameron
An 'open question'
Given that she will hold no official position nor receive any compensation from the government, Ivanka's role may be classified as a voluntary service, Michaels said, and could be in violation of the Antideficiency Act, depending on how the law is interpreted.
"It's an open question on whether you can volunteer in the White House," Amey said. "Other agencies can't have volunteers, but again, it can get down to the definition of agency and some other terms."
Perhaps anticipating the questions that would be raised when she began working in the White House, Ivanka highlighted that she would "voluntarily comply" with ethics rules that would apply if she were a government employee.
Being a volunteer, however, may allow Ivanka to be exempt from the same ethical standards as White House staff. Paid employees are bound by a number of provisions involving ethics and transparency, as well as laws prohibiting conflicts of interest.
"By not becoming a government employee, it makes it easier to avoid nepotism laws and exist outside the scope of ethics laws. She can comply voluntarily, and she can theoretically decide not to if it suits her," Michaels said.
The Department of Justice and the Office of Government Ethics should weigh in on whether or not Ivanka should serve in the West Wing and how best to manage any conflicts of interest regarding the law, Amey added.
The Associated Press reported that government watchdogs are already concerned about the "middle space" created by a voluntary position in the White House. To voice their concerns, they sent a letter to White House counsel Don McGahn, signed by two former White House lawyers and three transparency advocates, urging him to reconsider the appropriateness of Ivanka working in the White House. A spokeswoman said her role was approved by the White House counsel's office and that ethical conflict issues were "worked through" with the OGE.
"We addressed the appropriate way to approach the ethics issues deriving from Ivanka Trump's assets," Ivanka's laywer, Jamie Gorelick, told Business Insider.
A spokesperson for the OGE told Business Insider that "the OGE was essentially notified of the general contours of her plan." Notification, however, is not the same as formulating and approving a plan to avoid ethical issues.
Donald Trump with Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump in January 2016. John Minchillo/AP
'Officially unofficial'
The first daughter's appointment to an informal position in her father's administration could be extending the executive branch's power beyond what Congress intended and threaten the separation-of-powers doctrine.
Congress maintains power of the purse, meaning that it provides funding for White House staff and appointments.
"If those funds are insufficient for what the president wants... if he wants more power or more personnel, he has to ask Congress," Michaels said.
He added: "If you're soliciting or accepting voluntary services, you're empowering the executive branch beyond what the legislative branch intended."
Of all the questions raised by Ivanka's appointment in the Trump administration, the most important one is, what exactly will Ivanka's responsibilities be?
We don't know much about Ivanka's role, other than that she will function as her father's "eyes and ears" in the White House.
"She is intending to spend some time on initiatives that she cares about, particularly with regard to women in the workplace," Gorelick said in an NPR interview.
It is unclear to what capacity Ivanka will be involved in meetings with foreign diplomats and leaders, or how much she will be involved in policy debates and legislation. That ambiguity has some scholars concerned.
Ivanka's role is "officially unofficial" and breaches ethical standards while threatening national security, wrote Susan Hennessey and Klein Murillo in an op-ed for the Chicago Tribune. Murillo is a Lawfare contributor and editor of the Harvard Law Review, and Hennessey is a national-security fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former lawyer for the National Security Agency.
"My biggest concern is that this is yet another erosion of government ethics standards in this White House," Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University in St Louis and a specialist in government ethics, told NPR.
In the event that Ivanka's or anyone else's role in the White House is found to be unethical or a legal violation, it's unclear whether it would be prosecuted in the courts, which are typically more likely to hear cases in which there is evidence of damage or injury to one party. In a case like this, they may consider the issue a political conflict and decline to hold a hearing.
"A lot of these things are settled practice and no one has come close to [crossing a line]," Michaels said. "But now we're [testing the limits] pretty often, and all these legal questions that haven't been tested much are becoming important."(CNN) -- Apparently lying face down is all it takes to create an Internet phenomenon.
An obscure activity called "planking" is garnering international exposure after an Australian man fell to his death last week while attempting to take part in the online fad.
Planking takes its name from how players mimic a wooden board by lying rigid -- preferably in a public place or on an unusual spot, such as a washing machine, a sign or a railing. The point is to post a wacky planking photo online. But Acton Beale, the 20-year-old Aussie who fell seven stories while planking on a high-rise balcony, upped the ante to fatal consequences, police said.
While some have expressed disapproval, including the Australian police and prime minister, the spotlight has helped the activity reach a wider audience.
All the recent attention has sparked a flood of fresh planking photos, as well as YouTube clips of television-news anchors face down on their desks.
Diplo, a popular electronic-music DJ, wrote on Twitter: "planking right now." A spokesperson for Honey Bunches of Oats (yes, the cereal) promoted safe planking in a message on its blog Monday.
"It's the most fun you can have being still," Sam Smith, from Australia, wrote on Facebook.
You could waste hours clicking through the photos posted on the Planking page on Facebook, which has more than 180,000 members. There are plenty more to be found in the planking tag pages on Tumblr and Flickr, and they're also showing up on CNN iReport.
Among the gems: a woman lying on a bar, a man planking across the humps of two live camels' backs, a group face-down on an escalator, a woman on Kmart shopping carts, and a guy prone across the shelves of a convenience-store refrigerator.
The concept has been around for at least a decade, according to an English duo which takes credit for its invention and was profiled in a 2009 column in the Toronto Star. Then, it was called the Lying Down Game. (Not exactly a catchy name.)
The pair created a Facebook group and a website -- which smartly has a disclaimer: "The originators of the Lying Down Game cannot be held liable for any accidents, injuries or criminal proceedings." Tens of thousands subscribe to public pages celebrating the game.
The subject came to light in September 2009 when seven medical professionals in England were suspended for playing the Lying Down Game on the job. A superior had spotted the pictures after they had been posted to Facebook.
Plankers say the activity is generally harmless fun -- though that idea was challenged last week. Some even refer to it, tongue-in-cheek, as a type of alternative sport.
"Planking is an extreme sport which requires years of constant training to perfect the complex technique," wrote Jake Mason on the Planking Facebook page.
The game hasn't won over everyone, and those opposed are especially vocal. A bunch of anti-planking pages have sprung up on Facebook.
"Is it really that hard to find something to do with our time?" Shannon Lynch, an art student in California, posted on her Facebook page. "Maybe we should start a craze about picking up litter."
Others are just offended that the media circus has plucked their hobby from obscurity. Steve Molk, a radio personality in Brisbane, Australia, declares that planking has "jumped the shark."
Hopefully that won't give anyone ideas about planking an actual shark.THE TRUCK IS HAPPENING!
You guys made this happen! Taharka Brothers thanks everyone from the bottom of our hearts. Baltimorians hear this: You will see our pinkness around our fine city! Brothers from another mother out there: know that your generosity is making the world a colder and tastier place!
Although we reached our goal, people can still make a pledge. We would like to create a cool app that will allow people to track the truck location, get information on events, and be able to give feedback on your experience at the truck, etc. This will allow you to be connected to us ALL the time! So family please keep pushing to the end!
THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU and you will get photos when this baby is street worthy! HAPPY SUMMER!
Your Big Brothers,
Taharka Brothers
WHY A TRUCK?
We have a sizable presence in Baltimore due to our product being sold in over 60+ establishments, but our message of empowerment is felt very little in the streets deep within hoods that need us most. We need your help to change this. Once street ready, we'll be taking our message and cold goodness to block parties, political events, school dances, musical festivals, outdoor screenings and every thing in between. Help us get to our goal! We need to rehab this vehicle, the "green machine"(see video above), and turn it into a bad-ass "vehicle for change" ice cream truck to take our work of combining social change, community activism, and award-winning ice cream directly to the people in the streets of Baltimore.
THE TAHARKA BROTHERS STORY
Back in '10 we were talking about the lack of job opportunities for young black men in Baltimore. We discussed the idea of owning our own business and paving our own path. We, repping various parts of a city steeped in struggle, thought hard about friends, families, futures, hopes, 'hoods and heroes. We asked ourselves some hard questions. Could we promote peace, social and economic justice to the people of Baltimore through starting our own business? Could we make a good living and have BIG fun? We thought on things that have inspired us like the election of the first black man to the White House and the sung and unsung human rights warriors who have made our world a |
, who now does play by play for FOX’s NASCAR coverage, compares Irvan’s win to Kevin Harvick’s win for Richard Childress Racing three weeks after Dale Earnhardt died and Jeff Gordon’s win in the first race at the Brickyard and last career win at Martinsville.
“It felt RIGHT,” Joy says via email. “Fitting, redemption, validation, relief, all yes. Historic? Moreso now than then.”
In the years since, Irvan’s win has come to represent what Irvan’s friends love about him — toughness, resilience and speed. “The victory at Michigan in ’97 really just closed a chapter on everything that happened that day in Michigan, all of the hard work and effort and will to live and will to compete again that Ernie had,” Doug Yates says. “That was gratifying for him, of course. But it was also gratifying for my dad and myself and everybody on the team. It gave some closure to that tough day that we had there in 1994. This was really a guy fighting for his life and fighting to do what he loved and validating he was one of the best ever to sit in a NASCAR race car.”
WRECKED, THEN RECOVERY
On Aug. 20, 1999, five years to the day after the wreck that almost killed him, Irvan had another bad wreck at Michigan. “He spun out and hit driver’s side flat against the wall,” Reno says. “His helmet had a dent in it from the roll bar, like an inch and three quarter. It looked like someone took a pipe and hit him with it.”
The impact knocked Irvan unconscious, and he was transported again to a hospital. While his injuries were less dramatic than the first Michigan wreck, they proved to be career ending.
After retiring, Irvan started the Race2Safety Foundation and ran it for a few years to promote head injury awareness. One of the foundation’s major fund-raising events was a track walk at Michigan, at which donors could walk a lap around the track that nearly killed him … then gave him one of the most memorable wins in NASCAR history … then ended his career.
As the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series races on Sunday at Michigan (3 p.m. ET, NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), Irvan will move into his new home in Florida. Somewhere deep in his moving truck will be that Michigan trophy. When he takes it out of the box and puts it up in his new trophy room, he will think again of those three incredible days at Michigan — two terrible wrecks sandwiched around an unbelievable win.
The strongest emotion he will feel is gratitude. Long ago, he decided to see his Michigan glass as half full instead of half empty. Yes, he got hurt, badly. But he prefers to be thankful there was a doctor positioned in the turn and thankful the track had a helicopter on standby during practice.
Take either one of those away, and he would have died in the seat of his No. 28 Thunderbird.
“I was very lucky because they had everything they needed to save my life,” he says.It’s the 100th episode of Cult Film in Review and for this episode, we’re doing a little something special. For this centennial segment, we discuss the movies and genres that had the biggest impact on our lives. Also, we ask which of the other 99 films we’ve reviewed have made the most lasting effect on us. Do any of the guys want to change their reviews? But it wouldn’t be an episode of Cult Film in Review if we didn’t get to reviewing some cult films- and this time we have a real classic! It’s Escape From New York, the John Carpenter masterpiece starring the one and only eyed Kurt Russell. As with most John Carpenter films, we can’t help but discuss the maestro himself. Also, we talk about what Carpenter does best- zombie movies!
Don’t miss an episode. Subscribe on iTunes!
You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @cultfilm_reviewMedia distribution service Crunchyroll announced on Friday that it will stream the television anime adaptation of author Ipyao and artist Yūjirō Koyama's Tonkatsu DJ Agetaro ( Tonkatsu DJ Agetarou ) manga as it airs in Japan. The first episode will premiere on April 10 at 11:45 a.m. EDT.
The stream will be available in the United States., Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Iceland, Netherlands, Latin America (Central and South America including Caribbean), Germany and German-speaking Europe
The anime will premiere in Japan on Tokyo MX on April 10 at 10:15 p.m. and will also air on Yomiuri TV, Chukyo TV, and BS11.
Akitaro Daichi (Sexy Commando Gaiden: Sugoi yo!! Masaru-san, Fruits Basket) is directing the anime at Studio DEEN (Fate/stay night, Reikenzan: Hoshikuzu-tachi no Utage, Umineko - When They Cry). Daisuke Fujiwara of MU-STARS will produce the music.
The gag manga follows Agetarō Katsumata, a stupid but honest guy whose family has run a tonkatsu (breaded pork cutlet) restaurant for three generations. He's also a beginner club DJ.By Carl M. Cannon - July 13, 2014
President Obama is a political trailblazer, but some of the precedents he’s setting are highly dubious. At the top of my list would be his habit of relentlessly berating his political opponents at the same time he’s asking for their help.
Convinced that the huge recent influx of undocumented women and children from Central America requires an emergency federal response, Obama asked last week for nearly $4 billion in emergency funds from Congress. But even while making this supplemental request, Obama couldn’t resist relentlessly mocking the very House Republicans whose votes he needs.
“This should not be hard,” Obama explained dismissively. “Congress just needs to pass the supplemental.”
It’s a novel way of asking people for money, and it produced predictable results.
“If we don't secure the border, nothing’s going to change,” replied House Speaker John Boehner. Added Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell: “What he appears to be asking for is a blank check, one that would allow him to sustain his current failed policy.”
So much for biting the hand that you want to feed you. Then there were those pesky critics who had the temerity to suggest that if the president could go to Texas to raise money for Democrats, surely he could visit the border region and see the immigration crisis first-hand. Obama had scornful words for them, too.
“This isn’t theater,” he said. “I’m not interested in photo ops. I’m interested in solving a problem.”
If we stipulate that the president is sincerely concerned with addressing the issue, we can also acknowledge that this is a man intensely interested in photo ops. It seems like an obsession, actually. For five years, White House image-makers put out hundreds of pictures of Obama engaged in non-problem-solving activities:
Obama sitting (alone) in a bus seat made famous by Rosa Parks, eating hot dogs with David Cameron, walking arm-in-arm with Bruce Springsteen, striking a Superman post in front of a statue of Superman, embracing Bowe Bergdahl’s parents, and affecting a pensive pose in Nelson Mandela’s old prison cell. Obama even snapped a selfie at Mandela’s funeral—and the White House released that, too.
His statement deriding photo ops was made the same day the official White House website featured a photograph of Obama shooting pool in a beer hall with Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper—the very definition of a photo op.
The president’s defenders countered that all modern presidents do this kind of thing, and that Obama hadn’t said he was against all photo opportunities—just one on Texas’ border with Mexico. Both assertions are true enough, but the problem is that such feelings of forbearance on the part of liberals—including then-Sen. Obama—didn’t extend to the previous occupant of the Oval Office in a similar circumstance.
On Monday, Aug. 29, 2005, when Hurricane Katrina made landfall, George W. Bush was in Southern California. He’d traveled there from his Crawford, Tex., ranch near the end of a 30-day working vacation, stopping briefly in Arizona. These weren’t fundraisers, either. Bush was scheduled at senior citizens centers to draw attention to a recently - enacted prescription drug benefit. Then he was heading to San Diego to observe the 60th anniversary of VJ Day.
As he learned details of the storm’s extensive damage, Bush offered prayers and pledges of federal aid. “I want the folks there on the Gulf Coast to know that the federal government is prepared to help you when the storm passes,” he said. When more grim news about New Orleans reached them, White House officials cut short their trip and flew to Crawford a day early before heading to Washington.
On his way to the nation’s capital, Bush directed the Air Force One to fly low over the flooded areas. To his critics, this was a clueless act, and somehow callous.
“The president's 35-minute Air Force One flyover of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama was the perfect metaphor for his entire presidency: detached, disconnected, and disengaged,” wrote Arianna Huffington.
Hollywood activist Michael Moore was even nastier. “I know you didn't want to interrupt your vacation... plus, you had fundraisers to go to and mothers of dead soldiers to ignore and smear,” he wrote.
Rapper Kanye West claimed that the government’s response to the disaster showed that Bush “doesn’t care about black people.”
In hindsight, little of this seems fair. What Bush saw as he flew over the battered region shocked him. The next day, he publicly pledged $10.5 billion in federal aid, enlisted his father and Bill Clinton to help in recovery efforts, and spoke about the tragedy from the Rose Garden. The next day, he headed down there, where he literally put his arms around shell-shocked survivors, many of them black people. Bush returned again in mid-September and made a nationally televised address from Jackson Square in New Orleans.
When he ran for president, then-Sen. Barack Obama seemed to forget all that. All he cared to recall was the flyover, which is more than he’s done on the Texas border this year.
“We can talk about what happened for two days in 2005, and we should,” Obama said on Feb. 7, 2008, while campaigning in Louisiana. “We can talk about levees that couldn’t hold, a FEMA that seemed not just incompetent but paralyzed and powerless, about a president who only saw the people from the window of an airplane instead of down here on the ground.”
Although Obama probably doesn’t have to go to the border personally to be an effective leader, he may owe George W. Bush an apology.+1 Share Pin 1 Shares
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My shower is broken. The water comes out just fine, and it doesn't leak. But the temperature control is busted, so it only comes out at one temperature: as hot as it gets.
Here's the embarrassing part: It's been like this for a year.
Frugal or lazy?
When the temperature thingy broke (and here you see that household plumbing is not my strong suit — a year after this thingy broke, I still don't know what it's called), I made some small adjustments. I went downstairs right away and lowered the temperature on the water heater so that the water coming out would be hot but not scalding. That means no super-hot water anywhere in the house, but since we have small children I was keeping it on the low side anyway.
I let my husband know what had happened, and he declared that he would fix it himself. Household plumbing kind of is his strong suit; he fixed a similar problem with the shower at our old house. It's kind of a difficult job, though, so I offered to have a plumber come in just to spare him the hassle. No, he insisted, he was up for doing it. Just not right away.
Then the task kind of got lost in his chore cloud. We grit our teeth and take hot showers. Every night when the kids take their bath, they make a game of dumping a few buckets of cold water into the tub to get it to the right temperature.
For months I've been embarrassed by this state of affairs. What kind of real grown-up lets a basic household repair go for a year? Clearly, my husband and I are being irresponsible ignoring the broken thingy.
Then yesterday morning, while taking a shower, I thought, “Maybe we're not being lazy and irresponsible. Maybe we're being frugal.” After all, the broken thingy isn't getting any worse. It's not leaking into the walls or damaging the house. It just makes showering extra hot. So far, we've done a fine job of making it do, leaving us free to put our money and time into other things.
Frugality is about choices
Now, I'm not suggesting that frugality is about ignoring regular home maintenance. One of these days, we'll fix the shower. (And probably soon now that I've confessed to the world that it's busted.)
What I am suggesting is that frugality is about making choices. Every frugal person focuses on what's important to them, and cuts away the excess to do so. In this case, experience shows that being able to adjust the water temperature in our shower isn't very important to my family. We'd rather spend our weekends playing music and gardening than get into this messy, time-consuming repair project. I could hire a plumber to do it, but I'd rather spend the money on yoga classes or a family camping trip. These fun things might seem like trivial luxuries next to the shower repair, but the truth is they add more to my quality of life than being able to adjust the temperature in my shower.
I suspect that every frugal person makes some odd choices like this one.
J.D.'s note: I think so, too. Our clothes washer has a broken knob, for instance. Over the past five years, we — by which I mean Kris — have used a pair of pliers to select the laundry cycle. When we bought this house, the windows were caulked shut. They stayed that way until we could budget to fix them. And so on.
One of the tricks of frugal living is to recognize that with careful planning and savings, you can have anything you want but you can't have everything you want. Making a commitment to conscientious, intentional personal money management means making some choices. You need to develop the skill of discerning what best serves your goals, and keeping your spending and attention focused on those things.
Another part of being frugal is being able to pare back your sense of what you need. My former, spendthrift self would have fixed the shower immediately, the next day, even if it meant paying the plumber with a credit card to do it. I'd have seen it as a need. I would also have needed to immediately replace several kitchen gadgets that broke over the winter, and to take my bike to the shop for a spring tune-up.
There's nothing wrong with doing any of those things. It's not spendthrift to fix a shower or replace a vegetable steamer. But nowhere is it written that they're mandatory either. I've been getting clean just fine with a broken shower, cooking up a storm without those kitchen gadgets, and safely riding the bike that I maintain myself. Turns out, I don't really need any of that stuff.
In contrast, I've been going to yoga classes three or four times a week. I paid for these with a deeply discounted Groupon, but I'll probably buy a full-price membership when that runs out. Yoga is expensive. A few years ago I would have considered it an unaffordable luxury to pay for yoga classes. I could just do yoga workout tapes at home. Even a few months ago when I made it a New Year's resolution to get back into yoga, I was unwilling to spend money on this studio. Now that I've tried it, though, I see what a big difference it makes to my quality of life. It seems like a bargain. I'm calmer and happier — more focused. Not only are those good things in themselves, but they support my career. I'm doing more and better writing because I'm so healthy. That translates to more money. I could argue that the yoga classes pay for themselves.
For me, this gets at the core of frugal living: realigning all my spending to fit with my values. At first glance, the shower seemed like an essential, basic home repair. For me, it turns out, fixing it is really a luxury. I haven't done it yet because it doesn't directly support any of my financial or personal goals. I won't be a better writer after it's fixed, nor will I be closer to living debt-free. As long as we can make it do, getting it fixed is really an extra. One we haven't decided to indulge in yet.
How to make frugal choices
The mechanics of conscious spending are pretty simple. Before you buy anything, ask yourself some simple questions:
Do I have the money to cover this expense, or would I be going into debt for it?
Does this expense forward my financial goals?
Can I get this need or desire met without spending money on it? Could I spend less money?
Does this money need to be spent now, or can it wait thirty days?
These questions can be very useful for curbing impulse buys and keeping you focused on financial goals. I'm finding they can also help with less obvious resource sinks.
In getting ready to plant my garden, for example, I found that several of my large pots had broken during the winter. My first thought was that I needed to replace them, right now. On second thought, I was able to dig up a bunch of old plastic storage bins that will serve perfectly well as replacement containers for my garden. They're not as pretty as new flower pots, but they were already here. Now I've got less clutter, more money, and a garden that's ready to plant.
The core motto of frugal living is “use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without”. How you'll choose to live that motto is up to you. It's important to question every expense and ask yourself how necessary it really is. Sometimes, the answers will surprise you.
J.D.'s tangential note: You have no idea how excited I am that after all these years, I'm finally able to link to my You have no idea how excited I am that after all these years, I'm finally able to link to my chore cloud concept. The chore-cloud is well-known among my friends, who find it amusing, but I've never found a way to bring it up at GRS. Now my life is complete.
Author: Sierra Black Sierra Black has spent most of her life broke, no matter how much or how little she earned. She started turning that around two years ago with some radical life changes like moving, shifting careers and committing to buying nothing new. Sierra and her family live in the Boston area. Sustaining a family of five on one salary has led to some creative frugal maneuvers over the years, especially living in an expensive urban area. She’s learned how to make a $1 family meal, cut her heating bills in half and save thousands of dollars on travel, clothing and fun. When Sierra isn’t working magic on her family’s finances, she writes about personal finance, sustainable living and parenting.NEW DELHI — India’s lower house of Parliament voted in a raucous session on Wednesday evening to support the government’s decision to allow Walmart and other major retailers to set up shop here.
The nationally televised debate featured some of India’s best orators and most powerful politicians in a high-profile fight that could serve as the opening bell for a series of elections that start next week in the western state of Gujarat. The elections will culminate in 2014 when control over India’s central government will be determined.
Television cameras routinely focused on Sonia Gandhi, a scion of the country’s most powerful family, as she nodded or frowned during crucial portions of the debate. Mrs. Gandhi is the president of the Indian National Congress Party, the dominant member of a coalition that has controlled the central government since 2004.
In September, the government had approved several changes, one of which provided for increased foreign investment in India’s retail sector, the policy under debate Wednesday.
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Those changes were cheered by investors and foreign governments but have been contentious in India, where decades of paternalistic and protectionist economic policies still garner considerable support. India’s once fast-growing economy has slowed considerably this year, and the government is hoping the measures will help jump-start growth.
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While it riveted the nation, the debate had more symbolic than practical importance. The government had announced that it would go forward with its decision to open foreign investment regardless of how Parliament voted. It won Wednesday’s vote, 253 to 218, partly because members of two of its allied parties, whose leaders said they opposed the policy, were among the more than 40 members of the lower chamber who walked out before the voting, largely to deny a victory to the opposition. Prospects for approval in the upper house of Parliament are less certain.MALACAÑANG PALACE — President Rodrigo Duterte announced his “groundbreaking” solution to the controversy following his erroneous announcement last Wednesday that the chief of police in Malabang Town, Lanao Del Sur, was beheaded by the terrorists involved in the Marawi Clash.
Police Senior Inspector Romeo Enriquez told the Philippine Inquirer by phone last Thursday that he was “still alive.”
“Let’s put this military intel issue to rest. There’s a simple solution, you know? I will call my cousins in ISIS,” said Duterte in an emergency press conference on Saturday evening, referring to the relatives he previously announced to be members of the terrorist group.
“I’m sorry, tao lang ako. (I am only human) We all make these mistakes, you know? I have the P2 Billion intelligence fund. Why make our lives harder? You have this, you know, simple solution. I’ll just pick up the phone.”
The Philippine Government previously allotted an intelligence gathering fund of P2.5 Billion for 2017 after Duterte assumed office, a move questioned by lawmakers and the public alike.
“We are Filipinos, after all. Even if you work for the ISIS. This, you know – our family relations should transcend the religion and the politics,” added the President.
General Eduardo Año, AFP Chief of Staff, could only shake his head in disbelief when interviewed for comment by SGRP after the press conference.
Meanwhile, Assistant Communications Secretary Mocha Uson decried the controversy caused by the President’s Wednesday announcement, insisting that Senior Insp. Enriquez was “actually dead,” and that the Inquirer interviewed a “fake account na bayaran ng yellow tae.” (paid by the Liberal Party)
“Bahagi lang ito ng plot ni Fake VP Leni, De Lima, Trillanes, at pang yellow tae na i-destabilize ang Pilipinas. Mag-ingat, mga ka-DDS!,” urged Uson.
Report by Malacañang Press Corpse.Attacks and insults on German Jews driven by Muslim youths have together forced a Jewish community to cease wearing the traditional skullcap, according to a local report.
Members of a small Jewish community in the industrial city of Bochum will no longer wear individual kippahs (yarmulkes) because they draw attacks from Muslim youths, they announced earlier this month.
According to the Jerusalem Post, German news outlet Radio Bochum first reported a Jewish community member advising locals to stop wearing kippot in public because they are routinely faced with insults on public streets after being identified as Jews. Bochum is in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of nearly 365,000 and a Jewish community numbering over 1,000.
“Muslim youths attacked people of the Jewish faith,” read the article cited by the Post in its report. It also carried the warning, “Germans more than any other people in Europe should understand what starts with the Jews never ends with the Jews,” made by Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
This is not the first time concerns for the safety of German Jews have been placed on the public record.
As Breitbart Jerusalem reported, in July the German government was accused of abandoning its Jewish community to sink beneath a surging tide of anti-Semitism that left parts of the country allegedly unsafe for Jews.
Josef Schuster, the president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, made the call. He lamented a lack of action by the German government combined with mass, unfettered immigration from Muslim countries as being key contributors to the plight felt by the nation’s Jewish community.
“In some districts in major cities, I’d advise people not to identify themselves as Jews,” Mr. Schuster said in an interview with the Bild am Sonntag newspaper. “Experience has shown that openly wearing a kippa or a necklace with the Star of David is enough to attract verbal or physical threats.”
He pointed to Muslim immigrants who come from cultures with zero tolerance for Jews as a particular threat.This is a fundamental course on understanding the basic concepts of Mobile computing. The tutorials will help you understand Fundamentals of Mobile computing, modulation techniques and GSM architecture.
21m | 3 Videos | 34058 Views | All Levels 21m |3 Videos |All Levels
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About the Mobile Computing Course:
Mobile Computing is a technology that allows transmission of data, voice and video via a computer or any other wireless enabled device without having to be connected to a fixed physical link.Through this course we are going to learn about mobile computing with its practical applications.
What each Sections cover:
The course starts right from scratch wherein you would understand the fundamentals of Mobile computing which includes its applications- health care application, history of wireless communication, modulation techniques, types of modulations, multiplexing, code division multiplexing, GSM overview, GSM architecture, mobile network layer, network layer – role, mobile IP – overview.
Next we will in detail understand the meaning, importance and usage of Wireless Communication, Cellular Systems, GSM Architecture, Mobile Network Layer, Mobile Transport Layer, Wireless LAN, Satellite Communication, Third Generation and Forth generation mobile communication systems and Security aspects and recent developments in mobile computing.
Who is the Target Audience?
Students
Anyone who is interested in learning mobile computing
What are the Pre-Requisites?
Analytical mind
Passion to learn
What is the Course Objective?
Provide insight to mobile computing and its recent developments
It provides an overview of Third Generation and Forth generation mobile communication systems
Back to top ^The Minneapolis accounting firm CliftonLarsonAllen will pay Dixon, Ill., $35 million for failing to detect an embezzlement scheme by the city’s former comptroller that lasted two decades and involved $53 million.
According to court documents and the city’s attorney, auditors for the firm let millions of dollars leave city coffers without adequate oversight and standard accounting tests.
Dixon, a small city in northwest Illinois best known as the boyhood home of Ronald Reagan, over the years postponed street repaving, the purchase of new police radios and other projects, its attorney said.
“It’s shocking. It’s negligence,” said Devon Bruce, the attorney for the city. He added, “After 20 years, the irony is that it wasn’t college-trained accountants that caught this $53 million embezzlement, it was the city clerk.”
Terms of a lawsuit settlement were negotiated over the weekend in Chicago by attorneys for the city and CliftonLarsonAllen as well as another accounting firm and a bank.
Earlier this year, the comptroller who steered the millions to personal accounts, Rita Crundwell, was sentenced to a 19½-year prison term after pleading guilty to theft of city funds.
In a prepared statement, CliftonLarsonAllen said “reaching a fair settlement for taxpayers is important” to the firm.
“We believe there was a shared responsibility that resulted in Ms. Crundwell’s fraud continuing undetected, and the right thing to do is reduce the harm experienced by the taxpayers of Dixon and put this matter behind us,” said CEO Gordon Viere.
The company said a “substantial portion” of its settlement payment will be covered by insurance.
CliftonLarsonAllen formed in January 2012 through the merger of Minneapolis-based LarsonAllen and Milwaukee-based Clifton Gunderson, which had been doing the auditing work for Dixon since 1988.
Crundwell was arrested in April 2012, a few months after that merger. According to court documents, Crundwell set up a fictitious bank account and funneled proceeds to it to fund a lavish lifestyle and operate a horse-breeding operation.
In addition to CliftonLarsonAllen, Dixon will receive $1 million from the accounting firm Janis Card Associates, which did some of the city’s later audits, and nearly $4 million from Fifth Third Bank, where Crundwell set up her fictitious account.
The Dixon civic scandal might tarnish the reputation of CliftonLarsonAllen at least in the short run, said Rose McKinney, president of Anoka-based Pineapple RM, a reputation-management consultant. “It can raise questions and may make folks question the competency they get, and that can have a ripple effect,” McKinney said.
She said the accounting firm needs to be transparent in its handling of the Dixon situation, including its announcement that “services to city governments are now led by personnel with specialized knowledge and experience in serving public bodies, increasing the likelihood that such fraud will be detected promptly.”Mark Zuckerberg has revealed one of his deepest-held anxieties—and it apparently is not that the social platform he runs may have enabled Russia to increase its insidious influence on the 2016 US presidential election.
No, his concern is something much more personal. He doesn’t want people to think he’s being inauthentic on Facebook.
Zuckerberg’s highly-trafficked Facebook page mixes family photos, philanthropic call-outs, information about new products, and even the occasional political debate. As Bloomberg Businessweek revealed in January, Zuckerberg’s own page—which might appear arbitrary at times—is carefully curated and managed by more than a dozen employees:
Typically, a handful of Facebook employees manage communications just for him, helping write his posts and speeches, while an additional dozen or so delete harassing comments and spam on his page, say two people familiar with the matter. Facebook also has professional photographers snap Zuckerberg, say, taking a run in Beijing or reading to his daughter.
In a recent interview with the same publication about the platform’s fake-news problem, Zuckerberg brought up that very article:
[Zuckerberg] smiles and then says, “I need to give you a hard time.” He proceeds to complain about a Bloomberg Businessweek story in January that noted he employs a team of about a dozen content moderators—as well as communications managers, professional photographers, video producers, Morgan Freeman—who are all responsible for maintaining his personal Facebook page. “You’re taking away from all the time that I spent on this,” he says. At first it seems he’s being playful, but his expression hardens as he continues, his voice rising. “I also have an assistant who helped set up this meeting,” he says. “Does that mean I don’t do the meeting?” He continues: “My takeaway from that piece is, like, this”—meaning everything he posts on Facebook—“isn’t authentic. And that, I just felt, wasn’t accurate.”
While the anecdote is small, it’s a telling moment for the chief executive, who clearly values being perceived as authentic—and understandably so. Should he ever run for political office, for example, how authentic the public perceives him to be will undoubtedly become an even more pertinent question.Eminent Domain continues to stand the test of time for my table, and never ceases to please new players as well. The role selection element of this game is really fantastic. Game Play Quality Price Value
Eminent Domain is a pretty good game in its own right, and it plays really well with 2! Its an excellent choice for newer gamers too. I have a couple of reservations though.
Eminent Domain brings together a few elements that I like in games. Its a deck builder of sorts; on your turn, you choose a role to lead by taking the related card from the board. There are 5: survey (draw new planets), colonize (peacefully make a planet yours), warfare (colonize, but with force), trade/produce (allows you to produce goods on planets that allow it, or sell said goods), and research (purchase technology cards). Leading a role allows you to add an additional card of that role to your deck. Additionally, it has cards that have more than one use, which I love. Each card you have can be used as an action, or to 'boost' the role you lead. If you lead with colonize, you can boost with additional colonize cards in your hand to increase it. Additionally, when you lead a role, everyone else has the option to follow or dissent, allowing them to do the same thing you do if they have the appropriate cards in their hand, or draw a card from their deck.
Its a good game. But it doesn't feel particularly diverse in the strategy. There isn't really a difference between colonize and warfare. They are just two parallel lines that get you to the same place. The expansion helps this significantly, but is it stands, this game ends up being good, but not great. Still worth checking out if you get a chance though, because you might feel differently! Game Play Quality Price Value
One of my favorite deck-building games. I like players have an option to be doing something during other players turns. It keeps you in the game and also makes the active player think about what they do not what the other players to be able to do on their turn. The art work and quality of components it very good. As for gameplay it seems to win you need to pick a strategy and stick to it from the beginning.
Game Play Quality Price Value
If I had to keep just one game, this would be it. I've played this game probably two dozen times. It is a very unique game. Your play strategy has to adapt to other players, and the planet cards you find. Every choice is a good choice. I don't think there's really any that are bad. So this makes your choices meaningful, and they impact your future plays.
In this game, what you focus on becomes your strength. What you neglect becomes your weakness. You may need both balance and focus in order to do well in this game, but whatever your strategy, you try to play off of your opponent's choices as well. You may spend a bit of time trying to figure out what your opponents will do or what their strategies are so that you can use them to your advantage.
The research is quite varied and adds a lot to the game. The game feels incredibly balanced. I have yet to find any strategy that always wins--it really depends a lot on the cards you draw from the planet deck and luck of drawing from your own deck. Game Play Quality Price ValueA Virtual Plague Known As the ‘Corrupted Blood’ Incident in WOW Actually Saved Lives
By now, it’s an almost impossibility for most of us to not have already heard about the infamous massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) known as World of Warcraft (WOW). At its peak some years ago, the game had a total of over 12 million paying subscriptions, and about 2 million players constantly in the game. A world within another world, some may call it. In any case, what is little known about the game, however, especially by those of us who haven’t played it, is that in 2005 the game came on step closer to real-life than ever before.
As the game has seemingly no end in sight, in order to keep it interesting, the developers at Blizzard bring new challenges to it constantly. One of these changes came in the form of the new raid Zul’Gurub and its end boss Hakkar the Soulflayer. Here, a group of players would band together in an effort to destroy that creature. However, as part of the challenge, that said boss used a spell against those players, known as ‘Corrupted Blood’. Unlike many other spells in the game, this one was contagious and could spread from one player to the next; slowly but surely killing them.
The spell intended to last only seconds and function only within the new area of Zul’Gurub. But because of an oversight in designing the mission, the spell wasn’t effectively contained in that said area, and quickly spread all throughout the virtual world. This event became known as the ‘Corrupted Blood’ Incident.
What’s so interesting about it is that the incident became a perfect simulation of what would happen if the real-world would have been hit by a similar plague of Apocalyptic proportions. So much so, that the event attracted the attention of epidemiologists for its implications of how human populations could react to one such event.
The “disease” was especially virulent, as it was not intended for low-level players, and it could kill them in mere seconds. Those who faced the boss were of higher level and could better withstand it. However, because of the programming error, the players’ summoned pets and minions who took part in the battle didn’t recover once they cleared the challenge and soon enough infected the entire game. Moreover, the non-playing characters in the game could also get infected, but were, let’s say immune to the diseases, but could nevertheless infect players with it.
Lasting for about a week, the ‘Corrupted Blood’ Incident effectively put an end to normal gameplay, as all cities within the game became deserted. Either because the players were dropping off like flies, or because they evacuated the densely packed settlements in order to seek refuge in the relative safety of the countryside. Discussion forum posters described seeing hundreds of bodies lying in the streets of the towns and cities.
Even though dying in the game isn’t permanent, and players would respawn more or less instantaneously, dying in such a way is disadvantageous to the player’s character and incurs inconvenience. Moreover, a few quite interesting events happened within the game which really made the incident a perfect simulation to possible real-life events, drawing the attention of behavior scientists.
When the plague transformed into |
arita recipe and hired a Sherpa band, but the celebration had a hollow feeling. “Personally, I would trade Everest and every other summit for Scott’s life,” says Neal Beidleman, his voice catching. “But you have to be proud of climbing Everest and getting back. I am proud of everyone on our team, notwithstanding their strengths or weaknesses. Everybody summited, survived a difficult night, and it was an incredible accomplishment.” Throughout the evening, there was an almost palpable tension between Pittman and some of her fellow climbers. There were those who felt that she tried to keep her distance from Beidleman and Boukreev, the men who had risked their own necks to save hers. During the NBC interview and a lengthy background session with Newsweek the day before, Pittman never mentioned that she had been in serious jeopardy or that she would probably have died had she not been helped by Beidleman and Boukreev. In a subsequent telephone conversation, when asked about her apparent lack of appreciation toward the two gentlemen who had saved her life, Pittman responded tersely: “Which two gentlemen is that?” Journalist Jon Krakauer, who was part of the New Zealand team and the second to summit that day, filed a raw, emotional account of the tragedy on Outside magazine’s Internet publication. Krakauer, author of the best-selling Into the Wild, has no doubt that Scott Fischer died because he was exhausted from guiding amateur climbers. Rob Hall clearly died in the act of rescuing his amateur client. But Pittman maintains that there were no heroes that night, that the guides were just doing their jobs, what they were paid to do. According to Krakauer, the debate “raises the question ‘What are you doing on this mountain if you can’t get yourself down?’ There’s only so much you can ask of a guide or a sherpa.” In his view, guided climbers may have a lot of experience, but that does not necessarily translate into great ability or judgment. He emphasizes that these climbers are never without guides—“high-altitude baby-sitters”—which is very different from doing it on your own. “You don’t have the mind-set to take care of yourself. You learn to operate within a client framework, which is that other people are going to haul your loads, other people are going to look after you.” As the controversy grew heated, veteran climbers tried to make the point that the essence of mountaineering has always been self-reliance, consideration for others, character, and integrity. “What happened up there was terrible, but some people came out looking wonderful and some didn’t,” observed a climber who knows all the players well. “Beck Weathers sat on a rock for 12 hours waiting to be saved. But he’s a hero because he’s so honest about it.” On May 22, Sandy Pittman left for New York to be home for her son’s 13th birthday. One fellow climber suggests that, even at the time of her departure, Pittman was still reeling from the shock, that she had been truly humbled by the ferocity of the mountain. A New Zealand guide who had climbed with her in the past laughed. “Not humbled, mate,” he said. “Nothing humbles Sandy Pitbull. Sobered, maybe.” For his part, the tireless Russian Anatoli Boukreev has remained almost silent about the woman whose life he saved. But to fellow climbers he has said wryly, “Princess Sandy. Very rich, very spoiled.” Charlotte Fox thinks it’s too early to pass judgment on anyone who has been through such an emotional experience. “Sandy is a strong woman and she is committed,” says Fox. “Maybe she doesn’t know how to say thank you for saving her life.” Credit: From DMI (large photograph and inset); By Marina Garnier (Inset second from right); Other insets by Mary Hilliard.
Three weeks after the disastrous storm on the summit, Sandy Pittman stalks into the saloon at Café des Artistes. We had agreed to meet for a drink. A striking brunette who looks like a muscular version of Jacqueline Onassis, the 5-foot-10-inch Pittman is among the mightiest of women, and her personality is as formidable as her physique. Formally introducing herself as Sandy Hill Pittman, she encases my hand in a crushing grip worthy of Paul Bunyan. Wearing a beige suede safari jacket belted over black pants, she looks healthy if a bit thinner than usual. Her fingers appear normal, but she says she has several broken ribs and is suffering from pleurisy. Tied around her neck is a narrow red string necklace blessed by a lama and presented to climbers in a puja ceremony. It seems to bring no peace. She is extremely keyed up and highly animated. From the grim set of her jaw, it seems clear that she has seen the previous weeks’ headlines. The New York Post had bannered her epic in bold type: N.Y. SOCIALITE TELLS: MY HELL ON TOP OF THE WORLD. Even the reticent New York Times had slipped in a dig. “Everest Takes Worst Toll,” its front-page story teased, “Refusing to Become Stylish.” Raking her hand again and again through her cropped auburn hair, Pittman declares herself at wit’s end. She is miffed, and perhaps justifiably, that conquering Everest has not been sufficient to retire her reputation as a couture-clad party girl, and she bristles at the slightest suggestion that she might have inspired any of the unflattering ink. Nor can she comprehend the derision engendered by her colorful electronic journal entries, which alternately described the rigors of trekking in Nepal and the de rigueur luxuries of life in New York. “All my personal stuff is packed,” she wrote in a breathless dispatch from Central Park West. “I wouldn’t dream of leaving town without an ample supply of Dean & DeLuca’s Near East blend and my espresso maker.” After talking on background for more than an hour, Pittman declines a formal interview. She says the subject is still too private and painful. When I point out that she is typing as fast as she can to finish her book, and note that she is planning a Vogue piece and has already given several very public interviews to NBC, her hazel eyes turn hard. Abruptly glancing at her watch, she announces another pressing engagement and exits hurriedly with the disdainful air of one convinced that her experience above the clouds is beyond the comprehension of those permanently relegated to existence at sea level. Though she is far from callous, and her grief for Scott Fischer and the others is obviously quite real, Sandy Pittman is genuinely mystified and hurt that she has not gotten a more triumphant welcome on returning home. She wasn’t expecting a ticker-tape parade, but not even a party? “Sandy is unfortunately totally self-absorbed,” explains an old friend who forgives her for it. “She missed signs of distress in her marriage. She sees motherhood her own way. She misses signs that she rubs people the wrong way. She just doesn’t get it.”
It is also true that Pittman inspires much jealousy around town. “She has a lot of courage, and a lot of guts, and no one in New York society has faced the kind of physical challenge she has,” says her friend Jurate Kazickas, a writer who has been to Everest, and who is married to investment banker Roger Altman. “But I think there is an over-the top quality to her that drives a lot of New Yorkers crazy. She’s too much of a good thing—she’s good-looking, climbs mountains, drives motorcycles, and pilots her own helicopter. Who can relate to that? Who can pitch in and talk to her about climbing K2 at a dinner party? She is unique.” Pittman has plenty of admirers, and her close circle of female friends includes lifestyle guru Martha Stewart and socialites Blaine Trump, Nina Griscom, Sharon Hoge, and Katherine Sailor. “Sandy’s very strong, she’s another species,” says Trump, who is married to Donald’s brother Robert Trump. She almost went along with Pittman on the Everest trip, but admits her husband “wasn’t very happy about it.” Stewart also backed out when she became caught up in negotiations with Time Warner. Hoge and Sailor, however, did hike partway up Everest. Trump says they all felt utterly confident with Pittman as their fearless leader. “I asked her once what would happen if one of us couldn’t get down, and she said, ‘No problem. I can handle 150 pounds over my shoulder.’ She also said she could sew us up.” In the end, Pittman left the surgery to a doctor. During a day hike, Sailor fell over backward and gashed her head. The women had to walk three hours to the next camp, where a doctor, with only a hut as a hospital, put in six stitches. Sailor’s husband, public-relations executive Ken Lerer, was reportedly furious when he heard about his wife’s accident. Hoge, however, came back singing Pittman’s praises, telling spine-tingling tales about her friend’s prowess and brush with death.
Some people have a knack for courting controversy wherever they go, and in Pittman’s case Everest was no exception. From the beginning, she was a large presence on the mountain. Most of the climbers at Base Camp had read enough to know she was the glamorous, soon-to-be-ex wife of a multimillionaire. But she tended to advertise her wealth, and she made no secret of the fact that she was friends with the powerful. When she celebrated her birthday shortly after arriving, one of her E-mail greetings was from Martha Stewart. Base Camp is an incestuous little community, and there isn’t much to do besides climb and dine out on gourmet food—and one another. Pittman’s arrival transformed the village into Peyton Place. Everyone was well aware that David Breashears—who was also on the mountain—was a friend of Pittman’s. They knew also that his estranged wife, Veronique, a pretty young graphic artist, had been keeping company with Pittman’s husband for some time. Everyone was also acutely aware of whose tents shook at night, and who had slept with whom in the past. It wasn’t long before the camp was buzzing about a 26-year-old snowboarder who was sharing Pittman’s sleeping bag. Pittman’s reputation from her previous two Everest attempts was already well established. People are still talking about the first time she arrived, in 1993, with her son, then nine, and a nanny. She returned to Everest the following year, on an expedition which Vaseline sponsored for $200,000 and which Breashears videotaped for NBC. This time, Pittman attempted to climb the Kangshung Face, technically the most difficult ascent. She spent thousands of dollars to hire four of the best climbers in the world, but in the end they were turned back because of bad weather. Pittman was so frustrated, she tore a Kieselstein-Cord gold cross with semiprecious stones off her neck and hurled it into the wild blue yonder, much to the horror of the Sherpas, who watched what to them was a small fortune disappear. After, the trip, Pittman appeared in a commercial for Vaseline that billed her as a “world-class climber,” an outrageous boast that has been the subject of endless jokes. Her subsequent accounts of the Kangshung trip—including a lecture she gave at the Explorers Club—have made her less than popular within the community because of her habit of referring to the elite mountaineers she was with as her “climbing team,” as though they were her equals rather than her guides. Steve Swenson, one of the expert climbers with her on the Kangshung Face, defends Pittman and argues she has become too easy a target. “We were fixing all the ropes, and she was following after us,” he concedes, “but she contributed as much as anyone to the trip in terms of fund-raising, dealing with the sponsors and media issues.”
There is a long history of wealthy amateurs who are passionate about climbing, including Texas financier and oilman Dick Bass and the late Disney president Frank Wells, who co-authored Seven Summits (with Rick Ridgeway). Neither ever presented himself as anything but a beginner, and each gave full credit to his guides. More than anything, it seems to be Pittman’s grandstanding which has made her such a pariah. “I’ve watched the media circus, and I think Sandy Hill Pittman is a story about marketing,” says Jim Clash, a business and adventure writer for Forbes who climbed Kilimanjaro with Scott Fischer last January. “Sandy is an amateur who has been able to manipulate the press and promote herself because most of the people she was talking to didn’t know much about climbing.” “Some people climb for the publicity, not the experience,” says David Swanson, a past Explorers Club president and former publisher of Summit magazine. “And I would say that 85 percent of the people [within the climbing community] dislike that sort of thing and would not climb with that person. Climbing is meant to be elemental, simplistic—you are meant to respect the dangers and the environment. A movable circus is not what it is meant to be.” But that is exactly how many climbers regarded Pittman’s electronic sideshow at Base Camp, to which a Sherpa had lugged bags full of high-tech communications equipment provided by NBC. Before they left for Nepal, Pittman wrote everyone on the team and told them about her NBC deal and invited them to participate. Most declined; this is precisely the kind of thing that they go to the mountains to get away from. Not Pittman. To maintain the NBC Web site, she would rise at 5:30 in the morning, and often be there working at 9:30 at night, diligently keeping the journal entries up-to-date and holding chat sessions on-line with New York luminaries such as novelist Jay McInerney. “She really worked at it,” says Charlotte Fox. “I said, ‘You’re climbing Everest and you’re doing all that!’ ” Pittman was by far the busiest camper. Scott Fischer was floored by her announcement, just two days before their summit bid, when everyone was lying low, that she was meeting two friends for lunch in Pheriche. Hoge and Sailor had showed up with 20 Sherpas in tow and linen tablecloths in their little trekking tent. So, instead of resting with her teammates, Pittman hiked five hours down the mountain, stopping on the way to do an interview with the Today show. She seemed happy to drop everything and play Himalayan hostess, even leaving notes of introduction for her friends on parchment from the exclusive stationer Mrs. John L. Strong. All of this was happening at a time when even the strongest climbers on her team were resting. “Her priorities were all over the place,” observes a climber from another team. Then he speculates, “Those women were there as her mouthpieces for later. They would be so blown away by what they saw that they would go back to New York and spread the gospel about Sandy Hill Pittman.”
No one can say that Sandy Pittman hasn’t worked hard or seriously committed herself to building her prowess as a climber and sportswoman. She had grown up in the foothills of Northern California, and as a girl walked the mountains with her father. At 10, she started going on camping trips. As a chubby adolescent, she opted for backpacking over the beach and worked as a junior ski-mountaineering guide in Yosemite. She spent summers white-water rafting, kayaking, and climbing. Her first big peak was Disappointment in Wyoming’s Grand Tetons. When she got to the top, she said to herself, “I’m going to do this for the rest of my life.” At the University of Colorado in Boulder, she fell in love with Jerry Solomon, now a sports agent married to former Olympic ice-skater Nancy Kerrigan. They eventually transferred to U.C.L.A. together and Pittman earned a degree in art history. They split a year later. “She was always into climbing, but it seems to have become an all-consuming thing,” says Solomon. “She was always an ambitious person, and I don’t just mean about climbing mountains.” Pittman moved to New York and got a job at Bonwit Teller. Later she worked at Mademoiselle and Bride’s, where she was a beauty editor. Climbing took a backseat to her career. In 1979, at age 24, she married Bob Pittman. They had met on a flight to Los Angeles and, according to a story they have often told, were in love before they landed. As fate would have it, the plane was diverted to San Francisco, so Sandy took him home to meet her parents. When they arrived to find her folks out of town, they reportedly made passionate love on the living-room floor.
Not long after the birth of her son in 1983, Pittman began the kind of climbing that propelled her to the top of the benefit circuit, and put her and Bob on the cover of New York magazine in 1990 as “The Couple of the Minute.” One thing everyone seems to agree on is that both Pittmans are brilliant at self promotion. Bob, who was a runner-up to be Time’s Man of the Year in 1984, has been dogged by controversy for claiming what some see as undue credit for MTV—which he has called his “crazy idea.” The concept had been kicking around for years, and many believe that executives John Lack and Tom Freston contributed just as much as Pittman, who went on to form Quantum Media (The Morton Downey Jr. Show) before moving on to Time Warner, where he was in charge of the Six Flags theme parks. Last August he left entertainment for real estate, becoming chief executive of Century 21. “People say, ‘My god, he’s had glamorous jobs, he must worship glamour,’ ” Bob Pittman told the Los Angeles Times somewhat defensively. “But my close friends know I was only in it for the challenge.” In the 80s, the Pittmans seemed the prototypical high-concept couple. They bought a 15,000-square-foot 1910 dairy barn in Falls Church, Connecticut, and converted the place into a yuppie playground stocked with every imaginable toy. They called it Birthday Hill Farm because it had been a gift from Bob to Sandy when she turned 30. She transformed the 50-foot silo that looms over the barn into a climbing wall and, after dinner and drinks, was known to take guests out for a vertical stroll which she calls “the Ultimate Challenge.” She built a makeshift gym in the barn, complete with pulleys and ropes, and carved out another room for her piles of mountaineering gear. At one point, the Pittmans even housed a trio of traveling Sherpas in a smaller barn out back. A tackle room is filled with archers’ bows, fishing rods (she fly-fishes), and canoes. “They never relaxed,” gripes a houseguest. “It’s not my idea of how to spend the weekend.” Sandy Pittman—a woman compulsive enough to have colored threads representing each season (green for summer, etc.) sewn into her clothes to avoid packing mix-ups—never does anything halfway. She applies what a friend describes as a “gangbusters approach” to everything. When she and her husband bought a twoseater helicopter for commuting, she got her pilot’s license. When she planted the garden with flowers, she won blue ribbons at the local fair. When she decided to raise sheep, she asked designer Isaac Mizrahi to help her turn the first year’s fleecing into hats and mittens for homeless children. When she entertained, it was mind-boggling. Once, she bused 100 guests from New York, stocked canoes with coolers filled with juice and muffins, and arranged a pig roast on the front lawn. Hot-air balloonists took people for rides over the fields. This past October, the Pittmans threw one of their famous parties, with 50 guests dining under an elaborately embroidered Tibetan tent. On the menu were yak stew and Sherpa tea. In attendance were the couple’s country friends—the Brokaws, Lerers, and others. “Everything was beautifully done and so tasteful, as always,” recalls Jurate Kazickas, “so it was a real shock to hear they split up just a few weeks later.” Bob Pittman reportedly moved out a few days before Halloween, quitting their Central Park West apartment, which is crammed with artifacts from her farflung travels. She told friends that it came as a complete shock, saying, “I don’t know what’s gotten into him.” He told friends that there had been signs for a long time, but that she never noticed. She was gone all the time. “Enough is enough,” he said. Ironically, it had been Bob Pittman who, in the mid-80s, encouraged his wife to find something meaningful to do. “It was he who turned my head around,” she once acknowledged. But even her friends agree that Sandy Pittman’s single-minded dedication to her avocation complicated her relationship with her husband. “A lot of people look at mountain climbing as discretionary, but Sandy looks at this as her job,” says Nina Griscom, adding, “But in a marriage, it’s hard when someone finds out who they are in the middle.”A special thanks goes out to Deadmeat1492 of iBrony for being my first opinion on things ^_^
Would you enslave a person? How about a pony? How about a pony that could speak and feel? Mankind's lust for productivity and efficiency can be so overwhelming that it might even blind us from what is right or wrong. But there is one person who will rise up to challenge this and make things right once again, he just doesn't know it yet.
Warning:
This story may appear offensive to some people based on personal interest. This does not reflect the author's views of people, he is merely trying to make a compelling story while using what he feels is logical, considering this story is fictional. Again, no offense is intended.$\begingroup$
For $n = 3$ this is always true. It is also true when $X$ is a complete intersection.
Suppose $n ≥ 4$, and suppose that $Y$ exists; then by a well known result of Lefschetz $X$ is a hyperplane section of $Y$, and so $X$ is a complete intersection. Now, for $m = 4$ there are subvarieties of $\mathbb P^4$ that are not complete intersections (for example, the image of a generic projection $\mathbb P^2 \to \mathbb P^4$ of a quadratic Veronese embedding of $\mathbb P^2 \subseteq \mathbb P^5$), so the answer is negative for these. For $m ≥ 5$ the existence of codimension 2 subvarieties that are not complete intersections is a big open question; for $m ≥ 7$ it is a particular case of a conjecture of Hartshorne that these should not exist.If you’ve been in a public space with access to Top 40 radio in the past month, you’ve heard the “Despacito” remix. Crafted by Puerto Rican hitmakers Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee—who brought reggaeton to mainstream America with his 2004 hit “Gasolina”—“Despacito” (in English, the “Slowly”) has been a huge hit in America, Spanish-speaking countries and various parts of Europe since its release in January of this year.
In May, a remix of the song featuring Justin Bieber topped the Billboard Hot 100, welcoming its popularity stateside. Seven weeks later, it's still No. 1. Bieber sings in Spanish (that he doesn't know), with some English thrown in; Fonsi translates one of his own verses for an Anglophone audience, in an effort to create balance between the two languages. The unavoidable success of "Despacito" inspires two reactions. The most common is straightforward celebration, since it’s the first mostly-Spanish song to top the charts since Los Del Rio’s “Macarena” in 1996. The other is more complicated.
Because “Despacito” only enjoyed this sort of universal success after Bieber jumped on, the discourse has turned to cultural appropriation. What does it mean about Top 40–listening Americans if the only way a Spanish-language song can hit No. 1 is if it has the blessing of a popular white, English-speaking artist and its lyricism is altered to reflect that, even though Latinos are the fastest growing minority population in the country? Is “Despacito” an oddball hit? And it’s not that it’s barely scraping the surface of popularity, either: in the video’s first 24 hours on YouTube (a video for the remix with Bieber hasn't been released yet), the track acquired over 20 million views—the biggest music release on the platform this year.
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That is not to say it has climbed to the top controversy-free. Two weeks after “Despacito” became the most popular song stateside, video footage hit the web of Justin Bieber at New York City’s 1OAK nightclub singing along to the track and forgetting his Spanish verse—rapping “I don’t know the words so I say ‘poquito,’” and throwing in “dorito” and “burrito,” which many fans found exploitative. It is, and it’s also pretty racist. (For what it’s worth, burritos aren’t even a Puerto Rican dish—a revision Bieber thought he was making in jest really conflates and marginalizes crucial ideas of Latinidad.) Fonsi came to Bieber’s aid, telling Rolling Stone, “That chorus is not easy to sing, even for fluent Spanish singers like myself. It’s got a lot of lyrics, it’s kind of tongue-twisty.”
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"i don't know the words so i say dorito" KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK EU TE VENERO JUSTIN BIEBER pic.twitter.com/DEA7qM8D5n — mare (@biebeart) May 24, 2017
He’s not wrong. The verse isn’t the easiest to sing. But by giving Bieber an out, Fonsi stifles further exploration of what the song has to tell us about language, nationhood, and identity—even in a joyful pop song.
Unlike some of Daddy Yankee’s recent work, “Despacito” is more reggaeton-pop than reggaeton—there’s less rapping, for one, and the song’s message is sensual, not overtly sexual—it doesn’t present with a certain vulgarity, a hallmark of reggaeton that kept it an underground genre for the first decade of its existence. “Despacito” is written to work both in the club and on the radio. A Bieber co-sign only enhances its accessibility (and therefore, its chances at commercial success), and pointing out Bieber’s faults could jeopardize that.
Reggaeton, however, has always been a political music. In an interview with the Atlantic, Petra Rivera-Rideau, author of Remixing Reggaeton: The Cultural Politics of Race in Puerto Rico, raises some crucial questions surrounding the genre’s political origins. Reggaeton became popular when it was targeted by Puerto Rico's government for obscenities and evolved into a political music against a largely racist anti-crime initiative in the 1990s. As Rivera-Rideau explains, Puerto Rico’s identity is predicated on “the island’s trinity of races—black, Spanish and indigenous,” which has sometimes given the island a false image that it's “harmonious society with no racism.” But that isn’t the case—Afro-Latinos are discriminated against, and reggaeton is music that represents Puerto Rico’s racial diversity. She points out that before “Gasolina,” the biggest mainstream reggaeton hit was Tego Calderón’s “Loíza,” an attack on institutional racism in Puerto Rico. The fact that “Despacito” has no explicit political aim explains its success—but also feels unusual given the genre. That “Despacito” is a simple song about having a good time is unique, in some way.
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One of the best-selling active Puerto Rican artists is Residente, of popular hip-hop group Calle 13. After releasing his self-titled debut LP in March of this year, the rapper took a DNA test to trace his genes, information he then used to write his record. By better understanding (and mining) his own genetic diversity, he was able to frame his Puerto Rican identity—where heritage can be the source of discrimination. He told Rolling Stone, “Growing up in a colony, it's impossible not to be even a little bit political, to have that in your blood…The situation of Puerto Rico is kind of complicated for some people; for me it's simple. We are a colony and we don't have any rights. Our president is Trump even though we can't vote for the president. We have two flags all the time. We are a small island in the middle of the Caribbean. We don't cause trouble or bother anyone but we go to war. In exchange we get a passport.” This isn’t the language of “Despacito,” but it’s the identity of Puerto Rico, of the island that built the carefree song in a time of real political turmoil.
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On June 11, Puerto Rico voted for statehood—97% of those who participated were in favor—but most citizens did not vote at all, abstaining from what many viewed as a flawed referendum. Those who support independence boycotted the vote, while PR’s governor Ricardo A. Rosselló voted in support of becoming the 51st state to end what he referred to as “500 years of colonialization.” If Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory largely ignored in the midst of social and economic crises (the island is bankrupt, with a debt exceeding $74 billion) forfeiting more of its national identity in exchange for federal support feels fatalistic.
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The No. 1 song in the country was made by two Puerto Rican men and enjoyed real success—only reaching the next level stateside when given the OK by a popular white North American artist. This isn’t an attack on Bieber—if anything, it’s a cause for celebration that the song resonated with him and with the country at large. But it does say something about Spanish-language pop music in America. Trump is our president and talk of "The Wall" permeates everyday life, but the biggest song in the country is one that celebrates its own Latinx identity (albeit in a way that isn’t totally in line with the more explicitly political roots of the genre it comes from). Next time you listen to “Despacito,” or any song built within modern day colonialism, ask where it came from, what was sacrificed to make it, what freedoms were potentially robbed, and what changes need to be made in the future and how we can sustain them.
We need songs like “Despacito” to remain hopeful, but in many ways, we need songs like “Despacito” to be representational—to remind others that Puerto Ricans are supposed to be treated like Americans, but often aren’t. Puerto Rico deserves better.A professor of Political Science at my school described the modern left-right paradigm for the class today — to paraphrase, he summed up the political landscape of the US with the all-too familiar perspective: ‘conservatives want less government, and liberals want more government’.
I opined, silently, in my seat. Sensing my disapproval, the professor asked if anyone had a differing perspective on the country’s political spectrum. I raised my hand and pointed out the perspective of this oft-regurgitated axiom of political theory. rephrased the point: Conservatives want liberty, and Liberals want safety. When it was suggested by a classmate that I was coloring the axiom to suit my political bent, I defended my choice of language. This phrasing, I argued, is the happy middle ground between the original, popular formulation that the professor used, and a statement that more closely aligns with my actual opinion: Conservatives want freedom, and Liberals want slavery.
When placed together, these three phrasings of the same observation illustrate the powerful effect nomenclature can have on a statement — and sheds a pinhole of light onto the vastness of the power of language analysis with respect to ideology:
Conservatives want less government, and Liberals want more government.
Conservatives want liberty, and Liberals want safety.
Conservatives want you to be free, and Liberals want you to be a slave.
The words we chose to use when we frame our thoughts betray our underlying perspective. Language is the seat of understanding, and can be deconstructed to suggest motivation and perspective. Analyzing the language used by self-styled ‘progressive liberals’ (forgive the quotes — the term itself is completely removed from cogency as a representation of meaning, as is ‘conservative’. These two terms as used in modern US politics do not come anywhere near connoting accurate definitions) yields a lexicon that I dub the language of Co-option. This liberal dictionary is used by a vast majority of the public out of rote; most people do not consider deeply the meaning of the language they use. Those that speak this dialect knowingly craft the language, and therefore, the thinking, of the larger public who adopts the dialect and spreads the meme and built-in collectivist programming therein.
This Language of Co-option is the language of our classrooms. It is the language of our politicians. It is Hegel. It is Sociology.
Let’s vivisect the following liberal sociological speech pattern:
“X is bad for society. We should do y so that z happens instead.”
To make the point that much clearer, let’s translate the above formulation into political rhetoric:
“For American families, x is a real problem, so our administration is committed to y policy so that z will result.”
To define our terms: the value x in this construction represents a ‘problem’ — to be specific, some suggested verifiable disadvantageous phenomena, that would be mitigated by taking y action. These instances exist; we can plug in some terms for our variables to create cogent statements: Suffocating is problematic for humans, therefore humans should breathe. This construction is cogent because human beings need to breathe in order to avoid suffocation, which is indeed, harmful to humans. However, such statements rarely provide people with new insights, because cause and effect tend to be plainly apparent; most everyone knows that they need to breathe to live. It seems tedious to think such obvious statements would warrant comment, let alone, say, a State of the Union address.
The power of this statement only manifests when coupled with action — the y variable. The point of x, of stating an obvious ‘problem’, is merely to gain the agreement of the audience to the y that will follow. In fact, in political speech, x and y need not have any real connection at all. This effect has been pointed out by others, including the research of behaviorist Ellen Langer, who’s research suggests merely by adding any explanation to a request one can improve the chance of a ‘yes’ in response.
For example, take this phrase from the State of the Union Address last night:
“There are other steps we can take to help families make ends meet, and few are more effective at reducing inequality and helping families pull themselves up through hard work than the Earned Income Tax Credit.”
to simplify: “Poverty (x) is a problem for people, and we can fix inequality (z) with the EITC (y).”
Let’s break it down critically. Poverty is always a problem for a family, as it is averse to survival. If you don’t eat, you starve — as obvious as the sun shining in the sky. This statement alone is almost as bereft of importance as ‘nice day, huh?’ or ‘how about those (insert local sports team name)!’ The President must have had a reason to make the comment. The statement made in this way implies poverty is a fixable problem in society, rather than a product of the human condition or the laws of our natural world. The first law of the human condition is scarcity; there is never enough of any resource to satisfy demand in any economy. When coupled with the Second Law of Thermodynamics, any natural system in the universe behaves the same way. POTUS makes the statement about poverty implying a collective problem that can be solved by some action.
The showstopper for libertarians is usually y. The solution to the problem offered by the state is ALWAYS aggressive force. In the above example, that aggression is in the form of extortion — specifically, theft of property through threat of violent action via taxation. This is stated in a positive light as phrased; the Earned Income Tax Credit is sold to the public as a tax break for some people, but comes at the expense of everyone else. The fact that your government is extorting less money from some than from others is aptly defined as ‘inequality’, but this obvious truth is distorted and reversed completely with Co-optive language to masquerade as benevolence, yielding the aberration cited.
This construct is the essence of the Hegelian ‘crisis, reaction, solution’, and is a hallmark of Co-optive speech and thought, and permeates our zeitgeist. Freedom-minded individuals hear this language and know just how ubiquitous it is in society — keep it in mind the next time you hear someone spray about what ‘We’ must ‘do’. Co-option is built in to the culture and mindset of authoritarianism, and in fact, the democratic process itself as naked tyranny of the supposed majority.
Please, feel free to post your co-optive, authoritarian quotes in response below!
Narrating the Decline from a Classroom Desk,
L.A.RepucciA consultancy company linked to the Clintons is trying to silence a former employee, suing GOP strategist Ed Rollins for $10 million for talking about the inner workings of the controversial corporations.
The defamation suit, filed in Manhattan Supreme Court on Monday, says Rollins made “false statements” about Teneo Holdings to Lou Dobbs on “Fox Business News” on Oct. 28 and to the New York Times in an Oct. 22 article.
In the Times article, headlined “A Constellation of Influencers: Behind the Curtain at Teneo,” Rollins, who ran President Ronald Reagan’s 1984 re-election campaign, said the company rented out high-profile consultants like former New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton to business executives to boost their prestige at events.
“The ability to bring business and political leaders together to meet the CEOs was all part of the selling point,” Rollins said.
He also told the newspaper that Teneo quietly hosted salons connecting executives with Democratic lawmakers. Even though Teneo sponsored the |
According to the Washington Examiner, Goldman Sachs in 2008 alone gave:
($415,595.63 inflation adjusted), which was itself almost three times as much as Bush received as well.
And of course, it was Hillary’s hubby Bill Clinton who chose ex-Goldman chief Robert Rubin to serve in his White House. Bill, Hillary and Bob Rubin are Washington, D.C. kissing cousins.
CRAIG, GREGORY.
Another example of the revolving door between Goldman Sachs and Obama’s administration. Craig served as Obama’s White House Counsel and after resigning, has taken on a position as Goldman Sach’s chief lawyer in defending against its SEC suit. A former Goldie, Robert Hormats, sits at the top of SEC’s enforcement group too. What a hoot!
Note that Craig is a lawyer and lawyer’s rules of professional responsibility prohibit not only direct conflicts of interest but anything that hints at a conflict of interest.
Here is doubtlessly why Goldman wanted Craig as its top lawyer in the SEC complaint:
Greg Craig, Obama’s first White House counsel, has joined Goldman, we learned this week. He may not have too much pull in the West Wing, which drove him out for hewing too close to Obama’s campaign promises, but as a former insider he will provide valuable intelligence to the world’s largest investment bank.
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Is-Goldman-Obamas-Enron-No-its-worse-91613449.html#ixzz0mHKfS3hl
DONILON, THOMAS.
Thomas Donilon is Deputy National Security Adviser to Barack Obama (despite having a career that is mostly involved with domestic politics). Donilon was a lawyer at O’Melveny and Myers and made almost $4 million representing meltdown clients including Penny Pritzker (of Chicago) and Goldman. This from Michelle Malkin’s article RealClearPolitics. More information is available on Donilon over at Whorunsgov.com.
DUDLEY, BILL.
Joined Goldman in 1986; partner and managing director until 2007. Federal Reserve Bank of New York President since January 2009 (replacing none other than Timothy Geithner, his Goldman compadre). This all from the Wall Street Journal.
ELMENDORF, DOUGLAS.
Elmendorf became Obama’s Director of the Congressional Budget Office in January 2009. Elmendorf previously was the Director of the Hamilton Project; it’s third.
Note too that the first 3 Directors of the Hamilton Project ALL serve in the Obama administration. While other journalists/writers have explored the links between Goldman Sachs and Obama, few have looked at the connection between the Hamilton Project and the Obama administration. Note again that the Hamilton Project was funded by Robert Rubin and Goldman Sachs. Note too that the current director of the Hamilton Project, its 4th since its founding in 2006, is Michael Greenstone. How long will it be before Greenstone goes to the Obama administration, making it a perfect 4 for 4 for Directors of the Goldman funded Hamilton Project? To show that there is a revolving door between the Obama Administration and Goldman/Rubin/Hamilton Project, Greenstone served as of Obama’s chief economic advisers.
EMANUEL, RAHM.
Rahm, of course, is Obama’s Chief of Staff, the very first person Obama selected to be in his administration. Rahm has lengthy and fruitful ties to Goldman, and vice versa. Rahm took in about $75,000 from Goldman Sachs as a Congressman and was on a $3,000 a month retainer from Goldman while he worked as Bill Clinton’s chief fund raiser.
Timothy Carney has explored some of the links between Emanuel and Goldman Sachs:
…one of Barack Obama’s top sources of funds in this past election, Goldman has always had some particularly strong allies within government. Emanuel is one such ally. An interesting early chapter in the Goldman-Emanuel relationship took place in the setting of Bill Clinton’s campaign for the White House in 1992. Clinton hired Emanuel as his chief fundraiser. At the same time, however, Emanuel was on the payroll of Goldman Sachs, receiving $3,000 per month from the firm to “introduce us to people,” in the words of one Goldman partner at the time. This is certainly a noteworthy relationship, but it’s one that has almost entirely escaped scrutiny. Corporations and partnerships are and were at the time prohibited by law from contributing to federal candidates out of the corporate coffers. So, while Rahm tapped Goldman employees personally for six figures in gifts to Clinton’s candidacy—more than any other firm—Goldman, as a company, was helping keep Clinton’s top fundraiser well-fed. … In his four terms in Congress, Emanuel has raised $74,750 from Goldman, making the firm his number four source of funds. Goldman has helped Emanuel. How has Emanuel helped Goldman? The most obvious answer, as mentioned in this column two weeks ago, is in Emanuel’s lead role in shepherding the “$700 billion” bailout—first proposed by former a Goldman CEO, Bush Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson—through the skeptical House. Of course, back in the Clinton days, Goldman benefited from NAFTA and the bailout of the Mexican currency, with Emanuel pushing NAFTA through Congress, and Rubin hammering out the peso bailout.
McClatchey newspaper’s Greg Gordon, in his article entitled, "Goldman’s White House Connections Raise Eyebrows" also noted how Rahm and Goldman worked together to make money:
One White House insider who knows something about how Wall Street does business is chief of staff Emanuel, who earned millions of dollars in investment banking after he left the Clinton White House. His work for the Chicago-based financial services firm Wasserstein Perella & Co. intersected with Goldman in at least one deal. In 1999, Emanuel was a key player representing Unicom Corp., the parent of Commonwealth Edison, in forging its merger with Peco Energy Co. to create utility giant Exelon Corp. Goldman was also advising Unicom. The White House declined immediate comment on that connection.
So how real is the Obama/Democratic party’s supposed new toughness on big banks when the administration’s point guard was on the Goldman payroll and become a multi-millionaire through big banks and Wall St. deals?
FARRELL, DIANA.
Diana Farrell is Deputy Director of the National Economic Council (since January, 2009) in the administration of President Barack Obama. She formerly worked for two years at Goldman Sachs in New York according to Whorunsgov.com.
In 2003, Farrell was the author of a paper, "Perspective on Outsourcing" in which she argued that sending American jobs overseas might be "as beneficial to the U.S. as to the destination country, probably more so." In a book titled “The Economists’ Voice: Top Economists Take on Today’s Problems,” Farrell wrote a chapter titled “U.S. Offshoring: Small Steps to make it Win-Win.” Her chapter, published in 2008, centered on offshoring.
In the Obama administration, Farrell works with a coven of Goldies including Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers, who is her boss.
FRIEDMAN, STEPHEN.
Chairman of Obama’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.
According to Wikipedia, Friedman worked for much of his career with Goldman Sachs, holding numerous executive roles. He served as the company’s co-chief operating officer from 1987 to 1990, was the company’s co-chairman from 1990 to 1992, and the sole chairman from 1992 to 1994; he still serves on the company board.
Friedman was another Goldie involved in controversy, as many of the Goldies have been in government service, involving his former employer. His actions, like other affiliated with Goldman, show scant respect for rules, regulations or laws.
Wikipedia notes:
Wikipedia notes:
On May 7, 2009 Friedman resigned as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in response to criticism of his December 2008 purchase of $3 million of stock in Goldman Sachs. Friedman, who remains a member of Goldman Sachs’ board, came into violation of Federal Reserve policy when Goldman was converted to a bank holding company in September 2008, thereby placing it under the regulatory authority of the New York Fed. Friedman requested a waiver from this violation when the conversion occurred, which was granted roughly two and a half months later.
FROHMAN, MICHAEL.
Robert Rubin’s Chief of Staff while Rubin served as Secretary of the Treasury and an Obama “head hunter” according to “Rubin Proteges Change Their Tune as They Join Obama’s Team” in the New York Times.
FURMAN, JASON.
Furman served as the second Director of the Hamilton Project after Peter Orszag’s departure for the Obama administration and he in turn left the Hamilton Project in June 2008 to direct economic policy for the Obama Presidential Campaign.
FUDGE, ANNE.
Obama just appointed Fudge to his budget deficit reduction committee. Fudge has been the pr craftsman for some of America’s largest corporations. She sits, according to the Washington Post, as a Trustee of the Brookings Institution within which the Hamilton Project is embedded.
GALLOGLY, MARK.
Gallogly sits on the Hamilton Project’s advisory council. He is also, according to Wikipedia, currently a member of President Barack Obama’s President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board.
GEITHNER, TIMOTHY.
He’s one of the most documented of all people within the Obama administration while serving as Obama’s Secretary of the Treasury. He was named head of the New York Fed by none other George W. Bush, again perhaps underscoring Gore Vidal’s observation that American is run by one corporate party and it has two wings: Republican and Democratic.
While at the head of the New York Fed, Geithner prior to the crisis not only failed to see storm clouds on the horizon, he also in 2008 ordered the bailed out AIG not to disclose its sweetheart payments to big banks including, you guessed it, Goldman Sachs. Geithner also worked with W’s Treasury Secretary Paulson to fashion the TARP agreements whereby billions were handed out to Wall St.
Geithner is a protoge of both Robert Rubin and Larry Summers.
Like other Goldies, Geithner has had trouble with rules, tax regulations and various. Recall that he had trouble at his confirmation hearings over his tax returns. Whorunsgov sums them up:
At the end of the Clinton administration, Geithner moved to the International Monetary Fund, where he was director of policy development. That period led to a blot on his personal record. The IMF, unlike most employers, does not pay the employer match on Social Security and Medicare taxes. Geithner was responsible for paying those taxes himself. He did not to do so until he was audited in 2005, and even then only paid the back taxes for 2003 and 2004. He did not pay the back taxes for 2001 and 2002 until after Obama tapped him to be Treasury secretary at the end of 2008.
Many of Geithner’s actions profited Goldman Sachs directly or indirectly, such as Geithner’s decision to deny Goldman’s competitor the same treatment he gave Goldman. As Time magazine noted:
[Geithner]Would not grant Lehman Brothers the right to become a bank-holding company — a status given to both Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs just days after Lehman filed for bankruptcy
Lehman Brothers collapsed, leaving Goldman Sachs with fewer competitors and a greater market share.
GENSLER, GARY.
Gensler was a Goldman Sachs partner who is Obama’s Commodity Futures Trading Commission head. Gensler is the guy who as a former Treasury official exempted the $58 trillion credit default market from oversight. Those financial instrumentals played a key role in the global economic downturn and led to billions of dollars in profits for banks like Goldman Sachs.
GREENSTONE, MICHAEL.
Greenstone is the 4th Director of the Hamilton Project. Just as attorney Craig went from advising Obama to defending Goldman Sachs against the SEC complaint, Greenstone has used the revolving door to go from went an economic adviser position to Obama to one of the Goldman Sachs outlets, in this case its think tank embedded in the Brookings Institution and funded by Goldman and Robert Rubin. All 3 previous Directors of the Hamilton Project work in the Obama administration.
HAMILTON PROJECT, THE.
The pro-corporatist think group funded by Goldman Sachs and Robert Rubin and cleverly hidden in the Brookings Institution as their Rosemary’s Baby/Trojan Horse. Espouses cutbacks in entitlements, strict budgetary thinking applied to all social programs (but not the defense department); outsourcing of American jobs overseas; more NAFTA-type agreements. Three of the first 4 Directors of the Hamilton Project serve in the Obama Administration. The fourth went from an economic adviser to Obama to the Hamilton Project.
It might also help to recall that the name "Hamilton Project" is significant. Recall that Alexander Hamilton, after whom the institute was named, had as his most famous dictum that "the people are a great beast." Hamilton espoused a powerful state bank and centralized government and presidency.
Note too that Sen. Barack Obama was the inaugural speaker at the Hamilton Project and lavished praise on "my friend Bob [Rubin]" and called for cuts in entitlements (Social Security) and more NAFTA agreements. This is the same guy who lied to the electorate, then, in union states like Ohio and Pennsylvania during the Democratic primaries when he said "NAFTA needs rethinking." He is firmly and totally behind NAFTA and has done no "rethinking" of it while President and with his party in firm control of Congress.
For more information, see the reading listed below on this subject and the Project’s web site.
HORMATS, ROBERT.
The top economics official at Obama’s State Department, Hormats spent the prior 27 years at Goldman Sachs, including as the Vice Chairman of Goldman’s international arm.
Hormat’s appointment to the Obama administration led Glenn Greenwald to this observation:
A Goldman executive as COO of the SEC’s enforcement division. This is all consistent with the observation of Desmond Lachman — previously chief emerging market strategist at Salomon Smith Barney and IMF deputy director — regarding "Goldman Sachs’s seeming lock on high-level U.S. Treasury jobs," which he cited as but one of the many "parallels between U.S. policymaking and what we see in emerging markets."
Imagine how this will play out. The SEC has lodged a complaint against Goldman Sachs. Goldman’s former Vice President in charge of Business Intelligence sits in the SEC’s enforcement division while Obama’s former top lawyer, White House Counsel Gregory Craig, has gone to defend Goldman Sachs!
KASHKARI, NEEL.
Former Vice President of Goldman Sachs in San Francisco where he where he led Goldman’s Information Technology Security Investment Banking practice. Kashkari served under Treasury Secretary Paulson and was kept on by Obama after his inauguration for a limited period to work on TARP oversight.
KORNBLUH, KAREN.
Sometimes called "Obama’s brain", she serves as Obama’s Ambassador to the OECD. Kornbluh was Deputy Chief of Staff to Mr. Goldman Sachs, Robert Rubin.
LEW, JACOB (AKA "JACK") J.
Lew is the United States Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources. According to Wikipedia, Lew sits on the Brookings-Rubin funded Hamilton Project Advisory Board. He also served with Robert Rubin in Bill Clinton’s cabinet as Director of OMB.
Like many affiliates of the Hamilton Project, along with Barack Obama, Lew believes that fiscal discipline needs to be applied to Social Security (not much talk about runaway costs in the military budget). According to the New York Times, Lew has testified that:
“Fiscal discipline is essential to protect Social Security and strengthen Medicare, so that both will be there in the years ahead. Reducing the accumulated federal debt will help us to protect these important programs.” (Congressional testimony in March 2000.)
Also like Robert Rubin, Lew has worked with Citicorp. The New York Times reported (same link as above) that:
As executive vice president of New York University, he tangled with a union representing graduate students who help teach courses.
LIPTON, DAVID A.
According to Paul Krugman, Lipton is at now at Obama’s National Economic Council and the National Security Council. Lipton worked with Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner, again according to Krugman, on the US response to the Asian financial crisis of the 1990’s. MergeFoundations reports that Lipton worked closely with Robert Rubin:
[he] advised and assisted Secretary Rubin on many key aspects of international economic policy.
MINDICH, ERIC.
Eric Mindich, while not officially serving in the Obama administration, is a strong Obama supporter with extensive ties to the President, according to a Ben Smith/Politico article. Mindich is a hedge fund manager and sits on the Advisory Council of the Hamilton Project and has worked at Goldman Sachs. In fact, he was the youngest ever partner with Goldman Sachs at the age of 27.
According to Wikipedia:
Prior to forming Eton Park in 2004, Mindich spent 15 years at Goldman Sachs in two main roles: leading the firm’s equities risk arbitrage business and managing the firm’s equities division. He joined the firm in 1988 in the equities arbitrage department and ran that department from 1992 until 2000.[1] In 1994, at age 27, he became the youngest partner ever in the history of Goldman Sachs.[1] In 2000, he became co-chief operating officer of the equities division and in 2002 became co-head of the equities division and a member of the Goldman Sachs Management Committee. In 2003, Mindich joined the Executive Office as senior strategy officer and chair of the Firmwide Strategy Committee. Another website, Operational Due Diligence at Checkfundmanager, indicates the following about Mindich: In March of 2009, Eton Park’s [hedge fund founded by him] assets under management were estimated to be around $13 billion. An article from April of 2009 lists Mr. Mindich among the “inner circle” of economic advisors to Lawrence H. Summers, who is the current chief economic adviser to President Barack Obama. Mr. Mindich is also listed in another article as being a top level Democrat fundraiser. …Eric Mindich, founder of Eton Park fund, reportedly supports Barack Obama’s presidential candidacy (2007). …A February 2005 article rattles off a number of impressive credentials for Eric Mindich, including launching the largest hedge fund in history, graduating summa cum laude from Harvard, becoming the youngest ever partner at Goldman Sachs, and being endorsed by former Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin.
ORSZAG, PETER.
Obama’s Budget Director was the founding director of the Hamilton Project, funded by Goldman Sachs and Robert Rubin. Furthermore, Wikipedia indicates that Robert Rubin, Goldman’s ex-head, was one of Orszag’s mentors.
A BBC article notes Orsag’s commitment to Hamilton Project ideals like cutting the budget (mostly by cutting entitlements) and his ties to Goldman Sachs:
Mr Obama has signalled his determination to keep the budget deficit in check by appointing Peter Orszag, the head of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), to head the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). It is the OMB, rather than the Treasury, that allocates government spending and estimates the size of future budget deficits. His appointment could help ease the new president’s relations with Congress. Peter Orszag is well-known as a fiscal conservative, who is concerned to keep spending and tax cuts in check. He was one of the first directors of the Hamilton Project, a Brookings think tank initiative backed by Robert Rubin…
The BBC failed to point out that Goldman Sachs also contributed to funding the Hamilton Project, and he was not "one of the first directors of the Hamilton Project" he was its first Director.
PATTERSON, MARK.
former lobbyist for Goldman Sachs who serves under Timothy Geithner as his top deputy and overseer of TARP bailout funds, $10 billion of which went to Goldman.
RATTNER, STEVE.
Ratner is the shady billionaire financier who Obama appointed as his “car czar” and who resigned after it was revealed that his company, the Quadrangle Group, was apparently involved in “pay to play” for a billion dollars or so of New York State pension funds, and was under possible indictment by the New York AG and the SEC, also sits on the Advisory Council of the Goldman funded Hamilton Project.
Rattner is yet another Goldie-Hamilton Project person in trouble with the law. He was the main financial supporter of Harold Ford’s aborted New York Senate run and speculation was that Rattner wanted a Senator to help protect him.
REISCHAUER, ROBERT D.
He was a member of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission from 2000-2009 and was its vice chair from 2001-2008. He too sits on the Hamilton Project’s advisory board.
From this excellent discussion at "Meet Robert Rubin" here’s more information on Reischauer and his extensive links to Robert Rubin:
Robert Reischauer, another policy insider who penned a memo in 2009 with fellow Brookings Institution elites calling for Obama to take "action to stem the growth of Social Security and Medicare," were recently nominated by Obama to be Social Security Trustees. (The Blahous pick he apparently owed to Senator Mitch McConnell.) Reischauer has close ties to economic wrecking ball Robert Rubin—the Goldman Sachs chairman who became Clinton Treasury Secretary and pushed through radical deregulatory banking laws, then went to Citigroup to score $120 million for driving his company into the ground. Rubin and Reischauer knew each other at both the Harvard Corporation and the Clinton White House, where Reischauer was director of CBO. Reischauer is on the advisory board of Rubin’s Hamilton Project, and the two most recent CBO directors have come straight from Hamilton.
NOTE: since writing this, it appears the above (and the quote below on Alice Rivkin) comes word for word from an Alternet article by Matthew Skomarovsky found here.
RIVLIN, ALICE.
Obama just named in March Alice Rivlin to his so called deficit reduction commission. Have a look at her background and you’ll see why and that Obama has stacked that commission with people who want cuts in entitlements.
Again, an excellent summary of her Goldman-Brookings (read Hamilton Project) Obama connections:
One of Reischauer’s co-signers of the Brookings memo, Alice Rivlin, is another fox Obama has put in charge of the Social Security henhouse. Former Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve under Greenspan at the peak of the tech bubble, and also a Hamilton Project board member, Rivlin will likely make another great Wall Street ally on the commission. In 2004 Rivlin co-authored (with Obama’s current Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag, among others) a 138-page Brookings report titled "Restoring Fiscal Sanity" advocating $47 billion in entitlement cuts, including an "increase in the retirement age under Social Security" and "more accurate inflation adjustments to Social Security benefits."
Wikipedia also says of her:
She is currently on the board of directors of the New York Stock Exchange.
Wikipedia also notes that she has extensive Brookings Institution connections (within which the Hamilton Project is now embedded) including from 1957–66, 1969–75, 1983–93, and 1999 to the present.
Rivlin is a frequent speaker at the Hamilton Project as shown by this page at the Hamilton Project’s web site; you can see videos of her talks and the subjects of her papers here.
RUBIN, JAMES.
Son of Robert Rubin (see next entry). Served as a headhunter for Obama per the New York Times article, "Rubin Proteges Change Their Tune as They Join Obama’s Team".
RUBIN, ROBERT.
Mr. Goldman Sachs and co-funder, along with Goldman, of the Hamilton Project. Served as the 70th U.S. Sect. of the Treasury under Bill Clinton and spent 26 years at Goldman Sachs becoming its Co-Chairman from 1990-1992. He also served as Chairman of Citigroup. Along with Goldman Sachs, Rubin funded the Hamilton Project embedded in the Brookings Institution. In other words, he embedded within what is perceived as a liberal think tank a Trojan Horse that espouses cutbacks in entitlements (but not Defense budgets), more NAFTA like agreements, outsourcing of jobs overseas and strict budget consciousness applied to health care. Rubin used the same tactic with Barack Obama: choosing an essentially ambitious yet cautious conservative and turning him into a Trojan Horse for his causes and those of Goldman’s/the Hamilton Project’s. Rubin is the de facto President of the United States and he and the Hamilton Project tell Obama and his administration what to do. Obama gets to ride on Air Force One.
According to a recent Politico article:
Behind the scenes, Rubin still wields enormous influence in Barack Obama’s Washington, chatting regularly with a legion of former employees who dominate the ranks of the young administration’s policy team. He speaks regularly to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who once worked for Rubin at Treasury.
SPERLING, GENE.
Prior to advising Timothy Geithner on bailouts, Sperling was paid the paltry sum of $887,727 by Goldman Sachs for one year of consulting work. Sperling, another acolyte of Robert Rubin’s raked in even more that year, according to William Grieder at the Nation:
[he was paid in addition] $480,051 as a director of the Philadelphia Stock Exchange, plus $250,000 for his quarterly briefings to two hedge funds, plus the speaking gigs [$158,000] (including an appearance before the Stanford Group in Houston subsequently charged with running a Ponzi scheme). Meantime, his day job at the Council on Foreign Relations paid $116,653. A busy, busy wonk.
STORCH, ADAM.
Storch worked for Goldman Sachs for 5 years reaching the position of Vice President in the Business Intelligence Group. He is Obama’s Managing Executive of the Security and Exchange Commission’s Division of Enforcement.
SUMMERS, LARRY.
It didn’t take Larry Summers long to land a big time job after he crashed and burned as Harvard’s President. He sits at Obama’s right hand as Obama’s chief economic adviser and head of the National Economic Counsel. Summers’s boss at Goldman was non other than Robert Rubin, former co-Chairman of Goldman and also former head of Citicorp.
Summers has reaped nearly $2.8 million in speaking fees to banks and institutions he is now supposed to be helping to regulate and oversee.
Goldman Sachs paid him $135,000 for a single speech he gave in April, 2008, a very good investment repaid many times to Goldman.
>CONCLUSION.
Although a lot of work and research was put into this list, I am sure I missed many people. But it gives the most comprehensive look ever published at how extensive the Goldman Sachs ties are in the Obama administration and the revolving door between the two (See attorney Craig’s description above).
It also shines light on a subject that has virtually received no mainstream media attention: the importance of the Hamilton Project (funded by Robert Rubin and Goldman Sachs) as the policy voice for their pro-corporate interests. While Matt Taibbi has dissected Goldman, no journalist has looked at the Hamilton Project (Taibbi misses it too) despite the fact that all three of its first directors serve now in the Obama administration. Its current director, its fourth, worked as an economic adviser to Obama Administration and at MIT. It formulate the pro-big business that Goldman wants and spreads it through academia and the Obama administration.
Robert Rubin and Goldman Sachs cleverly disguished their Rosemary’s baby, the Hamilton Project, within the essentially liberal Brookings Institution. Lots of journalists (including the BBC) have been misled by this, thinking that if it comes out of Brookings, it must be liberal or even progressive. Discussing Peter Orszag, the BBC made this blunder:
He was one of the first directors of the Hamilton Project, a Brookings think tank initiative backed by Robert Rubin which aimed to combine fiscal responsibility with progressive politics.
(emphasis added)
Not so! The clear message from the Hamilton Project is this:
1) entitlements must be cut, including Social Security;
2) more jobs must be outsourced overseas;
3) more NAFTA-type agreements must be drafted and entered into;
4) strict budgetary policies must be applied to entitlements and especially health care "reform" (whereas the defense department is skirted).
One only has to look at the Hamilton Project, at Obama’s speech to that group in April, 2006, and the numerous articles and books that they have peddled to see that their outlook is overwhelmingly corporatist and pro-big business. It is, then, ant-iprogressive not liberal and certainly not progressive.
RECOMMENDED FURTHER READING:
1. Greg Gordon (McClatchy Newspapers), "Goldman’s White House Connections Raise Eyebrows" April 21, 2010.
2. Fflambeau, "With the Obama Administration Infested With Goldman Sachs People, How Real is the Obama/Democratic Attack on Big Banks" FDL Diary, April 21, 2010.
3. "More Investigations of Goldman Sachs, A Double-Edge Swords for Obama and Democrats"
4. "Meet Robert Rubin" at MyOpera/Personal Finance Blog
5. Paul Street’s article showing that Obama held corporatist ideas long before elected and his indebtedness to the interests of big business.
6. Matthew Skomarovsky, "Obama Packs Debt Commission with Social Security Looters", March 28, 2010 at Alternet.
ESSENTIAL READING ON THE HAMILTON PROJECT AND ITS TIES TO THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION:
1. Kirk James Murphy, M.D. "The Hamilton Project: Same Corporatist Whine In New DLC Vessels." THE seminal article on the Hamilton Project which also features a video clip of then Senator Barack Obama talking about "my friend, Bob [Rubin]" and espousing cuts in entitlements and the "need" for more free trade pacts like NAFTA.
2. Fflambeau, "Obama’s ‘Smoking Gun’: His Hamilton Project Speech Shows His Links to Goldman, Entitlement Cuts, Part 1.
3. Fflambeau, "Obama’s ‘Smoking Gun’: His Hamilton Project Speech Shows His Links to Goldman, Entitlement Cuts, Part 2".
4. Another source for Obama’s Hamilton Project speech of April 2006. Contains video clip.
5. James Kirk Murphy, M.D., "Remember the Hamilton Project?" Dr. Murph’s latest look at the Hamilton Project.
6. David Sirota, "Wall Street Democrats Unveil Plan to Undermine Progessives", April 5, 2006.Image: Camilo Rueda López/Flickr
Ever since college, where I focused some of my studies on the wacky topic of a brain in a vat, it's troubled me that some people think only humans are capable of consciousness—rationally knowing what they are and that they exist.
Such biased thinking smells of anthropomorphic prejudice. Machines can be just as aware of their own consciousness as people, and perhaps more so, if they're programmed that way.
While the three-pound brain and its hundred billion neurons remain the least understood organ of the human body, most experts agree on a standard explanation: Human consciousness is a compilation of many chemicals in the brain forced through a prism that produces cognitive awareness designed to insist an entity is aware of not only itself but also the outside world. As an atheist and science-minded person, I buy this simplistic meat bag explanation.
But there's probably a lot more to consciousness, especially if we consider the future of superintelligence consciousnesses. To understand it and the field that encapsulates it—epistemology, the study of knowledge, with a special emphasis on what can be proven and what can't—it's always useful to start with French philosopher and mathematician Rene Descartes. He may have made the initial step by saying I think, therefore I am. But thinking does not adequately define consciousness. Justifying thinking is much closer to the meaning that's adequate. It really should be: I believe I'm conscious, therefore I am.
Delving further into this point, some computers can already think on various rudimentary levels, but we do not say they are conscious because they don't insist they are conscious. If they did, then many would argue we are dealing with a bonafide life form. However, no experts argue such a thing, at least not yet.
The recent near-future sci-fi movie Ex Machina highlights some of the core dilemmas between whether a machine intelligence is alive and truly conscious, or whether it's just following its circuitry. The story follows a human and an AI robot getting to know one another. One can't watch it and not think about the ongoing nature versus nurture controversy—the millennia-old debate of how and why humans acquired their behavior. It's this egocentric behavior that makes most humans justify their own conscious identity.
However, philosophically, Ex Machina also challenges us to ask another critical question about consciousness: What part does free will play in consciousness, if any at all? It's an interesting question, but in my opinion, the more poignant inquiry is not whether conscious entities, like humans, have free will, but whether there could ever be a consciousness without free will. Anomalies, randomness, and potentially even built-in chaos seemingly must remain intrinsic parts of the picture—otherwise it's all deterministic.
A significantly smarter intelligence than us could have no free will and it would still appear far freer, abler, more alive than us in its decisions and actions
Some fictional computers, such as HAL in Stanley Kubrick's classic 2001: A Space Odyssey, have insisted they were alive and fully conscious. And indeed, HAL appeared to be so. What made HAL conscious and alive to us, rather than some awkward Honda robot or IBM's chess champion Deep Blue, was that HAL had his own set of desires, demands, and identity. Because of this, there's no question HAL would pass the Turing Test—a test where a robot attempts to pass for being a human, something no machine has truly successful accomplished yet in the 21st century.
Some machine intelligent experts swear by the Turing Test. But is it the all-important test we make it out to be in determining intelligence and consciousness? If we met a far more advanced being—maybe a superintelligence from the future—what would their test of us be called? Would they say we have a lower form of consciousness than they do? Would they even say we have a consciousness at all?
Probably not. After all, what human believes a fish has a consciousness? Or a seagull? Or even a dog? Consciousness is built upon massive complexity—and the power to make sense of and identify oneself upon that complexity. Anthropomorphizing everything is part of that conscious process, as egotistical as that sounds. Our consciousness is specifically built upon the ability to know we have the power to craft our own destiny amongst the material world around us.
So what test might a superintelligence give us to see if we possess a so-called consciousness comparable to their own? To even tackle that question, we first have to answer if there's something outside of free will that reflects a higher consciousness.
I think consciousness, as we know it, isn't dependent on free will. A significantly smarter intelligence than us could be completely run on wiring with no free will at all, and it would still appear far freer, abler, more creative, and more alive than us in its decisions and actions. Consciousness is therefore relative, at least to humans.
Perhaps, then, the real test a superintelligence would give us would not be based on any notion of free will or justification of consciousness, but upon the basis for complexity and the speed to successfully navigate that complexity. That certainly sounds like a machine-like thing to do. But I think there's more to it, as well. I think a superintelligence's test of humans would also involve the ability to transcend mammalian limitations and biases—something I refer to as artificial intelligence relativism. Good and evil, and morality as a whole—except for being functional—would have to be checked at the door.
I've questioned in my writings before that the critical component of a superintelligence's morality is that there is none, at least nothing human-like. Morality in a machine, or in a deterministic consciousness, is nothing more than mathematical algorithm of rule-bound precision. This leaves little room for humanity and love for another, or any of the mammalian niceties that people swear by. It seems, then, that the Turing Test for superintelligence is to deny the lack of notable value for anything outside oneself. Pure narcissism, mixed with nearly unlimited computational power, is therefore the quintessential part of a test of what comprises a superintelligent consciousness.
Jacked In is a series about brains and technology. Follow along here.Fast-food workers and activists outside the McDonald's corporate campus in 2014 in Oak Brook, Illinois. Scott Olson/Getty There's a new 99 percent.
A new report from Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce says that 11.5 million of the 11.6 million jobs in the US created during the post-2008 recovery went to workers with at least some college education. Moreover, 73% went to workers with a bachelor's degree or higher.
According to The Wall Street Journal, that makes this year the first time in which college-educated workers outnumber those with a high diploma or less. College-educated workers (those with at least a bachelor's degree) now make up 36% of the workforce, while those with a high-school diploma or less dropped to 34%, down 5 percentage points from 2007. The other 30% of workers are those with an associate's degree or some college education.
"Jobs are back," the Georgetown report said, but "they are not the same jobs lost during the recession. The Great Recession decimated low-skill blue-collar and clerical jobs, whereas the recovery added primarily high-skill managerial and professional jobs."
Jobs filled by people with a high-school education or less fell by 5.6 million from December 2007 to January 2010, and just 80,000 have since been added. On the other hand, those filled by people with at least a bachelor's degree increased by 187,000 during the recession and then by 8.4 million during the recovery. And those tend to be the "good jobs," the report said — jobs that pay more than $53,000 a year for full-time workers and include some benefits.
Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce analysis of Current Population Survey data
This all adds to the economic divide between the "College Haves and Have-Nots," as the report is titled. Structural changes have led |
irms that “the principle of laws being ordained by God is the foundation of the laws of this state and the foundation of our legal system.”
To the extent that this gibberish can be decoded at all, it is in flat contradiction to the Declaration of Independence, which is unique precisely because it locates the just powers of government in the consent of the governed, and with the Constitution, which deliberately does not mention God at any point. The Constitution was carefully drafted and designed to guard against majoritarianism, another consideration ignored by Scalia when he opines that “the minority has to be tolerant of the majority’s ability to express its belief that government comes from God.” (Sandra Day O’Connor, in her last written opinion, phrased it much better when she said, “We do not count heads when deciding to uphold the First Amendment.”) Speaking to the Knights of Columbus in Baton Rouge, La., in January, Scalia implored them to “have the courage to have your wisdom regarded as stupidity. Be fools for Christ. And have the courage to suffer the contempt of the sophisticated world.” Whether for “Christ” or not, Scalia is certainly a fool. He should have fewer allies and emulators on the court, not more. And perhaps secular America could one day have just one representative on that august body. Or would that be heresy?
Correction, Aug. 5, 2005: This article originally and incorrectly stated that the Church of Scientology is a member of the American Council of Churches. Return to the corrected sentence.GOP spokesperson Raffi Williams followed up a Twitter broadside against the NAACP with an interview Friday morning dinging the organization for failing to recognize Sen. Tim Scott and Representative-elect Mia Love, two black Republicans who achieved significant milestones for not only the party but the country Tuesday.
The NAACP’s statement on the “outcome of the 2014 midterm elections” made no mention of Scott, the first elected black senator from the South since reconstruction, and Love, the first black GOP congresswoman in American history. The statement focused solely on voting rights and a call for an updated Voting Rights Act.
“All black accomplishments in America should be celebrated. Whether you disagree with the policy, that’s a debate you can have,” Williams said on “Fox and Friends.”
“But the fact that we have more black people in elected office should be something that’s celebrated by the NAACP, because it is for the advancement of all black people, regardless of your ideology.”
Williams added that the NAACP’s failure to support black conservatives is a “letdown” and “discourages” them.
Latest VideosMar 6, 2015; Carson, CA, USA; The Chicago Fire and Los Angeles Galaxy players walk onto the field with young fans prior to their game at StubHub Center. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
Happy Thursday morning on The View From Avalon, your one-stop Los Angeles Galaxy news source on the FanSided Network. Ryo Fujii, a former Galaxy Academy product, is now with LA Galaxy II and as a result of the deal, he will be on track to continue his education at Cal State Dominguez Hills after one season at UC Santa Barbara. Goalkeeper Eric Lopez will also get the benefit of continuing education at CSUDH following a stint with the US Soccer Residency Program.
“This is the best of both worlds. Players are in a real professional environment and they can also further their education,” Los Angeles Galaxy Technical Director Jovan Kirovski told LAGalaxy.com’s Adam Serrano. “Overall, we want intelligence. We want players who are intelligent on the field as well as off of the field.
“We’re providing something that is different than what they offer in Europe or anywhere else because of the importance that we place on education in this country, and this offers players that [educational] opportunity if their professional career doesn’t work out.
“It was a collaboration between myself, Galaxy Academy Director Peter Vagenas and club President Chris Klein. When we’re going after young kids who have full ride scholarships to places like UCLA, UC Santa Barbara and UC Berkeley, we can tell them that we’re trying to develop professionals, but in order to compete with the schools, we wanted to provide education as well. That’s when it clicked that we needed to utilize our longstanding relationship with Cal State Dominguez Hills.”
At first, the plan was not impressive to the parents of Fujii, born in Hong Kong but a citizen of the U.S. since age five. However, when the plan was laid out, the wheels were set in motion. Lee Hancock, an associate professor of kinesiology at Cal State Dominguez Hills, has been hired as a personal counselor for Ryo Fujii.
“We’d been monitoring him for a long time. We knew that he has real potential to be a very good professional,” Kirovski added. “It was very important for his parents for him to further his schooling, but the kid knows what it takes to be a pro soccer player, and that’s being in an environment suitable to become a professional. At the end of the day, his family trusts us and has total faith in what we’re doing.”
“What we’re doing is we’re basically creating our own college program,” said Hancock. “The [Galaxy] have had their eye on how to bring young men from college into their teams, and keep them in college. As a club, the Galaxy have a goal of developing the whole person, and if you can see that in some of the great people that they have had like Landon Donovan, Juninho and A.J. DeLaGarza.
“To see the Galaxy make this commitment to these young men is a totally new way to move professionals along on this career path. They didn’t have to give these kids scholarships, and while they’re definitely a tool to entice a player to join the Galaxy, they’re showing that they want to invest [in the player], and this is what we’ll do to do that. That’s a bold step because it truly does change the game. It provides an opportunity to get really bright young men into a professional environment and allows them to continue their schooling.”
“This is so convenient because Cal State Dominguez Hills is so close to the stadium and I’m able to go to my classes directly from practice,” said Fujii of the deal. “I just bring my backpack to practice, shower after training, and head to class.
“This is one of the big reasons that I chose this path because the Galaxy wanted me not only to have a chance to face better competition, but also saw the positive in me finishing school. It was a win-win situation.”
You might say that this prospect plays for the Cal State Dominguez Hills Toros in a way. Sort of. But it’s good to know that young Ryo Fujii is ready to not only be a profession on the field, but off the field as well. Well done, that man. Ryo Fujii, The View From Avalon salutes you! *salutes*
Moving on to first team news, Mika Vayrynen that Los Angeles Galaxy manager Bruce Arena needs to make the midfield a consistent midfield, not only in terms of quality, but in terms of continuity. Do not be surprised if Vayrynen starts this Saturday against the Houston Dynamo.
“I felt pretty good. It was nice to come on [against Portland] and get the half an hour [of action],” Vayrynen told Serrano. “I missed all of the preseason so I still need to get my fitness up. That only comes with games though. … I think my fitness is getting better and hopefully I keep getting more games and that goes up.
“We have good players in the midfield whether it’s Juninho, Kenney Walker or Baggio Husidic. All of the guys can play football and have good passing [ability]. It’s always easy to play with good players.”
Indeed, Mika, indeed. For it is quality players that makes a quality team. As for Charlie Rugg, his quality will need some work. Rugg has been loaned off to Indy Eleven for the 2015 North American Soccer League season. Meanwhile, going back to Galaxy II news, Jaime Villareal is poised to emerge out the shadow of big brother Jose and should get the start this Sunday against Real Monarchs SLC.
“I think I’m the better PK shooter,” Jaime told LAGalaxy.com’s Larry Morgan when compared to Jose. “I have the upper hand. Maybe free kicks he has the upper hand, but PK’s I think I have it. We’ll have to see, you know?
“The dream is to play together and let mom and dad experience that. Hopefully one day we can play on the same team like we’ve done before. It will be the best thing to happen to us.”
“Jose is one of those guys that has the ability to make great plays,” Galaxy II head coach Curt Onalfo said. “Not that Jaime doesn’t. He does, but Jaime is just more of a consistent all-around good player whereas Jose has a little bit more attacking traits.”
“There’s no better thing for a brother to see his own brother be successful,” Jaime added. “I know he’s worked hard every year. I think I am, too.
“We’re both competitive. Right now he has the upper hand. Hopefully I can bounce back and be the better one again.”
Watch out, MLS. The Super Villareal Bros. are coming. Eat your heart out, Mario.
Keep it here on The View From Avalon for more Los Angeles Galaxy II and Los Angeles Galaxy news and current events.Bitcoin. Controversial. Game changing. Complicated yet simple. While most of my non fiat money is in precious metals, there’s a lot I love about Bitcoin. The dramatic rise and subsequent crash that Bitcoin experienced in 2011 occurred well before I possessed my first unit of this crypto-currency. Since then, it has recovered dramatically and at $19.65 last check is up almost 4x since the end of 2011.
Bloomberg published an article on Bitcoin a few days ago titled: Bitcoin’s Gains May Fuel Central Bank Concerns: Chart of the Day. Here are a few excerpts:
An increase in the value of bitcoin, the world’s largest online currency, may fuel concerns that virtual money could undermine the role of central banks.
The CHART OF THE DAY shows that bitcoin has more than doubled in the past 12 months, strengthening to $16.37 from $5.88, according to data from Mt. Gox, the world’s largest bitcoin exchange. The money, issued by a decentralized network of computers, has recovered after falling to $2.14 in November 2011 from a high of $29.58 five months earlier.
Bitpay Inc., a bitcoin payment processing company that recently raised $510,000 in an investment round, this month announced that the number of companies using its services has increased almost 50 percent to more than 2,000 since November, when blog management firm WordPress.com said it would accept the digital currency.
I think the most beneficial reform we could possibly make to the global monetary and financial system would be the elimination of Central Bank monopoly money (pun intended). The global economy would flourish if we moved to a system of competitive currencies. Gold, silver, Bitcoin, even Federal Reserve notes would compete on equal grounds. A free market for all, a monopoly for none.
My website supports Bitcoin and we only accept Bitcoin donations. No fiat. We recently added a section to the Donate via Bitcoin link that explains exactly what a Bitcoin is. If you support what I am doing and want to learn about using Bitcoin, this link is a great avenue for you.
In addition, here is another article I wrote on the topic. Bitcoin: A Way to Fight Back Against the Financial Terrorists?
In Liberty,
Mike
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iOS 10
Image via iHelpBR
OS X 10.12
Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference kicks off on Monday, June 13 with a keynote event at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time, where Apple is expected to show off the latest versions of its iOS, OS X, tvOS, and watchOS operating systems and perhaps debut new features for services like Apple Pay and iCloud.Ahead of the conference, we've compiled all of the rumors that we've heard about features that could potentially debut at the event to give MacRumors readers an idea of what to expect.Apple's operating system for iPhones and iPads has gone largely without design changes since iOS 7, so it's reasonable to assume iOS 10 may feature some design tweaks to update the look of the OS. A dark mode is one possibility that's been circulating based on the look of Apple's WWDC app and site, but there's no evidence suggesting such a feature will be implemented.Information on iOS 10 is limited, but we've heard some tantalizing details about the update. Apple is expected to introduce a Siri SDK, allowing Siri to interact with third-party apps in new ways. Developers will be able to build Siri integration into their apps, allowing Siri to access data and perform tasks within apps. Third-party app access has the potential to greatly expand what Siri is capable of and could put the personal assistant on par with more robust solutions like Google Now.In 2015, rumors indicated Apple was working on an "iCloud Voicemail" service able to allow Siri to answer missed calls and record and transcribe messages for users to read as text at a later time. The service, which could come in iOS 10, is also said to be capable of relaying location information and delivering details on why a user can't answer a phone call.Siri may also be improved with new capabilities Apple has made through acquisitions like VocalIQ. VocalIQ is able to retain the semantic context between conversations and recall user preferences. Apple has made other AI-related purchases over the past year that could have been purchased to improve Siri. Perceptio, for example, is a startup designed to allow for the creation of advanced artificial intelligence systems while limiting the amount of data stored in the cloud, functionality that could allow Apple to bridge the gap between its desire to introduce deeper Siri functionality with its unwavering focus on privacy.iOS 10 is rumored to include a redesigned Music app featuring a more intuitive user interface for Apple Music. It's said to use a "bolder, yet simpler" design that emphasizes black and white backgrounds and text to put more focus on album art.Apple is planning to replace the "New" tab in Apple Music with a "Browse" option that includes better organizational tools for discovering new content, and it will also feature a simplified "For You" section. Connect and Beats 1 will remain unchanged, but Apple may remove the Connect tab from the Apple Music interface.New 3D Touch shortcut previews will be added, sharing features will be emphasized, and there will be more of a focus on song lyrics, making them easier to access within the app.With the upcoming iPhone 7 Plus expected to gain a dual-lens camera, Apple is building Photos improvements into iOS 10. Apple is expected to reintroduce some abilities that were initially found in iPhoto before it was discontinued and while we don't know specifics, iPhoto previously had features like EXIF editing and touch-based brushes for adjusting brightness and other parameters on only specific parts of a photo. Skitch-like photo editing feature allowing users to draw on and mark up images could also be in the works, mirroring features that are available in the Mail app for marking up PDFs and photos.Metadata keys added to App Store apps in April suggests Apple is potentially working on a much-desired feature to allow users to hide or delete unwanted stock apps. If such a feature is in the works, it could be included in iOS 10.Check out our full iOS 10 roundup for more info.OS X didn't get a major update in 2015, but 2016 may more than make up for it. OS X 10.12 is expected to bring Siri to the Mac for the first time, allowing the personal assistant to be used on Mac devices like it's used on iOS devices.Siri will be enabled through an icon in the OS X menu bar, the dock, a user-specified keyboard shortcut, or through a hands-free "Hey Siri" command. In May, we shared an image of the full Siri dock icon, featuring a colorful Siri waveform.
tvOS 2 and watchOS 3
Services
Hardware
Streaming Details and Release Date
Siri functionality on the Mac is likely to mirror much of the functionality on iOS, with Siri able to conduct searches, open apps, tweak system settings, answer simple queries, play music from iTunes, and more. Siri may also be able to interface with third-party Mac apps through the rumored Siri SDK.Another key feature of OS X 10.12 may be expanded Continuity features. Apple is working on an auto unlock function that would allow an iPhone to unlock a Mac when in close proximity, alleviating the need to enter a password on a password-protected machine in OS X 10.12.The feature, which uses Bluetooth LE frameworks, will presumably work similarly to the automatic unlocking feature on the Apple Watch, which allows an unlocked iPhone to bypass the passcode restriction on a connected Apple Watch. In this scenario, an iPhones Touch ID button would be used as a verification method for simpler logins.The unlocking function could also potentially be tied to the rumor suggesting Apple Pay integration is coming to web browsers. Users could make purchases online using Safari, confirming the Apple Pay payment through an iPhone's Touch ID when linked to a Mac.Features rumored for iOS 10, such as Photos improvements and Apple Music tweaks, are also expected to be included in OS X 10.12. An updated version of iTunes that includes a redesigned Apple Music experience with a simpler, more intuitive interface is a possibility, and as for Photos, it could gain some features that were removed during the transition from iPhoto to Photos.Beyond rumored features, there has been some speculation that Apple could rename OS X to MacOS to better match with iOS, watchOS, and tvOS, but whether or not Apple will actually introduce a change to its long-running Mac naming scheme remains to be seen.Check out our full OS X 10.12 roundup for more info.Apple has said new versions of tvOS and watchOS 3 will be introduced at WWDC, but we have not heard any details on what new versions of these operating systems might include.Drawing from what we expect for iOS 10 and OS X 10.12, the two operating systems could feature Siri improvements and design tweaks to match any design changes coming to iOS 10, but beyond that, we don't have any insight into what to expect.We do know that as of June 1, Apple is requiring new Apple Watch apps submitted to the App Store to be native apps, suggesting Apple has plans for deeper native app capabilities. At the very least, a push towards native apps is encouraging because it will result in Apple Watch apps that are able to open more quickly and work more smoothly in watchOS 3.Apple has several new Apple Pay features in the works that would be ideal to debut at the event. Apple is planning to bring Apple Pay to web browsers, allowing Apple Pay users to make Apple Pay purchases in online stores directly through Safari, and rumors suggest the feature will debut at WWDC As with standard transactions, payments would be approved on the iPhone through Touch ID. Using the expanded Continuity features allowing an iPhone to connect to a Mac, Apple Pay payments on Mac notebooks and desktop machines may also be verified through Touch ID.Apple is also working on a person-to-person update for Apple Pay, allowing users to send money to one another much like Square Cash or Venmo. It is not exactly clear how such a feature would work, but there have been " whispers " suggesting Apple may let customers send money to one another through iMessages.Following its conflict with the FBI, Apple is likely to introduce new security features in iOS 10 and OS X 10.12. One possibility is encrypted iCloud backups, something Apple has been hesitant to implement in the past because it makes the restoring process more difficult.Rumors have suggested Apple is working on implementing stronger security measures "even it can't hack" to protect iOS devices. These improvements are likely to be introduced through a mix of hardware and software improvements, and it's quite possible we'll see the first of Apple's security enhancements in iOS 10.One rumor says Apple is planning to announce iMessage for Android at the event, giving Android users access to one of the iPhone's best features. It's not clear how accurate this information is as it comes from a source without a reliable track record.Ahead of WWDC, Apple announced some major changes to the App Store, which we may hear more about at the event itself. Apple opened up app subscriptions to encompass all product categories and introduced a new subscription revenue split. After a customer maintains an in-app subscription for one year, developers will receive 85 percent of profits instead of 70 percent.Apple is also adding ads to App Store search results for the first time, and going forward, the App Store's "Featured" section will not display apps that are already installed. Apple is planning to bring back the Categories tab, and a Share sheet option is being added as a 3D Touch Quick action for all apps to make sharing easier. Search will also be improved.Ahead of WWDC there were rumors and speculation suggesting Apple could introduce products like an updated MacBook Pro or a new Thunderbolt Display, but it's likely neither of these products are going to be ready for a June debut, instead coming later in 2016.Leading up to WWDC, multiple Apple insiders have said the event will focus on software instead of hardware, and so we are not expecting hardware updates at the event. There's a possibility Apple could surprise us with an announcement, but if there are plans for a hardware product debut, those plans have been kept under wraps.Though we're not expecting any Mac announcements at WWDC, one questionable rumor from Japanese site Mac Otakara suggests Apple is planning to introduce both new MacBook Air and new MacBook Pro models in the month of June, shipping the notebooks in August.This is somewhat unlikely as Apple just bumped the RAM in the 13-inch MacBook Air up to 8GB in April. Previous rumors also indicate Apple may not be planning to introduce further MacBook Air updates, ending development on the machine in favor of the MacBook. As for the MacBook Pro, past information has said it will ship in 4Q 2016, conflicting with Mac Otakara's rumor of a June debut.Apple will offer a live stream of the keynote event through its website and through a dedicated events app on the Apple TV. MacRumors will also provide live coverage, on MacRumors.com and on the MacRumorsLive Twitter account Following the conclusion of the keynote, Apple will likely provide iOS 10, OS X 10.12, watchOS 3, and tvOS 2 to developers, giving them time to adapt their apps to take advantage of new features. The operating systems are likely to be released to the public in the fall alongside new hardware.The latest evidence of the dominant role humans play in changing Earth's climate comes not from observations of Earth's ocean, atmosphere or land surface, but from deep within its molten core.
Scientists have long known that the length of an Earth day -- the time it takes for Earth to make one full rotation -- fluctuates around a 24-hour average. Over the course of a year, the length of a day varies by about 1 millisecond, getting longer in the winter and shorter in the summer. These seasonal changes in Earth's length of day are driven by exchanges of energy between the solid Earth and fluid motions of Earth's atmosphere (blowing winds and changes in atmospheric pressure) and its ocean. Scientists can measure these small changes in Earth's rotation using astronomical observations and very precise geodetic techniques.
But the length of an Earth day also fluctuates over much longer timescales, such as interannual (two to 10 years), decadal (approximately 10 years), or those lasting multiple decades or even longer. A dominant longer timescale mode that ranges from 65 to 80 years was observed to change the length of day by approximately 4 milliseconds at the beginning of the 20th century.
These longer fluctuations are too large to be explained by the motions of Earth's atmosphere and ocean. Instead, they're due to the flow of liquid iron within Earth's outer core, where Earth's magnetic field originates. This fluid interacts with Earth's mantle to affect Earth's rotation. While scientists cannot observe these flows directly, they can deduce their movements by observing Earth's magnetic field at the surface. Previous studies have shown that this flow of liquid iron in Earth's outer core oscillates, in waves of motion that last for decades with timescales that correspond closely to long-duration variations in Earth's length of day.
Still other studies have observed a link between the long-duration variations in Earth's length of day and fluctuations of up to 0.2 degrees Celsius (0.4 degree Fahrenheit) in Earth's long-term global average surface air temperature.
So how might all three of these variables -- Earth's rotation, movements in Earth's core (formally known as the core angular momentum) and global surface air temperature -- be related? That's what researchers Jean Dickey and Steven Marcus of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and colleague Olivier de Viron of the Universite Paris Diderot and Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris in France, set out to discover in a first-of-its-kind study.
The scientists mapped existing data from a model of fluid movements within Earth's core and data on yearly averaged length-of-day observations against two time series of observed annual global average surface temperature: one from NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies in New York that extends back to 1880, and another from the United Kingdom's Met Office that extends back to 1860. Since total air temperature is composed of two components -- temperature changes that occur naturally and those caused by human activities -- the researchers used results from computer climate models of Earth's atmosphere and ocean to account for temperature changes due to human activities. These human-produced temperature changes were then subtracted from the total observed temperature records to generate corrected temperature records.
The researchers found that the uncorrected temperature data correlated strongly with data on movements of Earth's core and Earth's length of day until about 1930. They then began to diverge substantially: that is, global surface air temperatures continued to increase, but without corresponding changes in Earth's length of day or movements of Earth's core. This divergence corresponds with a well-documented, robust global warming trend that has been widely attributed to increased levels of human-produced greenhouse gases.
But an examination of the corrected temperature record yielded a different result: the corrected temperature record remained strongly correlated with both Earth's length of day and movements of Earth's core throughout the entire temperature data series. The researchers performed robust tests to confirm the statistical significance of their results.
"Our research demonstrates that, for the past 160 years, decadal and longer-period changes in atmospheric temperature correspond to changes in Earth's length of day if we remove the very significant effect of atmospheric warming attributed to the buildup of greenhouse gases due to mankind's enterprise," said Dickey. "Our study implies that human influences on climate during the past 80 years mask the natural balance that exists among Earth's rotation, the core angular momentum and the temperature at Earth's surface."
So what mechanism is driving these correlations? Dickey said scientists aren't sure yet, but she offered some hypotheses.
Since scientists know air temperature can't affect movements of Earth's core or Earth's length of day to the extent observed, one possibility is the movements of Earth's core might disturb Earth's magnetic shielding of charged-particle (i.e., cosmic ray) fluxes that have been hypothesized to affect the formation of clouds. This could affect how much of the sun's energy is reflected back to space and how much is absorbed by our planet. Other possibilities are that some other core process could be having a more indirect effect on climate, or that an external (e.g. solar) process affects the core and climate simultaneously.
Regardless of the eventual connections to be established between the solid Earth and climate, Dickey said the solid Earth's impacts on climate are still dwarfed by the much larger effects of human-produced greenhouse gases. "The solid Earth plays a role, but the ultimate solution to addressing climate change remains in our hands," she concluded.
Study results were published recently in the Journal of Climate.Barclays hands out £1.5bn in cash bonuses as bank's profits soar by 92% to record £11.6bn
Barclays hands out £2.7bn in bonuses after bumper profits
But bank's chief executive and president turn down payout
Six out of ten firms still being turned down for bank loans
Credit card interest soars to 12-year high
Inflation soars to 14-month high of 3.5%
Experts warn house prices facing second crash
Bankers at Barclays were handed a bumper payout of £1.5 billion in cash bonuses last year as the bonus pool doubled and the bank posted record annual profits, it was announced today.
The banking giant posted eye-watering profits of £11.6 billion for 2009 this morning- up a massive 92 per cent on last year.
These figures were buoyed by its investment banking arm, BarCap, where top investment bankers shared a bonus and pay pool of £4.5bn, almost double the previous year.
Just 23,000 of the firm's top investment bankers shared a bumper payout of £2.1 billion in bonuses with the average BarCap employee receiving a £95,000 payout.
[caption]
But while Barclays' results were good news for its bankers, they come as a survey showed that fat cat bankers are still refusing to give small businesses the help they need.
Business bosses are so starved of cash that they have been forced to borrow on their credit cards because banks are still refusing to lend them money.
Six out of ten firms were still being turned down for bank loans last year, according to a survey by the Institute of Directors.
Meanwhile another survey found that credit card rates are at 12-year high despite the interest rates being at a historic low.
The average interest charged on a credit card has soared to 18.8 per cent - the highest level since 1998. Some consumers now paying more than 40 per cent on the cash they have borrowed.
This morning official statistics showed that inflation rose to 3.5 per cent in January, well above the Bank's 2 per cent target.
Across the group as a whole, Barclays paid out £2.7 billion in bonuses - £1.5 billion in cash bonuses and £1.2 billion in long-term awards vesting over three years.
Almost three-quarters of these payouts were made in shares.
But chief executive John Varley and president Bob Diamond have sacrificed payouts in the light of the 'intense public interest and concern' over bankers' pay, Barclays said.
Shares in Barclays jumped by 8 per cent as the markets reacted to the better-than- expected results.
Other banks are set to follow with results over the next fortnight, and it is predicted that 10,000 City workers will walk away with pay and bonuses topping £1million each.
Barclays bosses Bob Diamond, left, and John Varley, right, have opted to forgo their bonuses despite record profits
But today's Institute of Directors survey makes a mockery of boasts by Gordon Brown and Chancellor Alistair Darling that the Government ordered the banks to start lending again as payback for pumping £850billion into the economy.
IoD director general Miles Templeman said: 'The fact that more than half of all businesses seeking finance last year were turned away by their banks is totally incompatible with the banking sector's position on the state of lending in the UK.
'What is even more concerning is that having been rejected, 83 per cent of businesses are not receiving information about alternatives available to them, including the Government's Enterprise Finance Guarantee.
'It seems that more businesses are turning to forms of unsecured finance, such as credit cards, to get them through their short-term spending needs.'
The IoD survey of 1,000 businesses is particularly significant because the Institute represents company directors who employ an average of 20 to 30 people - the very entrepreneurs whose desire to expand will be critical to creating jobs and dragging Britain out of recession.
The survey raised questions over the degree to which Labour has helped business get back on its feet.
Official figures show that just £2.4billion of a budget of £18.7billion earmarked for aiding cash-strapped firms has actually been spent.
There were 27,000 corporate insolvencies between the second quarter of 2008 and the third quarter of 2009, a record number in any British recession.
Economists and credit experts today warned that the UK housing market faces a second crash next year when banks are forced to start paying back the billions they borrowed from the Government at the height of the crisis.
Credit rating agency Moody's echoed fears raised by the Council of Mortgage Lenders that a sudden choking-off of credit will see mortgage costs soar and house prices tumble.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Chancellor Alistair Darling had said the Government had ordered the banks to start lending again
Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury Philip Hammond said: 'This research makes a mockery of Gordon Brown's claim to be giving real help now to businesses and to have extracted legally binding guarantees from the banks to lend more in exchange for taxpayer support.
'Thanks to his incompetence, more businesses have gone to the wall in this recession than in any other, while many more are being deprived of the credit they need to invest and create the new jobs we need for a sustainable recovery.'
The IoD survey also contradicts claims by the Treasury that lower lending figures are due to businesses not wishing to borrow cash to expand or develop during the economic downturn.
Surveys by the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) have claimed that three out of four businesses got the money they wanted. But the IoD survey indicates that these figures are wrong.
Last week the Public Accounts Committee criticised the nationalised banks Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group for failing to lend a total of £39billion by the end of this month - supposedly a legally binding commitment.
An IoD spokesman said that the performance of the banks nationalised during the financial meltdown is no better than that of their high street rivals: 'A lot of the people affected will be customers of the state- owned banks. Nothing I can see suggests they have done any better.'
Although Barclays, which doubled its profits in 2009, has not taken taxpayers' cash to rebuild its finances, it has indirectly benefited from taxpayer support to the struggling sector.
Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman Vince Cable said the big banks should concentrate on lending, not bonuses.
'There is a huge gap between what the banks tell us and the experience of companies on the ground,' he said.
'Instead of paying themselves large bonuses, the money should be used to strengthen balance sheets and to provide lending to solvent British companies who have a vital role to play in our recovery.'
A Treasury spokesman said: 'Banks must do everything they can to lend to creditworthy businesses and support the recovery.
'The evidence shows that more lending is beginning to flow to businesses, but there is no room for complacency.
'As a result of the lending commitments, both Lloyds and RBS have made available more than £90billion in new lending since February, of which £50billion was loans to businesses.'Truth should be a magnet to journalists. They should fly to it like moths to a flame. Moreover, they should question every potential truth until they can determine beyond a reasonable doubt that it is indeed verified. That’s not to say there’s no room for speculation when the evidence is strong, but BuzzFeed’s release of an “oppo dossier” on Donald Trump’s alleged Russian connections does not fall into this category.
The evidence is not strong. Confidence is not high. The only thing giving the devastating report any credibility is that it’s being considered a potential threat by the intelligence community. Releasing the details is journalistic irresponsibility at this stage because they allow the general public to jump to conclusions about the President-elect before the information can be verified.
As I posted elsewhere, the cat’s out of the bag so it must be addressed. These allegations are bad. They’re much worse than anything Trump (or any President for that matter) has been accused of in the past because they insinuate that an American President may be compromised by a foreign government. If this isn’t debunked by the intelligence community quickly, there will be a stigma on every action that Trump makes in favor of positive Russian relations throughout his administration.
Some would say that it’s for this reason that the American people need to know about it. To that I say, “No, we don’t.” We need the verified (or at least highly likely) truth. We don’t need rumors. This can no longer have an effect on the election, so it’s useless in that regard. It can have no effect on the investigation; the intelligence community briefed President Obama and President-elect Trump on it already so we know that they’re taking it very seriously. They didn’t need Buzzfeed to push them to work harder towards the truth. This does three things:
It casts a shadow over the incoming government that will hamper their effectiveness.
It adds fuel to the leftist fire that’s already acting out in ways that hurt America for no good use other than making themselves feel better about their loss.
It distracts Americans with rumors when we should be focused on improving the nation.
There is no vindication possible here for BuzzFeed. If the report turns out to be partially true, they are not instantly justified in publishing it because doing so did not help to bring the truth to light. There are times when journalism is necessary to focus the attentions of politicians, law enforcement, watchdogs, and the intelligence community. This is not one of those cases. BuzzFeed took a huge risk for America that can only bring two potential self-serving rewards: page views and notoriety. If the report is proven to be true, their release did nothing to aid in its discovery and only benefited them. If it turns out it’s false, they hurt America by compromising the validity of a President while causing permanent damage to the administration’s credibility in foreign relations. Do you think other foreign governments will believe U.S. intelligence if they say that the report is false?
That BuzzFeed is becoming more of a mainstream voice of American journalism should be considered a travesty, but unfortunately it’s real. They’ve taken a huge step towards becoming the epitome of yellow journalism, and still Americans will flock to their stories. In their attempt to take down a President, they’ve demonstrated how the press is systematically taking down America.(Reuters) - An education technology conference this week in Austin, Texas, will clang with bells and whistles as startups eagerly show off their latest wares.
A guard helps a student cross an intersection in Pelham, New York February 8, 2013. REUTERS/Adrees Latif
But the most influential new product may be the least flashy: a $100 million database built to chart |
of Andretti, including co-owner John Holman, the second-class treatment from other factions within the program ensured Lorenzen received the most powerful motors.
"We got the car working pretty darn good, but we did not have the engines that some of the other guys had," Andretti continued. "That was a bit of a struggle for me … to finally get what I deserved, I think.
"I had to qualify … with the motor that was down 400 revs, and that was based on the gear I was running. The only guy that gave me the right tip was Donnie Allison, believe it or not. I befriended the Allison brothers quickly. Nobody was really too open about things.
"I said, 'what sort of revs should I be pulling with 370 gear?' [Allison said] '7200, for sure,' and I was pulling like 6800."
Saddled with an underwhelming engine, Andretti sacrificed handling stability to regain some of the missing top speed.
"When I qualified, I qualified with a really low spoiler to try to get some speed out of it," he said. But lo and behold, I had to race with it. And that is what really, that was a little bit of an issue."
RacingOne Getty Images
With NASCAR's rules requiring teams to race their cars in the specification as they qualified, Andretti's low-downforce workaround helped secure 12th on the starting grid but it meant he'd be strapped inside a rolling earthquake for 200 laps come race day. Lorenzen, with the big motor and tall rear spoiler, qualified a comfortable fourth.
Sick of the shoddy treatment, Andretti applied heat and pressure back at Ford's headquarters after qualifying. Mario's mercurial talent alone allowed him to drag the No. 11 Fairlane up to 12th in time trials, and with a decent race result within reach, he wasn't shy while lobbying Dearborn's brass to drop a proper motor into his engine bay.
An "experimental boy" no more, Andretti's wish was granted, but it only compounded the difficulty that was brewing. If his car was a handful with a soft engine and minimal rear downforce, living with a raging new motor for 500 miles meant Mario would be locked into a race-long fight with the steering wheel.
"Honestly, even though the car was loose, it was very, very neutral, it was very neutral but in traffic it was loose," he conceded. "It was manageable. The mechanical side of the car was very balanced."
It was manageable… for Mario Andretti.
If someone asks where the sport of drifting got its start, that blue Ford Fairlane at the 1967 Daytona 500 might just be the correct answer. All while lapping in the 180mph range.
"Nobody can drive a car that is radically loose and ready to spin," Andretti acknowledged. "This was ready to spin, but I had the feel of the back end, I could almost hang out the back. Sometimes when I got caught out, I used to I think at the beginning [that] I had an oil leak because I was smoking the back tire."
The dirt oval-trained phenom, with a hot motor under the hood and a wandering rear end, put on a show that shocked stock car's establishment.
"I don't think I turned left in the entire 200 laps," Andretti said with a quick laugh. "I would go into neutral [handling] and countersteer, but I felt the back end, it was still, I had a feel for it. But I had to lead, I had to lead. [If] you are following—it was really, really tough. So I had to lead and I had to run high on the track as much as possible because I didn't want to have anyone go by me on the right side."
The other drivers didn't stand a chance against Andretti. Supreme car control and serious straightline speed meant the little man from Nazareth, Pennsylvania ran off and hid from the dozens of Chevys, Dodges, Plymouths and Ford that shrank in his rearview mirror.
RacingOne Getty Images
With the win drawing near in the final stages of the race, a new obstacle appeared on pit lane. Flying around Daytona's high banks at a fearsome pace was something Andretti could control. Left to do his job, Mario dominated, leading 112 of the 200 laps. In a fair fight with Lorenzen--his unwilling teammate, the result was a lopsided mess. At least until the Holman Moody team intervened during the final pit stop.
"We came in, I was leading, and Freddie was behind me," Andretti recalled. "They kept me [up] on the jacks and let Freddie go. And he was just about at Turn 1 already before they let me go … I was so pissed, as you can imagine. But it is what it is."
The attempted robbery—to steal a surefire win from Andretti and hand it to his favored teammate—only managed to enrage the all-time great.
"But then I caught him and actually I went by," Mario continued. "There was Tiny Lund, we were actually lapping him, going into the back straightaway, Freddie was right behind me then and I could not shake him. And I had passed him by then.
"All of a sudden, Tiny motioned me to go by on the outside. He went to the center of the track on the back straightaway and I went right up to him and I dove to the inside to startle things. And Freddie I think backed off because he didn't expect that. And I looked back and Freddie was pretty small, he never caught me."
The Dixie comeuppance, from Italy by way of Pennsylvania, was a joy to deliver.
"I just pulled away from him," Andretti said. "And when the yellow came out with I think two, or three laps to go, [it was] like 22 seconds I had on him. I was clear. I was clear of him. The last part, after my last stop, I drove every lap like I was qualifying because I was so upset at that point. But once I got it clear on my own, I just drove ten tenths. And it seemed like it worked for me."
RacingOne Getty Images
Andretti's first major triumph, captured in the heart of the deep south, wasn't as popular as one might expect.
"I'm sure not everyone was happy with it, including Ford; they wanted Lorenzen to win, not me, because it was a one-off race for me," Mario said.
Decades later, NASCAR will blanket Andretti with a full complement of respect as it celebrates the 50th anniversary of his stunning win. As an honorary official for Sunday's running of the Daytona 500, Mario can look forward to taking in any of the adoration that was missing in 1967.
"I am graced with this opportunity, of course," he said with a tinge of pride. "It is so nice of Daytona and NASCAR to invite me there to remember this event 50 years ago. It meant so much to me. It meant a lot to my career."
Andretti's lone Indy 500 win came in 1969. His Formula 1 world championship was earned in 1978. His class win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans was secured in 1995. But on his personal timeline, Daytona 1967 is the milestone that launched his peerless career into orbit.
Returning to the scene that played a significant part in making Mario Andretti into Mario Andretti—a man who went onto become the most accomplished driver in any era—will be a fitting final chapter at Daytona for the 76-year-old icon.
Better late than never.
Listen to Mario's full account of his 1966 Daytona 500 debut and the tumultuous encounters on the way to winning the 1967 race in his podcast below:Fireworks were invented in China about a thousand years ago. BBC News reported in 2005 that a Chinese document from around 1040 gave instructions for wrapping gunpowder in paper to make a "fire pill" that made a loud bang when lit. It was apparently used to scare off evil spirits.
A common misconception is that fireworks became associated with the Fourth of July in the United States as a result of the bombardment of Fort McHenry during the War of 1812.
Although it's true that Francis Scott Key wrote the poem that became our national anthem after observing that event, fireworks had already been associated with Independence Day for more than 30 years, and we have our founding fathers to thank.
Research by James Heintze of American University in Washington, D.C., shows that "Congress led the way for the encouragement of fireworks on the Fourth of July by authorizing a display on July 4, 1777, in Philadelphia, a year after the signing of the Declaration of Independence."
According to Heintze's research, there was a large exhibition of fireworks near what is now Independence Mall, starting and finishing with 13 rockets to symbolize the original states of the union.
That same night, Boston also was lit up by a fireworks display. In the coming years, more cities began to take up the embryonic tradition: Worcester, Mass., in 1779 and Charleston, S.C., in 1783.
We still gather on lawns, in parks, on boats, on balconies, etc., to see the night sky light up in a celebration of the birth of our nation. But, we show our patriotism in plenty of other ways, too.
Here's a gallery of patriotic pride in New Jersey, whether on the Fourth of July or any other time of the year. Be sure to click on the captions to learn more about these wonderful photos.
Coming soon: crimes and mysteries. There have been infamous crimes in New Jersey as well as lesser-known mysteries, some still unsolved. If you have photos taken before 1986 of events and people related to some of these mysteries you'd like to share we'd love to see them and possibly use them in a gallery or Glimpse of History. Email your jpgs to ghatala@starledger.com.Beginning in early February, beer fans will be able to grab a pint of Flying Fish's latest beer, Forever Unloved Sandy, also known as "FU Sandy". Every aspect of the hybrid wheat/pale ale, from the ingredients to the kegs, has been donated, so 100% of proceeds (an estimated $50,000 from the 100 kegs that will be brewed) will go towards a New Jersey-based charity dedicated to Sandy relief.
Which charity will receive the donations? That's up to you. Visit Flying Fish on Twitter @Jerseyfreshale or on Facebook to nominate a charity.
F.U. Sandy is brewed with 2-row pale malt and white wheat, and is hopped with an experimental hop now known as ADHA 483. Flying Fish founder Gene Muller and head brewer Casey Hughes expect the final product to be "a truly one-of-a-kind ale", with notes of mangoes and guavas and a soft mouthfeel.
F.U. Sandy will be available in draught only throughout the New Jersey and Philadelphia region beginning early next month.
Chris Morris runs his own beer blog Black Dog Brewhouse where he discusses everything beer. His articles can also be found at www.NJ.com/beer. Follow him on Twitter @ChrisMorrisBeer or email him at Chris@BlackDogBrewhouse.com.Feb 1, 2014; Syracuse, NY, USA; Duke Blue Devils head coach Mike Krzyzewski gives instruction to his team during the first half of a game against the Syracuse Orange at the at Carrier Dome. Mandatory Credit: Mark Konezny-USA TODAY Sports
For years the Atlantic Coast Conference held the perception of being a basketball conference and not a football conference. Much of that has changed as the conference has morphed and shifted, but one thing hasn’t changed – the ACC can play some serious hoops.
Duke Blue Devils coach Mike Krzyzewski seems to believe that as much as anyone, and thinks the conference isn’t being given its due coming into NCAA Selection Sunday. From an ESPN.com report –
“I’ll get in trouble probably for saying it. Like the Atlantic 10, they’re a really good conference. I hear people saying there are six teams in there. Come on. I mean, they’re good, but put them in our conference and go through the meat grinder that our conference has to go through. But really … our league should get more respect. The fact that Pitt comes in here and people are saying they have to do something, come on. Come on, man. I don’t get it. The Clemson team we played [Friday] night is a heck of a basketball team.” – Duke’s Coach K on ACC tournament bubble teams
Honestly I have serious doubts that Coach K will get in trouble for anything he says, being the grand pontiff of college basketball, but he does have a point.
The ACC really does have the same flag to wave during basketball season that the SEC does during the football schedule – playing an ACC basketball schedule should get you some extra points with the voters and selection committee.
Duke is playing the Virginia Cavaliers for the ACC title today, and we’re talking about a Virginia team that won the ACC regular season, and has gone pretty much unheralded all season. The last time the Cavs went to an ACC tourney final was 1994, and they haven’t won it since 1976.
Coming into Sunday’s games, ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi has five ACC teams projected to make the Big Dance, putting them behind the Big 12 (seven), Pac-12 (six), Big Ten (six) and Atlantic 10 (six) as teams he has picked.
It’s easy to see Coach K’s gripe.Some residents with floating homes who are losing spots at one Redwood City marina could soon find another spot nearby.
The Port of Redwood City’s Board of Commissioners on Sept. 27 authorized allowing up to 19 live-aboard vessels to dock at the port on a month-to-month basis. It’s the first time the port has authorized live-aboard vessels, though the plan still needs to be approved by a governing body.
Michael Giari, the port’s executive director, said the idea came about in talks with the city after approximately 67 live-aboard vessels were told they have to vacate the premises by February 2018, as part of a lawsuit settlement over the prohibited residences. The City Council last December adopted a $10.4 million Docktown relocation plan that includes payments of fair market value for residents wishing to sell their boats to the city, but also advisory assistance for those looking to relocate to other marinas.
Giari also said the dwellings, which will cost $400 to $500 to dock per month, will bring additional revenue to the port if approved by the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission. In addition, if any Docktown residents relocate to the port marina, the port plans to ask for money from the city.
“The marina is not a big money maker for the port, and the increased revenue from live-aboards is helpful, particularly for making repairs that the marina constantly needs,” Giari said.
The port is spending $700,000 from its reserves in repairs to the run-down dock where the boats will berth from, in anticipation of the Bay Conservation and Development Commission’s approval. The commission, which is expected to approve the port’s application in the coming weeks, allows up to 10 percent of berths in the port marina to be used for live-aboards. There are 190 slips at the marina.
Giari said the Bay Conservation and Development Commission could come back with conditions that the port cannot meet or would cost additional funds, but he said the port went out of its way to meet the Bay Conservation and Development Commission’s stated criteria, such as consigning live-aboard berths to the dock located closest to restrooms, showers, garbage disposal facilities and parking. Planned repairs include upgrades to the restrooms and laundry facilities, new electrical wiring and structural mends. The marina harbormaster in July told port commissioners that boats currently occupying that dock could be moved to vacant spots at the other four docks.
If OK’d by its governing body, all live-aboards will have to be “navigable, seaworthy” and well-maintained boats, such as any other vessel that docks at the port marina. The vessels also can’t be longer than 35 feet, the length of the slips. Those qualifications would rule out a number of barge-based dwellings and nonmotorized boats housed at Docktown.
Live-aboards are defined as boats that are occupied for more than two consecutive nights in any seven-day period or more than eight nights in any 30-day period. Only owner-occupied boats will be allowed, for $400 a month for one person or $500 for two people. There is no additional charge for additional people, but that allowance would be at the discretion of the harbormaster, Giari said, adding that he didn’t foresee “a lot of demand for more than two people, if any,” due to size constraints.It’s time to move beyond the smartphone screen and into the world of Minecraft.
Microsoft has launched Minecraft: Gear VR Edition on the Oculus Store for $7. This is the VR version of the phenomenally popular block-building game that debuted in 2009 on PC and has since gone on to dominate the world with fans buying millions of copies across desktop, mobile, and consoles. It is now fully functional with the Gear VR, which is Samsung’s headset that uses the newer Galaxy phones as its display. Analysts at SuperData Research predict VR will grow into a $40 billion business by 2020, and Minecraft is the kind of brand that could fuel that kind of growth.
GamesBeat has gone hands-on with Minecraft: Gear VR Edition, and it truly is impressive. While the gameplay and mechanics are all familiar, I found myself feel claustrophobic by the underground caves and in awe of the scale of the world in a way that I never experienced on PC. It’s a fresh way to explore these worlds.
Microsoft and Mojang, which created the franchise, developed Gear VR Edition with input from from famed Doom and Quake coder John Carmack, who is now chief technology officer at Oculus.
“Minecraft is a game that you can both figuratively and literally lose yourself in,” Carmack said in a statement. “In fact, my strongest memories of being inside VR are from the time I’ve spent exploring Minecraft on Gear VR. Experiencing it in virtual reality changes it from an abstract activity to a visceral one — it goes from a sense of playing the game to one of being inside your world, and spinning around to find a creeper sneaking up on you leaves a powerful impression. Infinite worlds have been explored, shaped, and shared by millions of people, and now in VR; that sounds a bit like the fabled Metaverse.”
Carmack is not just trumping up the latest release for the Gear VR, which is his primary responsibility at Oculus. He has invested a lot into getting Minecraft on his VR platform. In early 2015, he told developers at the first Oculus Connect conference that getting the game on Gear was his “quest.”
“I was willing to do just about anything,” he said at the time. “On the phone, I said that if this doesn’t happen, I’m going to cry. This will just be so terrible. This will be the best thing that we can do for the platform. But there are some problems that compilers can’t solve.”
In the end, Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg and Microsoft chief Satya Nadella had to sit down to ensure they could make this Minecraft deal happen. I guess when a legendary designer like Carmack says he’ll cry, you try to make things happen.
Corrected at 3 p.m. Pacific time: This story originally said that Oculus handled a significant portion of the development, but that is not accurate. I apologize for the error.You can watch a live and free video stream of today’s Cage Warriors 63 main card here on MMAjunkie at 4 p.m. ET/1 p.m. PT (9 p.m. GMT local time).
To watch the five-bout main card in the U.S. and Canada, simply head to cagewarriors.mmajunkie.com. International viewers can watch it at www.cagewarriors.tv.
Four prelims also can be watched on Cage Warriors’ Facebook page at 2:30 p.m. ET.
Today’s event, which takes place at The Helix in Dublin, Ireland, features a main event between lightweight champion Stevie Ray and Ivan Buchinger. In addition, Jim Alers puts his featherweight title on the line against Graham Turner.
Today’s full Cage Warriors 63 card includes:
MAIN CARD (MMAjunkie, 4 p.m. ET)
Champ Stevie Ray vs. Ivan Buchinger – for lightweight title
John Maguire vs. Philip Mulpeter – 161-pound catchweight
Champ Jim Alers vs. Graham Turner – for featherweight title
Paul Redmond vs. Mateusz Teodorczuk
Karla Benitez vs. Aisling Daly
PRELIMINARY CARD (Facebook, 2:30 p.m. ET)
Sean Carter vs. Myles Price
Catherine Costigan vs. Morgane Delagnau
Kieran Davern vs. John Redmond
Amanda English vs. Slavka Vitaly
PRELIMINARY CARD (Untelevised, 1:15 p.m. ET)
Chris Boujard vs. Peter Queally – 159-pound catchweight
Gavin Kelly vs. Dylan Sheehan
Mick Brennan vs. Kieran O’Brien
For more on Cage Warriors 63, stay tuned to the MMA Rumors section of the site.
(Pictured: Jim Alers and Graham Turner)We've all seen the studies trumpeting massive losses to the US economy from piracy. One famous figure, used literally for decades by rightsholders and the government, said that 750,000 jobs and up to $250 billion a year could be lost in the US economy thanks to IP infringement. A couple years ago, we thoroughly debunked that figure. For years, Business Software Alliance reports on software piracy assumed that each illicit copy was a lost sale. And the MPAA's own commissioned study on movie piracy turned out to overstate collegiate downloading by a factor of three.
Can we trust any of these claims about piracy?
The US doesn't think so. In a new report out yesterday, the government's own internal watchdog took a close look at "efforts to quantify the economic effects of counterfeit and pirated goods." After examining all the data and consulting with numerous experts inside and outside of government, the Government Accountability Office concluded (PDF) that it is "difficult, if not impossible, to quantify the economy-wide impacts."
More specific studies that focus only on single industries don't fare much better because "the illicit nature of counterfeiting and piracy makes estimating the economic impact of IP infringements extremely difficult." And when it comes time to choose a substitution rate (how much of the infringing activity should be counted as a lost sale), we're left only with "assumptions... which can have enormous impacts on the resulting estimates."
The GAO then went on to slam three particular reports often linked to the government. They're all commonly cited, they're all bogus, and at least one is still being used officially.
Three commonly cited estimates of U.S. industry losses due to counterfeiting have been sourced to U.S. agencies, but cannot be substantiated or traced back to an underlying data source or methodology. First, a number of industry, media, and government publications have cited an FBI estimate that U.S. businesses lose $200-$250 billion to counterfeiting on an annual basis. This estimate was contained in a 2002 FBI press release, but FBI officials told us that it has no record of source data or methodology for generating the estimate and that it cannot be corroborated. Second, a 2002 CBP press release contained an estimate that U.S. businesses and industries lose $200 billion a year in revenue and 750,000 jobs due to counterfeits of merchandise. However, a CBP official stated that these figures are of uncertain origin, have been discredited, and are no longer used by CBP. A March 2009 CBP internal memo was circulated to inform staff not to use the figures. However, another entity within DHS continues to use them. Third, the Motor and Equipment Manufacturers Association reported an estimate that the U.S. automotive parts industry has lost $3 billion in sales due to counterfeit goods and attributed the figure to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The OECD has also referenced this estimate in its report on counterfeiting and piracy, citing the association report that is sourced to the FTC. However, when we contacted FTC officials to substantiate the estimate, they were unable to locate any record or source of this estimate within its reports or archives, and officials could not recall the agency ever developing or using this estimate. These estimates attributed to FBI, CBP, and FTC continue to be referenced by various industry and government sources as evidence of the significance of the counterfeiting and piracy problem to the U.S. economy.
The GAO then sets its sights on several private industry reports. The Business Software Alliance claimed a loss of $9 billion to piracy in 2008, but its study "uses assumptions that have raised concerns among experts we interviewed, including the assumption of a one-to-one rate of substitution and questions on how the results from the surveyed countries are extrapolated to non-surveyed countries."
Next up was the MPAA, which has already publicly taken its lumps for that flawed 2005 survey we mentioned above. But even when you set aside the mistaken initial conclusion about collegiate downloading, the study still shouldn't be used by lawmakers; it's a black box.
"It is difficult, based on the information provided in the study, to determine how the authors handled key assumptions such as substitution rates and extrapolation from the survey sample to the broader population," says the GAO.
More than they bargained for
Why is the government even looking into this issue? It's all due to the PRO-IP Act, which passed under President Bush and has led President Obama to appoint an Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator within the White House. Part of the IPEC's duties include gathering data on piracy and counterfeiting, and current IPEC Victoria Espinel is now rounding up that data. The GAO report is part of this process, and it certainly doesn't make industry estimates look compelling.
This is ironic for a bill that was backed by the big rightsholders; even its acronym, the PRO-IP Act, shows what it was supposed to do. But, by hauling the black art of "piracy surveys" into the light, the PRO-IP Act is forcing rightsholders to tone down some of their more specific and alarmist rhetoric.
The RIAA, MPAA and others have already asked Espinel to make Internet piracy her principal focus in order to "push back the tide of copyright theft."
What about all that data Espinel asked for, including detailed methodologies? The content industries basically punted, pointing to three surveys done by a single guy, Stephen Siwek of the Institute for Policy Innovation. GAO looked specifically at Siwek's work, all of which seeks to model effects of piracy on the entire US economy.
The government concluded that "most of the experts we interviewed" were reluctant to embrace Siwek's methodology; his approach comes from the Commerce Department, but it simply wasn't designed to measure what's being measured here. For instance, these studies ignore the obvious points that pirating goods leaves consumers with more disposable income, which is likely spent elsewhere in the economy. Effects on the economy as a whole, then, are terribly speculative and seem more likely to be simply redistributive.
None of this is to say that piracy and counterfeiting aren't real problems. The GAO accepts that the problem is "sizeable," but it also points out just how much bad data is used to produce these studies. Actual dollar figures and job loss numbers should be handled with extreme care and a good bit of skepticism; the GAO also noted that numerous experts told it that "there were positive effects [from piracy on the economy] and they should be assessed as well."
This is a helpful, level-headed review from the GAO, one that (hopefully) brings some of the debates over digital infringement into saner territory.The hiatus might be helpful regardless of how much confidence directors have in Kalanick. His mother recently died in a boating accident, and his father was seriously injured. Simply speaking, it would be understandable if Kalanick took a leave of absence to cope with his loss.
Other executives facing an uncertain future include senior VP Emil Michael, one of Kalanick's closest advisors, as well as human resources lead Ryan Graves and technical chief Thuan Pham (who reportedly ignored engineer Susan Fowler's complaints). The Wall Street Journal has heard that Michael could resign as early as Monday. Regardless of who gets cut or sidelined, the board is reportedly adopting a slew of management and policy reforms suggested after the investigation.
Uber has declined to comment, but you might not have to wait long to get an official response. The firm is expected to tell staff about its decisions on June 13th, and that might include publicly disclosing some details. However, the question isn't so much whether or not you'll hear about changes as whether they'll go far enough to please critics. There are many calling for an overhaul of Uber's leadership -- if the company only implements relatively minor changes, it could trigger an uproar from those convinced that Uber isn't really willing to fix its underlying corporate problems.
Update: Uber's board has unanimously agreed to all the recommendations given by former US Attorney General Eric Holder. His report is the culmination of a months-long investigation into Uber's toxic workplace, kicked off after female engineer Susan J. Fowler wrote an article complaining about sexual harassment by her supervisor.
A separate investigation led to the firing of over 20 employees, after a legal firm discovered over 215 sexual harassment complaints. In another case, Uber business president Eric Alexander was fired after he obtained the medical records of a rape victim in India, but only after it was reported on by the media.
Uber's board won't reveal the specific actions it's taking until tomorrow, but it could force CEO Travis Kalanick to take a three-month leave, in part because of a tragic boating accident that killed his mother and injured his father. Another possible move will be to fire business SVP Emil Michael, one of Kalanick's principal lieutenants. Whatever happens, many employees and investors think the recommendations won't go far enough, in part because of the cozy relationship between Kalanick and board members like Arianna Huffington.
Steve Dent contributed to this report.SAN MATEO — Two communities and police departments are “dumbfounded” by the news that a former San Mateo police officer has been charged with a spate of rapes and sexual assaults while on duty, with a 17-year-old girl among the alleged victims.
Noah White Winchester, 31, was arrested Thursday morning near his Stockton home and was charged with 22 felony sexual assault charges that cover kidnapping with intent to commit rape, rape, sexual penetration and oral copulation under color of authority, sexual battery, criminal threats and forcible sex.
The charges against Winchester cover a two-year period when he worked in San Mateo and the Los Rios Community College District in the Sacramento area. He is in custody in the San Joaquin County jail on $3.1 million bail and is expected to be transported to San Mateo County by the end of the week to face the charges against him.
Prosecutors have tied Winchester to five victims and contend the sexual assaults occurred between July 2, 2013, and Oct. 19, 2015 across two jurisdictions where he worked as a police officer.
“It really is alarming and disturbing,” said District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe. “We’ve prosecuted officers for things on duty, but not for crimes as violent as these are. It’s truly a betrayal of the public trust and all of us in the criminal justice system are horrified by this.”
San Mateo police Chief Susan Manheimer said she was “appalled” at the nature of his alleged acts while acknowledging the former officer’s presumption of innocence in court.
“We are distressed, disgusted and disappointed by these allegations,” she said in an interview Thursday. “I am grateful to the victims who were courageous enough to come forward, and should the allegations prove true, we stand with them.”
She added: “We are taking all steps possible to ensure we do not get surprised and our community does not get targeted again.”
Winchester did not arouse suspicion until Oct. 20, when a woman told Burlingame police she was sexually assaulted in her car the previous night by a San Mateo officer, later identified as Winchester, at Coyote Point Recreation Area.
That led to both an administrative review and a criminal investigation by the District Attorney’s Office that culminated in Thursday’s arrest. It was during that investigation that authorities discovered allegations from 2013 while Winchester was a police officer with the Los Rios district.
The revelation has prompted an investigation by the college district, where Winchester worked from 2009 until 2015. He patrolled American River College in his last two years with the district, which covers the time frame of the allegations there.
“If these allegations are proven to be true, that would be horrific for the women who were victimized. Such criminal behavior is contrary to the core values and mission of the Los Rios Community College District,” district spokesman Mitchel Benson said.
Winchester was linked to two other assaults in San Mateo and two more around Sacramento. All of the victims were female, and all but one were adults, prosecutors say:
Oct. 20: Two counts of rape and one count of kidnapping in the Coyote Point case
Sept. 22: One count of residential burglary and one count attempted rape for an encounter in a San Mateo motel room
Sept. 15: Two counts sexual battery involving a victim at Hillsdale Mall in San Mateo
Aug. 30, 2013: Two counts digital penetration, four counts sexual battery and one count kidnapping involving a 17-year-old girl in a Los Rios Community College parking lotCampus Comes Together in Support of Mental Health
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A combined effort on behalf of student and Institute leadership will provide an additional $1 million of expendable funds in support for new mental health programs and initiatives at Georgia Tech.
The Georgia Tech Student Government Association voted yesterday to allocate $500,000 in support of mental health initiatives and announced that President G.P. “Bud” Peterson had agreed to their request that the Institute provide an additional $500,000 in matching funds from Institute resources, to create a $1 million fund in support of mental health initiatives.
The combined $1 million will be disbursed based upon proposals and recommendations submitted to the Graduate Student Senate and Undergraduate House of Representatives by the Counseling Center, Stamps Health Services, or other organizations focused on student mental health and well-being. SGA will receive and review the proposals and then request matching funds from Vice President for Student Life and Dean of Students John Stein.
"We will be able to do a lot of good with this,” said Undergraduate Student Government President Sujay Peramanu. “Student groups that have ideas about how to make improvements will be able to get the support to make it happen."
The funding allocation is in response to President Peterson’s recent message to campus announcing his intention to create four action teams, including one that that will focus on Mental Health and the counseling and psychiatric services available to students. The SGA actions are in addition to the $1 million endowment, previously established in support of campus mental health.
Peterson also announced the temporary lifting of the “16 session limit” on the number of visits students can make to the Counseling Center, to allow the Mental Health Action Team time to conduct a more thorough review of student needs and center capacity, and assess the overall impact.
“I want to credit the initiative of the graduate and undergraduate student body presidents, Skanda Prasad and Sujay Peramanu, respectively, for working with us in such a collaborative manner to identify these and other actions that will provide immediate support for our community,” Peterson said. “I continue to be impressed with the way in which the Georgia Tech community has come together during these difficult and challenging times.”Motorola Moto 360 Light Metal/Grey Leather
Moto 360 håller fast vid den tidlösa designen av ett klassiskt armbandsur. En rund design maximerar displayens utrymme samtidigt som det försäkrar att du får en bekväm passform, så att du kan få informationen du vill ha, bekvämt på din handled. Från dess rostfria stålfodral till det snygga lädret, alla material har blivit speciellt utvalda och minutiöst utformade. Corning Gorilla Glass förhindrar repor och skyddar din investering.
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Recensioner Är du nöjd med din produkt, skriv en recension och låt alla veta! Snittbetyg Skriv recensionWith the conclusion of Genesis 4 last weekend, season one of the Rivals Championship Series has officially come to a close. We had a stunning first season and this amazing weekend came together thanks to all of the players who participated in the online weeklies, traveled to offline events, and supported the community through compendiums or by tuning into our streams.
We had an incredibly hype top 8 (check out this highlight video by Jarek4Gaming) and in a show of total domination, FlySociety’s FullStream took home the trophy and first place winnings of $4,464.
Congratulations to @XFullStream for taking first place in the Rivals of Aether tournament! #G4 pic.twitter.com/hofA3vUChW — GENESIS 4 @ #G4 (@Genesis_Smash) January 22, 2017
Coming out as the runner-up we had MrLz in second place taking home $1,674 and ICE | RK987 securing third place for $1,116. Here’s the full standings for the event:
Standing Player Character 1st FlySociety |
with the greatest vocation to construct socialism, but also by a leap forward in scientific-technological development. The construction of socialism isn’t possible in only one country, and in the case of Latin America this beautiful process of unity needs to be combined with the struggle for socialism.
Something indispensable is the unity of the peoples [of Latin America]. Up to now there have been great advances in unity between nation states, in the good relations between heads of state. However the unity of the peoples must be strengthened, a unity that carries at the same time a leap forward of a revolutionary nature in the societal realm.
Translation by Ewan Robertson for Venezuelanalysis.comThis article presents a study of vanillin encapsulation inside multilamellar liposomes, with emphasis on the evaluation of antioxidant activity, the hemolytic effect, and the antisickling properties of these products. Egg phosphatidylcholine-cholesterol and egg phosphatidylcholine-cholesterol-1-O-decylglycerol liposomes were prepared by mechanical dispersion, all with vanillin included. Vesicles were characterized by determination of encapsulation efficiency and vanillin retention capacity. Antioxidant activity was determined by the 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) method. The hemolytic effect of liposomes was also evaluated by spectrophotometry, as well as the antisickling activity by the Huck test using optical microscopy. Results showed that the lipid composition of liposomes did not significantly affect the encapsulation efficiency. Stable vesicles were obtained with a high retention percentage of vanillin. Liposomes exhibited a high capture of the DPPH radical compared to free vanillin and 1-O-decylglycerol (C10) in solution. Vesicles caused no significant hemolisys in normal erythrocytes, nor in those coming from patients with sickle cell anemia. Vanillin encapsulated in liposomes retained its antisickling activity, with a greater effect for C10-containing vesicles. Our results show that vanillin encapsulation in liposomes is a way to enhance the pharmacologic properties of this molecule using a suitable vehicle.Make Music is FACT’s new section devoted to making music anywhere, whether you’re a seasoned producer or a total novice, using an arsenal of analog gear or just your iPhone.
Apple’s new MacBook Pro is lighter, thinner and comes with a fancy new touch strip, but these changes come at the expense of USB ports and other features. Are these changes a nightmare for musicians, or can we live with them? Scott Wilson looks at whether producers should buy the new laptop.
After four long years, Apple has finally unveiled the MacBook Pro update we’ve been waiting for.
It’s lighter, it’s thinner, it comes in TWO colours and it’s removed those obsolete function keys you only use to change the volume for a snazzy new “Touch Bar”. But after Apple showed off the machine’s sleek curves, impressive statistics and new capabilities at the launch event, artists that use the high-end laptop for making music might well have been wondering: is this thing just bad?
A decade ago, the MacBook Pro felt like the laptop to own if you wanted a machine to make music on the move or use for live performance. It was kitted out with USB ports, Firewire sockets and a MagSafe power connector that meant the cable would be harmlessly jettisoned if you tripped over it, saving your computer from a meeting with the floor. In 2016, these things are all gone.
As with Apple’s decision to remove the headphone jack to make the iPhone smaller, you can only make a device thinner and lighter if you make sacrifices. In the case of the new MacBook Pro, the sacrifice may actually be worth it. Bulky USB ports are gone, and in their place we have four future-ready Thunderbolt sockets and a touch strip that creates new possibilities. As with the iPhone 7, some of the changes are bad, and some are good. But what does it mean for musicians and producers?
Traditional USB ports are gone, but USB-C still works with your old gear
The most audible groan from musicians came when Apple confirmed our worst fears: USB ports are no more. Even if you don’t have a huge studio full of synths or even just a portable sound card, it’s likely you’ll have a controller like the Ableton Push or NI Maschine to make music with. All of these things come with a USB-A to USB-B cable. This will not work with the new MacBook Pro.
However, just because Apple has removed the USB ports, doesn’t mean you can’t use USB cables with it. In their place are four Thunderbolt 3 ports capable of multiple uses: HDMI, VGA, power and USB to name a few. Thunderbolt 3 ports fit the new USB-C connectors: they’re in last year’s MacBook, and USB-C was used to charge Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 before they started blowing up. Whether we like it or not, USB-C will take over.
USB-C isn’t a different standard, it’s just a different connector. It means that you can still use your old gear so long as you have either new USB-B to USB-C cables or a USB-C to USB-A hub, which you can plug multiple devices into. Neither option is ideal: hubs always get in the way and buying new cables can be surprisingly expensive, but neither is a deal-breaker. If you’re a DJ that uses USB sticks with CDJs, either use a hub or buy one of the many hybrid sticks on the market.
MagSafe is gone, so be careful on stage
Most of us can live without traditional USB ports. We will adapt. We will not, however, be able to live so easily without MagSafe. Arguably the MacBook Pro’s most useful feature, I’ve lost count of the number of times my laptop has been saved from an early grave thanks to its ability to effortlessly detach itself as soon as your leg makes contact with the cable. Now your power is delivered through any one of the four Thunderbolt ports.
The loss of MagSafe is a particular blow if you use your MacBook Pro to perform live. Setting up a laptop on stage requires a lot of cables. Things get even more complicated if you’re trying to hand over in a short space of time, and the likelihood of your cable getting tugged is even greater. In short, the loss of MagSafe is a potential disaster waiting to happen. You can change a cable at short notice, but a laptop is another thing entirely.
Thankfully, there’s an alternative. The Griffin BreakSafe is a magnetic USB-C charging cable that does much the same thing as MagSafe. It’s not quite as elegant as MagSafe: one half will always be sticking out of your laptop, but at least it won’t get dragged to the ground. At £29.99/$39.99 it’s not cheap, but it’s definitely preferable to buying a new MacBook Pro.
The Touch Pad might have great applications, but we’ll have to wait for them
The biggest change to the new MacBook Pro is Apple’s Touch Pad technology. It’s an OLED multi-touch strip that replaces the old physical function keys, and its context changes depending on what you’re doing at any given moment in time. For example, it lets you quickly scroll though emojis in iMessage, or easily rotate images in the Photos app. It’s difficult to know if it will be any more than a gimmick; a lot of what it does can already be achieved with keyboard shortcuts.
As for musicians, Apple has already showed two apps that make use of it: GarageBand and Algoriddim’s Djay Pro software. It’s unclear how GarageBand will use it, but a two-minute demonstration with Djay Pro saw the Touch Pad used for scrubbing through tracks, setting cue points and controlling effects. DJs will no doubt be horrified, but most pro DJs don’t use Djay Pro. Apple is clearly going for the populist market, and for amateurs or house party use, it might work just fine.
The Touch Pad could have more useful applications for producers, but we’re yet to see them. Having quick, easy access to controls such as play, stop, record and tempo on Ableton Live, for example, would be incredibly useful. Dedicated Touch Pad controls on soft synths such as NI’s Massive would also be fantastic. You can’t always carry bulky controllers when you’re on the move, but the iPad has proved that synths can be easily tweaked with touch controls. Big companies won’t be integrating their software with the new feature straight away, however. If you’re hoping to use it for production shortcuts, it’s best to wait and see what happens first, and more importantly whether it’s satisfying to use.
Is it time to ditch the Mac and switch to a PC?
If none of these things bother you and you’re happy to stick with the MacBook Pro, great. But there are also compelling reasons why you might want to consider switching to a PC. It seems almost incredible to say this after the shambles that was the Windows Phone, but Microsoft’s recent product launch showing off the future of Windows 10 and its Surface line blew Apple’s MacBook Pro event out of the water. Affordable virtual reality, a new Surface Studio PC and Surface Dial controller all feel like new devices rather than slight iterations of what’s come before.
For mobile musicians, the new Surface Pro i7 is definitely worth a look. Its high-end 13-inch model has the same same 6th Gen Core i5 and i7 processors as the new MacBook Pro, and costs the same as the 15-inch version ($2,399) but also comes with traditional USB ports. Microsoft’s offering also comes with a completely detachable touch screen. The amount of touch-enabled music apps might not be as wide as the iPad, but it’s certainly a lot more generous than Apple’s Touch Bar. It’s also worth noting that Bitwig Studio will give you an Ableton-style DAW with touch controls that works with Windows 10. You can’t get anything like that on Mac.
If portability isn’t an issue, then maybe it’s time to build your own PC. The new MacBook Pro models are almost prohibitively expensive for bedroom producers, especially if you live in the UK, where the falling pound seems to have added several hundred pounds onto the value. For under £1000 you can build a more powerful system than the new Pro and have all the USB ports you need. The MacBook Pro has always been a popular choice of studio computer because it’s convenient and powerful enough for the price. Now, the added expense doesn’t seem quite as justifiable, especially when it’s mainly paying for a touch strip we may not even use. It’s as if Apple doesn’t realise how many loyal musicians have been buying its products over the years. If we don’t like what we see, maybe the only way to get Apple to take notice is to vote with our feet.
Scott Wilson is on TwitterBILLERICA (CBS) – Three people were killed and nine others were seriously hurt when a Jeep Grand Cherokee sped through a crowded auto auction in Billerica Wednesday morning.
It happened just after 10 a.m. on Charter Way at Lynnway Auto Auction. Police believe the crash was accidental.
Related: Witnesses Describe Horrific Crash At Billerica Auto Auction
Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan said a man and two women were killed. Their identities have not been released.
Nine people are hospitalized, one with life-threatening injuries. One of those people is a victim’s relative who suffered from stress-related symptoms.
Four people were transported to Lahey Hospital. Others are being treated at other area hospitals.
Related: Safety Questions Raised
An employee of the auction house was behind the wheel of the 2006 Jeep Grand Cherokee, which Ryan said traveled through the building at a “very high rate of speed.” The driver was only identified as a man in his 70s.
“At this point, there is no evidence or information to suggest the incident was caused by an intentional or terrorist act. All evidence and information at this time suggests an accidental cause,” Massachusetts State Police said in a statement.
Ryan added that it is a “very active scene” and the investigation is ongoing.
Read: Woman Killed During First Day Of Work At Billerica Car Auction
Billerica Police Chief Chief Daniel Rosa called it a “very tragic accident.”
“This was a large and chaotic scene with a lot of bystanders around,” said Rosa.
Lynnway Auto Auction issued a statement following the crash.
“We are very saddened by today’s events at the auction. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the individuals and families affected,” the statement said.
The investigation is centering on whether the driver had a medical emergency or if there was a mechanical failure. The driver was not hospitalized.
The Jeep remains lodged into the building wall next to a garage door.
Massachusetts State Police sent a crash reconstruction team and detectives to assist Billerica Police.
“It could have been a lot worse with the amount of people who were there,” Billerica Fire Chief Thomas Conway said.
Witness Describes Chaotic Scene at Billerica Car Auction
A witness at the scene who only identified himself as Geraldo told WBZ-TV he was inside at the time of the crash and saw the vehicle “speeding up through the auction.” He said it appeared to have been an accident.
“It hit the wall all the way to the end. It’s a concrete wall. So many people are hurt I have no idea,” said Geraldo.
“It happened so quick and it was so much damage because there are just so many people (inside the building).”
Just minutes before the crash, Lynnway Auto Auction posted on Facebook that cars were “lined up and ready for a beautiful Wednesday morning.”
Witnesses say the Jeep sped across eight lanes in the facility where several hundred people were standing.
Car dealer Wissam Merhab described a gruesome scene following the crash.
“Very, very serious injuries,” said Merhab.
Merhab said he believes the gas pedal got stuck in the Jeep, causing it to speed through the crowd.
Previous Jeep Cherokee models have been recalled due to acceleration issues, however it is not clear if the model was impacted by those recalls.
Four of the victims from the crash were brought to Lahey Hospital, where Dr. Casper Reske-Nielsen and other staff members rushed in an effort to save them.
Watch: Lahey Hospital Doctors Rush To Save Victims Of Billerica Auto Auction Crash
Reske-Nielsen said the victims range in age from 30-60 years old.
“I think it’s mostly the unknown. We don’t know the extent of their injuries. Some injuries can be hidden that we can’t see visibly,” he said. “We don’t know anything about the patients, their medical history, so we have to kind of work blind from that perspective.”
Two of the victims who were brought to Lahey Hospital have “a long road ahead of them,” Reske-Nielsen said.
A similar crash happened back in October 2015 at an auction house in Framingham. Eight people were injured in that crash.
Lynnway Auto Auction President Jim Lamb released a statement regarding the crash:
On behalf of my entire company, I want to express our shock and sadness at the devastating accident that took place earlier today. We are stunned at the loss of life and serious injuries that occurred to our patrons.
We are heartbroken that this accident occurred at our premises with a vehicle driven by one of our drivers. Understandably, the driver is very distraught; he will not be driving cars at the auction until the investigation has concluded.
We want to extend our appreciation to all of the emergency personnel who rushed to the scene to help our patrons. Since the moment this happened, we have cooperated with investigators as they do their jobs to determine how and why this happened. We will continue to do so.
We are terribly sorry for what has occurred at our facility today. We extend our thoughts and prayers to the victims and their families at this terrible time.
WBZ NewsRadio 1030’s Kendall Buhl reportsThe paper’s six tickets to the ceremony on its doorstep in Los Angeles were initially claimed by executives until an email from ‘shocked’ film staff
The Los Angeles Times almost didn’t have a reporter at the 88th annual Academy Awards. The six tickets issued to Oscar’s hometown newspaper were snatched up by top brass at the paper’s owner leaving the journalists actually covering the ceremony scrabbling for seats.
The Times had been allocated six passes for entry to the Dolby Theater and they were all initially snapped up by senior managers at Tribune Publishing, the paper’s owners, according to Capital New York.
Tribune chairman Michael Ferro, CEO Justin Dearborn and publisher Tim Ryan, all initially took tickets and the option to bring along a plus one to the world’s most-watched movie awards show. That is until the paper’s film team expressed their shock at not being given a chance to attend the Oscars and do their job. Before Sunday’s event the film staff contacted Ryan and Times editor Davan Maharaj to address their concerns.
Oscars 2016: Leonardo DiCaprio and Brie Larson win as Spotlight shocks Read more
According to the email published by Capital New York, the film desk pointed out that publications including Entertainment Weekly, the Associated Press, the Hollywood Reporter and Variety were all sending at least two staff members to help cover the event.
“We on the film team were shocked to learn this week that the paper has not allocated a single one of its Oscar tickets to a reporter. All of our competitors will have reporters both in the Dolby [Theatre] and at the Governors Ball,” said the email. The staff pointed out that instead of sitting through the show, reporters who get to attend the award show “use this access to gather exclusive quotes on the controversies of the evening in the lobbies and bars” as well as to interview the losers.
Spotlight: meet the reporters who told the story nobody wanted to hear Read more
“To fail to send a single reporter on a year when the Oscars are at the center of a cultural debate over diversity is not only embarrassing, it’s bad journalism. Would the LA Times ever cover a political convention or a sporting event this way?” the email continued, urging Ryan and Maharaj to reconsider and give at least one ticket to a reporter.
According to Capital New York, Ryan gave up his two tickets so that Times reporters Amy Kaufman and Steve Zeitchik could attend the show instead.
“We requested Michael [Ferro] and Justin [Dearborn] attend the Awards ceremony, just like top media executives of other major outlets do. The film industry represents one of our most important coverage areas — and the paper’s largest advertisers,” Maharaj told the Guardian in a statement. “We had a robust contingent of reporters and photographers on the red carpet, in the ballroom, backstage and in the auditorium. That’s why we had three million unique visitors consuming our continuous Oscar coverage.”
The award for best picture on Sunday night went to Spotlight, a movie that celebrates investigative journalism and chronicles the Boston Globe’s investigation into widespread child abuse by Catholic clergy.If you like to buy in bulk, Costco is basically heaven on Earth. But there's that one tiny caveat: It's a membership-only store that costs $55 annually to join. While you'll likely make your money back in all the savings you'll score, there's actually another way to get those deals. It turns out that some other stores are willing to match Costco's prices — meaning you can skip the membership fee altogether.
Here's how it works: Since you don't have a membership, and thus can't visit your local Costco to investigate their prices, costco.com is your best friend. Use it to research how much items cost at the wholesale retailer, and once you find the item you want, print off the product page with the price and bring it to the store that participates in price matching.
So who participates? Check out Best Buy for electronics, Home Depot and Lowe's for home improvement supplies, or hit up Office Depot and Staples for office essentials. Even the other major membership store, Sam's Club, will price match (meaning you don't have to belong to both to make sure you're getting the best deal available).
Kyle from Rather Be Shopping has compiled a full list of the stores that will price match Costco (check it out here) — and the stipulations that apply for each store. Yes, sometimes there are catches: For instance, for Best Buy to approve a price match, there must be a Costco within 25 miles of your local Best Buy store.
Of course, no shopping tricks will ever fully replace the Costco experience. For instance, bulk food and toiletries are much harder to find elsewhere than televisions or microwaves. (Not to mention free sample day — a Costco membership perk that's more fun than we'd like to admit). But price-matching is a helpful tip to have in your back-pocket when you have a specific purchase in mind.
[via Rather Be Shopping, h/t/ LifehackerMore from Michael Harris, available More from, available here
So now Stephen Harper needs the Indians.
It seems everybody does these days — for all the wrong reasons.
According to sources who have seen Harper consultant Doug Eyford’s confidential report, Stephen Harper’s bureaucrats have not done him any favours in moving the Northern Gateway file forward. Eyford told the PM that genuine engagement with First Nations is the only path left. For a variety of reasons, selling the pipeline to First Nations leaders is now an unofficial panic situation.
Despite that, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver didn’t seem to rise to the occasion in his recent meeting with the president of the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs. This is how Stewart Phillip characterized his meeting with the minister on the CBC: “It was a rather strange meeting. We sat there and talked past each other.”
As things now stand, the odds are against a deal with West Coast bands on the pipeline that is supposed to carry Alberta bitumen through British Columbia and out to Asian markets.
From industry and government’s perspective, time is of the essence. They want a delivery system for Alberta raw oil before other countries with energy for sale put a long-term lock on the markets that are up for grabs, particularly China.
By contrast, First Nations leaders will not be hustled into a quick or unsatisfactory deal. Northern Gateway is a multiple sore spot for them. They feel as though they have been ignored, marginalized and, to a degree, vilified. There was even a pitiful attempt to buy them off — with a 10-per-cent equity position in Northern Gateway. If it were only a matter of numbers, a deal-winning arrangement would be a stake at least three times as large.
But it’s not just dollars. It is a matter of reasonable fears by First Nations leaders about protection of the land and water in the wake of the Harper government’s gutting of environmental regulations in its anti-democratic and notorious omnibus legislation.
It is also a matter of trust: The Harper government doesn’t enjoy much of that in the native community these days. Normally, that wouldn’t bother a government that deals with opposition by taking out a baseball bat and going head-hunting.
But this time bullying and bulldozing can’t bring the First Nations into line. They have the Constitution and scores of court decisions in their favour. This time around, it is the Harper government that will have to compromise — if the First Nations decide to give it the chance.
The truth is, they might not bother.
This time around, it is the Harper government that will have to compromise — if the First Nations decide to give it the chance. The truth is, they might not bother.
Stephen Harper’s trust account is badly overdrawn. Native leaders will not soon forget how the Conservatives blithely walked away from the work-in-progress that was the Kelowna Accord.
Although former prime minister Paul Martin wasn’t around long enough to implement a program that aimed at ending native poverty in a decade, his plan enjoyed wide support and created something even more seductive: a sense of optimism.
Then-Opposition leader Stephen Harper claimed that he supported the plan to end native poverty and the principles of the Kelowna Accord, though he differed on how that should be accomplished.
This is one of the things that Harper said in a letter to Dwight Dorey of the Congress of Aboriginal People dated January 10, 2006: “The Conservative Party of Canada is committed to holding another meeting with First Ministers and National Aboriginal Leaders within the next two or three years to measure the progress of the Kelowna commitments.”
Put that in the same category with Harper’s promises not to mess with income trusts or the Old Age Supplement. Canada’s First Nations leaders have had their bags packed for that meeting for going on seven years but the invitation, apparently, is still in the mail.
In the same letter, Stephen Harper said this: “The provinces and territories, with federal assistance in certain instances, must take the lead in addressing the incidence of ill-health and poverty among off-reserve aboriginal people. They must allow off-reserve aboriginals full access to provincial and territorial programs.”
That statement covers more than one million people.
And there was this: “The fundamental obligation of a Conservative federal government would be to improve the living conditions and educational and economic opportunity of all Aboriginal Canadians, including off-reserve, urban and non-status Indians and Metis.”
But when Federal Court Judge Michael Phelan ruled in 2013 that Metis and non-status Indians were in fact “Indians” under section of 91/24 of the Constitution, the Prime Minister did not adopt the advice he once gave with such alacrity to the provinces and the territories to discharge their responsibilities. He decided instead to appeal the decision and dispute the ruling that said 600,000 “new” aboriginals came under federal jurisdiction.
It’s the same story on reserves after seven years of Stephen Harper — the water is still poor, the housing Third World and the health outcomes a national scandal. The best Harper could manage during the Idle No More protests aimed at holding Ottawa to its responsibilities was to mock Chief Theresa Spence.
The last blow to the PM’s credibility on the aboriginal street may well be the government’s vaunted native education legislation — a plan AFN Chief Shawn Atleo has already panned because it was conceived, as most of this government’s legislation is, unilaterally.
It is not, in the end, that Stephen Harper has done nothing for Canada’s First Nations. There has been good work on human rights, for example, and real progress on the thorny issue of matrimonial reserve property.
There has also been some progress on First Nation’s governance. But there has been no consistent record of striking the new relationship once promised, and which looked so promising in the lustre surrounding the government’s apology to Canada’s aboriginals for the cultural atrocities of the residential schools.
There are things the federal government could do to help win First Nations’ support for pipeline plans. One is to make the bands in B.C. true stakeholders by recognizing the order of wealth transfer that must take place.
Brian Crowley and Ken Coates of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute came up with some excellent ideas: developing an advanced, evidence-based pipeline and shipping system with input from First Nations and environmental groups; designating the corridor land for pipelines as reserves under the Indian Act, thereby creating another revenue stream for First Nations which could collect taxes; and creating an endowment to cover the cost of oil spills and their clean-up — though no one believes after Exxon Valdez or Deepwater Horizon that any fund could ever hold enough money.
Even under those circumstances, Northern Gateway is still a very tough sell, and not just to First Nations leaders. The majority of people in British Columbia oppose the project. They know that one major spill could wipe out the B.C. coast, because every salmon, halibut, sea lion, gray whale and sea bird goes past the mouth of the Douglas Channel, where hundreds of tankers would be navigating.
But the Conservatives’ push needs to start somewhere and it would probably be a good thing if Stephen Harper opts to meet with Canada’s aboriginals in some place other than court. There will never be progress on this file as long as Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada owns the dubious record of having the biggest legal bills in the federal government.
Trust is earned — not litigated.
Michael Harris is a writer, journalist, and documentary filmmaker. He was awarded a Doctor of Laws for his “unceasing pursuit of justice for the less fortunate among us.” His eight books include Justice Denied, Unholy Orders, Rare ambition, Lament for an Ocean, and Con Game. His work has sparked four commissions of inquiry, and three of his books have been made into movies. He is currently working on a book about the Harper majority government to be published in the autumn of 2014 by Penguin Canada.
Readers can reach the author at [email protected]. Click here to view other columns by Michael Harris.
The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.Indian Super League finally enters Bengaluru market
The Garden City shall finally get a taste of the ISL action after having missed out on despite being part of the original list of eight cities...
On 13th April 2014, the names of the eight team owners of the Indian Super League (ISL) was announced. Kalanithi Maran-controlled Sun Group were awarded the franchise from the city of Bangalore.
However, there were several roadblocks and the availability of the Kanteerava Stadium was one of the main issues. The Department of Youth Services and Sports, Government of Karnataka had informed the Sun Group and representatives from IMG-Reliance, who are the commercial and marketing partners of the All Football Federation (AIFF), of the stadium being available only on Sundays.
Thereafter, there was an announcement of a technical tie-up between Sun Group and JSW’s Bengaluru FC, who plied their trade in the I-League, the country’s premier division.
Tata and Bengaluru FC join the ISL bandwagon
“We have experience in sports with experience of at least two IPL’s (cricket’s Indian ) behind us. Football is new to us as a group. So Bengaluru FC brings their experience on the table which shall play an important role for us,” said Ananth Nagarajan, Head of Sports – Sun Group to Goal.
“Bengaluru FC brings the knowledge of football planning. They bring the football strength to us,” he added.
“It (buying a stake) is something that we are looking. For the first year, it will be a technical tie-up but from the second year, we will explore the opportunity of Bengaluru FC forming the core of the Bangalore franchisee as well,” said Mustafa Ghouse, CEO at JSW Sports.
Bengaluru FC looking to win ISL in its first year
The club also decided upon their franchise name – Bengaluru Titans – with JSW Sports being close to sealing a 25 per cent stake in the newly formed ISL franchise, with the stake raising to 50 per cent in the second year.
"We have agreed on the number," revealed Parth Jindal, the son of Sajjan Jindal, JSW Group chairman to The Economic Times.
The club was all set to name Paul Jewell as their head coach and were in discussions with several top marquee players too.
Then there was a twist in the tale when a senior ISL official informed Sun Group that their association with JSW wouldn’t stand. According to sources close to Goal, the Spice-Jet owners intimated the organisers that should their alliance with JSW doesn’t stand then they wouldn’t want to be a part of the ISL given that the two companies were working together for the last month or so.
Ananth Nagarajan, Head of Sports for Sun Group, refused to confirm or deny the developments by stating, “I cannot comment on this.”
In the third week of August, a joint statement was issued by the Sun Group and IMG-Reliance which read: “Sun Group had arrived at the decision after internal deliberation and discussion, and wish to thank the ISL management for all their support.”
In came Chennaiyin FC with Vita Dani, Abhishek Bachchan and Mahendra Singh Dhoni as the franchise owners and have since gone on to be one of the most successful teams in the competition.
With Bengaluru FC now winning the bid to own an ISL franchise from the Garden City, fans in Bangalore will no more be deprived of ISL action. It took over three years for this to fructify as the ISL has evolved by expanding its format to a five-month affair for the 2017-18 season.
“We're glad that our bid to be part of the ISL has been okayed. A lot of time and thought has gone into our decision of wanting to be part of the league. The biggest factor has been the interest of the long-term future of Indian football. A longer league is the right road ahead," said club CEO Parth Jindal.
"Being part of the ISL will improve our commercial viability that then lets us do a lot more with our youth academy. We are excited to create new rivalries and keep old ones going should the new format allow us to come up against each other. A key aspect is we still get to chase our quest for the AFC Cup,” he added.
It has taken a while but now one can safely proclaim, 'Bengaluru, konege ISL ge svagata'.McCain’s elusive medical records
In 1999, during John McCain’s first presidential campaign, the senator, then 63, couldn’t have been any more forthcoming when it came to his medical history. Months before a single vote was cast, McCain instructed his campaign to release 1,500 pages of medical and psychiatric records. What’s more, journalists with additional questions were given direct access to McCain’s personal physician.
That was then; this is now. The NYT’s Lawrence Altman, a physician, reported a month ago:
[T]his time around, Mr. McCain has yet to make his full medical records or his physicians available to reporters. At least three times since March 2007, campaign officials have told The New York Times that they would provide the detailed information about his current state of health, but they have not done so. The campaign now says it expects to release the information in April.
That was the standard line in early March. McCain sat down for an interview with Scott Pelley on “60 Minutes,” and was asked about his health. McCain said it’s “excellent” (three times), and said his campaign would be “doing the medical records thing” soon. Pelley followed up, “There has been some criticism that you have not released your medical records. You’re saying in this interview that you’re about to do that.” McCain replied, “Oh, yeah, we’ll do it in the next month or so, yeah.”
With this in mind, it came as a bit of a surprise when CNN reported yesterday, “The McCain campaign said Wednesday the Arizona senator’s medical records will no longer be released by April 15. They now say the new timetable is ‘sometime in May.'”
My hunch is that there’s probably nothing to this. If McCain had a serious medical problem that would interfere with his campaign or his ability to serve, it’d be insane for him to try to conceal it now.
But why, then, play these games?
It was just March 10 — a few weeks ago — when McCain had what he said was a routine doctor’s visit in Phoenix. He told reporters afterwards, “Everything’s fine, everything’s fine,” adding that he’d make a full disclosure on April 15.
And now the date has been pushed back again. I wasn’t inclined to be suspicious about this issue until McCain started acting suspiciously.
Reporters started asking for medical records months ago. First, McCain’s aides said they’d release the information in March. Then, without explanation, they changed the date to April. Then, again without explanation, they changed the date to May.
For a candidate who has nothing to hide, he’s acting like he has something to hide. And given that McCain is running to be the oldest president ever elected, and he has a history of medical problems including melanoma, this is a little unsettling.
If McCain had a history of secrecy, it’d be easier to just chalk this up to a character flaw. But his previous disclosures actually make the problem worse. He was an open book during his first campaign, and now he can’t even explain the delays in releasing his records.
As I said, there’s probably nothing to this. But the campaign’s conduct on the issue raises questions, doesn’t it?BEIRUT – A series of shootings have targeted top commanders of both Islamist and Free Syrian Army-affiliated rebel groups seeking to seize the southern city of Daraa.
On Tuesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that “an unidentified militant has assassinated a Nusra Front security commander, shooting him dead in a hospital in Daraa.”
Nusra commander Ahmad Mohammad al-Fallouji. (Twitter)
The pro-rebel Zaman al-Wasl outlet went into further detail on the incident, identifying the Nusra official as Ahmad Mohammad al-Fallouji and specifying that he had been killed in the center of the city, which is divided between rebels and regime forces.
“It appears that Fallouji, who goes by the nom de guerre ‘Abu al-Izz,’ was receiving treatment in a field hospital when ‘unidentified assailants’ burst in on him and emptied between 20 and 30 bullets into his body,” the report said.
Neither the SOHR nor anti-regime news sites reported whether the assassins had been acting on behalf of the regime or another rival of the Al-Qaeda-affiliate.
Attempt on Sham Lions commander
Sham Lions Brigade commander Mufleh al-Kinani. (Facebook)
The killing of the Nusra official came shortly after a failed assassination bid against Mufleh al-Kinani, the commander of the Sham Lions Brigade, a rebel battalion affiliated with the FSA-linked Southern Front coalition, which has been fighting the regime in southern Syria.
In a defiant message directed at his would be killers, the rebel commander said that although he was ready to accept “martyrdom” he would never surrender.
“I promise you, o killer, o mercenary, o agent, that I will never surrender, as long as there is life in me and I [can] speak,” Kinani’s Facebook page announced in the early hours of Tuesday.
“If you manage to kill me some day that is my will; I ask to be a martyr in the service of God.”
The Syrian regime had claimed the bid on Kinani, saying it killed him in a special operation conducted by the Syrian army against rebel fighters in Daraa near the city’s Doctors Syndicate.
A military source told the state SANA news agency that there were “casualties among the militant ranks including the terrorist Mufleh al-Kinani, the leader of a terrorist group in the area.”
Attempt on First Army commander
First Army commander Colonel Saber Safar. (Al-Modon)
Another top FSA rebel also survived an assassination attempt in Daraa over the weekend as fighting continued to rage in the provincial capital.
“Staff Colonel Saber Safar, a resident of the town of Ibtaa and First Army commander, is well after |
outdoors. If you’re being destructive to nature, I draw the line there. But other than that, you can be doing whatever you want, as long as you’re enjoying being outside.”
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On the Lack of Representation in Outdoor Marketing and Media
“There are so many people who are shouting to be included and made to feel welcome in the outdoors. It’s something that’s truly frustrated me in the outdoors community—there’s an aesthetic of the way outdoor retailers advertise. Thin, usually light-skinned. It’s a very particular way of painting a community. It’s hard to see yourself in the outdoor community if you don’t physically see others like you, and you definitely aren’t seeing it in advertising.”
On the Backlash
“After the National Park Foundation featured one of my photos on Facebook, I started seeing overtly racist things for the first time. The comments are rare, but they are definitely there. ‘Why do we have to talk about race in the outdoors? Why do people of color have to raise the issue of being POC all the time? No one’s keeping you off the trails. No one’s being racist on the trails. I am tired of these people making everything about race.’
“That brings back up the self-esteem issues I have. But I push myself to not feel angry or resentful. I push myself to remember this is our land too, and it's on us to educate folks about why lack of diversity is a problem and why solving that is critical for our country and the future of the environmental movement. There is a huge level of privilege to visiting our public lands in America. To take the time and money to go is a privilege, of course, but also to see it as an option in the first place. The more of us who can connect to it, the more we can protect it together.”
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On What Diversity Means to Her
“It’s more than just this simplistic concept of seeing more color on the trails. It’s about getting people out and embracing the outdoors as a lifestyle, in a way that acknowledges any limitations they face in life. You have to talk about low-income experiences, the immigrant experience, what it means for people to invest in gear, to balance it with work and life and family. You can’t just say ‘diversify.’ You have to see what’s barring people from getting to the outdoors.”
BLKeTCtD0T0Denver is expanding its composting program in 2016 thanks to an expanded budget with the hope of easing the burden on the city’s landfills.
The city’s Solid Waste Management department will add one route in the coming weeks and two more this summer. The new routes will increase composting eligibility by about 7,500 homes. By year’s end the city will be able to service about 17,500 homes.
The program will expand to various areas throughout the city — mostly bordering already existing routes — with a good portion coming in the southeast and southwest areas of the city. The summer routes have not yet been determined, but according to manager of Denver Recycles/Solid Waste Management Charlotte Pitt, the city will likely break into the Green Valley Ranch neighborhood near Denver International Airport.
Each route costs about $400,000 to start, which includes a new truck. The program’s budget for 2016 is $660,000; the new trucks were purchased in 2015.
The program started as a pilot project in 2008 and became a fee-based service in 2010. It expanded to four routes in 2014.
Denver has notably lagged behind in the percentage of residents that compost. According to Pitt, about 50 percent of trash people throw away is compostable and another 25 percent is recyclable.
“If you want to achieve significant waste diversion away from landfills, composting is the one single program we can do,” Pitt said.
Residents who sign up for the composting program get a 2-gallon pail and a large trash container to bring to the curb on weekly pickup days. They also pay $9.70 per month on a quarterly basis or $107 if they pay for a whole year. Items commonly composted include food and yard waste and paper products that can’t be recycled, such as paper towels.
“Because it’s still fee-based, we’re not seeing the same level of participation as recycling, but it’s a step in the right direction,” Pitt said.
Ideally, the city would like to move away from a fee-based system. Councilman Chris Herndon, who co-sponsored a bill to fund the program’s expansion, said he would like to see the service be free in the near future.
“As a city, we should be able to flip that,” Herndon said, adding that he thinks the city should be seeing improvement in the next few years with composting and recycling. “I think a couple years is certainly reasonable, and we can exceed the recycling and composting average if we give everyone the option.”
Denver’s Chief Sustainability Officer Jerry Tinianow said the goal is to continue to expand the program and get the city up around the national average of a 35 percent diversion rate from its landfills. Currently, Denver is at 16 percent.
“It’s just going to have to be a slow, steady process year after year,” Tinianow said. “Hopefully, we can get to a point where we can charge less or nothing at all. We’re a ways away from that.”
Pitt said that about 11 percent of the eligible homes compost, while more than 70 percent use the recycling program, which is free.
Still, there were many residents who jumped at the chance to take part in the program.
Cory-Merrill neighborhood resident Nancy Rullo found out about the composting program through fliers that the city mailed out in advance of opening up in that neighborhood about two years ago.
She said composting and recycling has reduced her family’s trash by about two-thirds, which is even more convenient since the city removed the large trash bins — or Dumpsters — from the neighborhood and replaced them with individual trash containers.
“It’s a great way for us to take care of our garbage,” Rullo said. “It’s a wonderful opportunity for people to learn about composting.”
Joe Vaccarelli: 303-954-2396, jvaccarelli@denverpost.com or @joe_vaccJon Jones has all the talent and athletic ability in the world; it took him to the UFC light heavyweight championship less than three years after his pro debut. But for all his physical maturity, one of the biggest criticisms leveled against Jon is that he is not as mature mentally as he is physically. This came shining through yet again when doing an interview with the popular sports blog With Leather.
Josh Zerkle asked Jon what the one thing he would change about the sport is and he gave one of the most obnoxious and self-important answers possible:
JONES: It's a silly one. I would get rid of the replica belts. Like the ones they sell at the events? JONES: Yeah. I hate it when people come up to me with a belt that looks exactly like mine and they ask me to sign it. I worked three times a day for three years to get this [light heavyweight championship] belt, and now this guy asking me for an autograph has one just like it. Are you serious? I mean it's not as heavy, but it looks just the same. I like that. I don't think it's silly at all. JONES: I never sign those belts.
Unless a fan is walking up to Jon and claiming that he also "earned" his replica belt, it's such an extremely petty thing for a fighter to care about.
For a sport where everyone takes such pride in the accessibility of its athletes, this is an answer that is below what I'd expect from event he most jaded of "mainstream" sports stars.
I don't recall ever hearing an established NFL, MLB, NBA, etc. star refuse to sign a jersey because they'd worked since they were little kids to play ball at the highest level. They touch in the interview a little on the fact that there's no merchandising rights for the fighters, but for Jones to act like a fan wanting his autograph on a piece of memorabilia should suffer because MMA agents have never had the strength (or ability) to better pursue the merchandising and licensing issue is a rather weak move on his part.
Then, a more experienced and mature Urijah Faber was asked the same question. His answer:
FABER: I'd like to see, and I'm on the positive side of this, I'd like to see the less marketable guys taken care of. That's one thing. Another thing is the judging. It's terrible. I think there needs to be a serious call to action to make sure these judges know what the hell they're talking about. It's unfortunate when you got a guy who has spent his whole life to getting good at all these things not getting credit for what he's doing in the cage. Striking, wrestling...I don't think the average judge knows what they're doing. The answer would be a judging commission, get them licensed, make them go through a process. Maybe they're fighters or coaches in the sport before they can be a judge.
Looking out for other fighters and the long-term good of the sport vs. being upset that a fan wants your autograph on a fake belt.
Smooth move, Jon.The city tried to settle the lawsuit quickly and quietly, but the police veteran who brought the case turned the offer down. Now Seattle is somewhere it would prefer not to be: facing another retaliation lawsuit from within its police department. This time, the case involves a woman who believes she was discriminated against for pumping breast milk; a then-lieutenant who offered her help; and a captain who is accused of blocking his promotion for doing so.
Captain Greg Sackman, a 20-plus-year veteran, filed the suit. Without a settlement, the case is set to go to trial Feb. 5 in King County Superior Court.
It will be the second time the Seattle Police Department's internal tensions will be aired publicly since a 2016 retaliation lawsuit against Chief Kathleen O’Toole ended in a $2.8 million verdict against the City.
Both cases offer a look inside a police department that’s often painted as monolithic but is, in fact, marred by politics, drama and discontent that can be found in any large organization.
And while the alleged incident occurred several years ago, the resolution of the case arrives at a time when the treatment of women in the workplace is being scrutinized at an all-time high.
The case started in 2014. Sackman was then a lieutenant in the city's North Precinct and Tami Domico had been working as an administrative assistant in the precinct for seven years.
According to the claim, Domico complained to Sackman that she was experiencing "hostility and discrimination...due to her recent pregnancy" from her then-Captain David Emerick.
Sackman suggested she be reclassified to a different position, which he apparently believed would help her get out from a hostile work environment, according to the claim.
Emerick — Domico's boss — was away on vacation, but when he returned to the precinct he became angry, according to court documents. He allegedly called Domico “lazy” and criticized her for “spending time pumping breast milk, among other things.”
Using breastfeeding as a reason to not promote someone is illegal. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, “Any employee who is breastfeeding her child shall be provided paid breaks to express breast milk for her nursing child each time the employee has such a need, for up to one year after the child’s birth. Such lactation breaks must be of reasonable length and frequency.”
Domico told Sackman she felt she was being discriminated against and told Sackman she planned to file an Equal Employment Opportunity complaint against Emerick. Sackman, according to court documents, said he felt “duty bound” to be a witness on Domico's behalf.
Domico's discrimination complaint was upheld in 2015, according to court documents. "The EEO investigation specifically lauded Sackman for having been the only member of management to seek a solution by suggesting the job reclassification to help Ms. Domico," Sackman's lawyer, Alex Higgins, wrote in court documents.
Sackman, according to his claim, says Capt. Emerick repeatedly retaliated against him because he supported Domico and her discrimination suit. He also began losing out on meaningful assignments and chances to serve in leadership positions, he says.
Most salient, when a promotion opportunity became available, Sackman alleges he was intentionally passed over, despite ranking fourth in his civil service exams. In recent court filings, Sackman also adds that he believes his status as an Army veteran is being used against him.
Sackman has something of his own personnel history. In 2007, the City awarded $185,000 to a man whom Sackman had arrested, punching and kicking him as he did. He avoided discipline only because the 180-day statute of limitations had expired.
The City Attorney’s Office would not comment on pending litigation. But in its court filing, the City denied Sackman's accusations. “The City undertook all employment actions at issue for legitimate, non-retaliatory reasons,” it reads.
Sackman was later promoted to Captain of the North Precinct. (Among his duties: tours to a small group of activists and journalists.)
Both Domico and Emerick, the captain, continue to work in the department.
Going to trial is a risk for Seattle. In 2016, the City faced — and lost — what appeared to have been a winnable case in court. A sergeant and captain argued retaliation for complaining about overtime distribution. The City believed it had proof both employees had made racist comments and fostered a hostile work environment. But a jury ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and ordered the City to pay nearly $3 million. City Attorney Pete Holmes has since fired the private counsel who lost that case, which is being appealed.
As O'Toole prepares to depart her post, that 2016 jury verdict is a stain on her largely celebrated tenure as police chief.
In the Sackman case, his lawyer, Higgins, argues that the department woke up to his retaliation claims following that 2016 case, promoting him to Captain in order to protect the city. "In December 2016, [Sackman] was finally promoted to Captain — into a largely redundant position, which we believe is a litigation defense strategy," reads one court filing.
With that $3 million verdict still lingering in the minds of city officials, the City has tried to settle the Sackman case, according to several police department sources. Lawyer Higgins declined to specify the proposed settlement amount. But sources told Crosscut it was believed to be between $100,000 and $150,000 and that it included that Sackman retire from the department.
But Sackman rejected the settlement, sources said. In a letter filed in court, Sackman's attorney points to other similar cases in King County where plaintiffs were awarded up to $260,000 for emotional distress. "The City faces substantial liability in this case," Higgins wrote.
Higgins declined to be interviewed for this story.
Although Sackman’s complaint is against the City of Seattle and doesn't specifically name O’Toole, promotions ultimately come from the top and O'Toole, therefore, finds herself caught up in the case.
Sackman's lawyer, Higgins, in court documents, argues failure on the part of the Chief. "Despite Lt. Sackman's attempt to discuss the retaliation with the Chief of Police O'Toole, Deputy Chief Carmen Best, and Assistant Chief Steve Wilske, the SPD has failed to articulate a satisfactory explanation as to why he is the only highly-ranked lieutenant who has not been promoted over the last three years."
In a text message, O'Toole said she had "lots to say" on the case, but that her lawyers had asked her not to comment.
Barring a new settlement, Sackman's case will go to trial after O'Toole has left her position and Deputy Chief Carmen Best has taken over the reins as interim chief on Jan. 1.NEW YORK (CNN) -- Under pressure from the Treasury Department, insurance giant AIG plans to scale back bonuses and compensation for some of its top-earning employees.
AIG has agreed to restructure bonus payments to its employees.
CNN obtained a letter Saturday from AIG Chairman and CEO Edward Liddy to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, in which Liddy pledges in the letter to reduce 2009 bonus payments, which AIG refers to as "retention payments," by at least 30 percent.
Liddy also addresses steps to limit compensation in AIG Financial Products, the London-based unit responsible for issuing the risky credit default swaps, which on several occasions has brought the company to the brink of collapse.
In the letter, Liddy says the unit's 25 highest-paid contract employees will reduce their salaries to $1 this year and all other officers in the unit will reduce their salaries by 10 percent. Other "non-cash compensation" will be reduced or eliminated.
Liddy, who took the helm of the company in September after it had nearly failed, also refers to a conversation he had with Geithner last week, which the AIG chief describes as "a difficult one for me."
Liddy says in the letter that he personally does not receive a bonus, but that some bonus payments are unavoidable, because they are binding legal obligations of the company, and "there are serious legal, as well as business consequences for not paying."
Some of the bonus payments are due on Sunday, according to the letter.
Don't Miss CNN/Money: Congress wants AIG answers
At the meeting Wednesday, Geithner told Liddy that millions of dollars in bonuses to senior employees were unacceptable and needed to be renegotiated, according to a senior administration official.
While the bonuses were never a secret, the official told CNN, Geithner felt giving them "was still inappropriate, given the state of the economy and the recent restructuring of the AIG agreement." AIG received at least $170 billion in federal bailout money. Watch how declining economy affects insurance companies »
Liddy, however, makes clear that he made the changes with trepidation, saying in the letter: "I would not be doing my job if I did not directly advise you of my grave concern about the long-term consequences of the actions we are taking today," specifying that if employees believe the company will have trouble attracting and retaining "the best and the brightest... if employees believe that their compensation is subject to continued and arbitrary adjustment by the U.S. Treasury."
The company, which lost a record $62 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008, has more than 74 million insurance policies issued in 130 countries around the world.
CNN's Elaine Quijano contributed to this report.
All About U.S. Department of the Treasury • Timothy GeithnerAbout the 11.10 Release
X-Plane 11.10 is the first major update to X-Plane 11. This update includes new features such as joystick & keyboard profiles, the G1000, new art assets for airport artists, and landmarks. It also includes numerous bug fixes and rendering changes.
Total airports with 3-D scenery in the 11.10b1 release : 5351
: 5351 New airports with 3-D scenery since the 11.05 release : 534
: 534 Airports with new user-submitted scenery in the 11.10b1 release (75 total): 1RL 64CT AYGJ EPMX EPPS KCVB LCEN LHDV LHGD LHSY LHSZ LHTA LRBG LRFL LTBZ LTCS MNCE MNCI MNLP NTKM OMAB OMDL OPIS OPMN SECA UKWW ULKK USII XAYGB XAYMHY XCAA6 XCAB7 XCAV6 XCAV9 XCAW4 XCBM7 XCBT5 XCCH3 XCEP2 XCEW9 XCJL5 XCKC5 XCKL2 XCKN9 XCOL4 XCSH3 XCWC2 XCWG2 XCWH7 XCYCKJ7 XEDAU XEDB9 XK89TN XK9NM9 XKMT59 XLRBIST XLRBUZI XLRCIOC XLRCOMA XLRCRAS XLRFRAT XLRSIRN XOMAP XOMAX XOMHY XOMLY XOMMI XOMRX XUL01 XUMV XUUCT XUUDN ZBDS ZBMZ ZSTX
(75 total): Airports with improved scenery in the 11.10b1 release (620 total): 02T 07MT 0J6 0MD9 0O2 0Q5 13C 14S 18TS 19A 1AK9 1R7 1R8 1S3 21W 23S 24C 28MI 29S 2C5 2H4 2Z5 32S 34U 37CL 37S 38S 3R9 3U4 3U5 3U9 40C 40I 42B 42C 43A 45R 47A 48S 49S 49VA 4G7 4MI4 4R9 4TS9 4U4 4U6 4U9 4Y9 50R 52S 53U 57D 57S 58CL 58S 59M 5B9 5U0 5U1 5U5 5U6 5U7 5U8 60VA 67TX 6K5 6S1 6S3 6TS7 6U6 6U7 6Y8 76G 79C 79S 7MI2 7MI3 7MI7 7S1 7S4 7S6 7S7 7S8 7U8 7Y2 80S 88M 88NV 8CA0 8S0 8T6 8U0 8U1 8U2 8U5 8U6 8U8 8U9 92U 97M 9A6 9S2 9S4 9S7 9U0 9U1 AK28 AYGR AYMS AZ88 BIAR BIEH BIFF BIFL BIFM BIGJ BIKR BUL BX7 C44 C91 CA97 CEH5 CFS6 CFT9 CL77 CNC4 CPN CSR CYBB CYCQ CYDQ CYFB CYGE CYGM CYGV CYKF CYNH CYNJ CYOJ CYOP CYPK CYXJ CYZV D69 D90 DAAE DAAG DE21 DTTJ EB5 EBAM EBAW EBBR EBHN EBLG ED05 EDDH EDFW EDHL EDQD EDVP EGCC EGJB EGKH EGNB EGNS EGSP EHAM EHLE EICL EIIM EKYT EM5 ENAL ENGM ENSH ENSK ENSR EPKK EPLB EPWA EPZR ESKN EYKA EZ3 EZ4 F02 F45 FAKD FAKS FANC FAPH FAPP FMMT FSPP FX4 GAP GCFV GCLA GE99 H28 HEBA HEMA I92 KAAF KACB KALM KANB KAPV KATW KBAM KBFF KBFI KBIV KBMI KBNA KBNG KBOS KBPI KBPT KBTM KBWI KCAD KCGC KCJR KCKN KCON KCVN KCXY KCYS KDAW KDBQ KDEH KDGW KDRU KDTW KDXR KEAR KEKN KENV KERY KEVB KEVW KFKS KFLL KFSO KGFA KGFK KGON KGRR KGTB KHAD KHAI KHDE KHFY KHLN KHLX KHQM KHWD KIAB KIMT KJCT KJGG KJXN KLAM KLBF KLBL KLCI KLDM KLGU KLHQ KLKR KLNA KLND KLNR KLUK KLVM KLWT KLXN KLZD KLZU KMAF KMBL KMBO KMBT KMCN KMCO KMFD KMGE KMIA KMKG KMLS KMRB KMSV KMTH KMUI KNKX KOCF KOMN KORG KPDC KPHK KPHX KPIH KPIL KPRX KPWD KPWT KPYG KRCT KRED KRLD KRMG KROA KRPX KRQB KRRL KRUT KRYY KSFQ KSGJ KSGS KSGU KSJX KSMO KSNC KSSF KTCL KTVY KUOX KVPC KWBW KWHP KWO KWYS KYKM KYNG L08 L94 LDSP LECO LEST LESU LFAK LFHE LFHF LFHO LFKE LFKH LFKP LFLU LFLV LFLX LFLZ LFMS LFOV LFSP LGIR LGMK LGMT LHFH LHFM LHSN LHTL LHZA LILE LIME LJLJ LOIR LQSA LR79 LRBC LRCL LRIA LRSB LRSV LSGB LSGE LSGG LSGK LSGR LSMC LSMD LSMI LSMM LSPD LSTA LSTB LSTO LSXE LSXS LSZH LSZJ LSZW LSZY LTAD LTAF LTAR LTAS LTBG LTBX LTBY LTCA LTCD LTCG LTCN LTCR LTFJ LTFK M46 M47 M75 MDPC MHLM MHNJ MHRO MI89 MMAA MMCB MMDO MMGL MMLC MMMX MMTO MMUN MNBL MNBR MNLN MNMG MNMR MNPC MSLP MTF MUNG MYGF MYSM N12 N40 NV34 NV53 NWWD NWWE NWWH NWWK NWWU NWWV NWWW NZAP NZCI NZHS NZNR NZPP NZWF NZWS O54 OBBI OEDF OEMA OKBK OM10 OMAH OMAJ OMAL OMAR OMAS OMAZ OP19 OP28 OPLA OPMI OPMT OPQS OPQT OTHH PABU PADU PAFA PGUM PS95 RC0 RJOO RKPK RPUS RPVT S00 S01 S04 S09 S34 S55 S59 S64 S68 S85 SA4C SANU SAVB SAVE SAWR SBAR SBAT SBBW SBCA SBCC SBCG SBCH SBCR SBCY SBCZ SBDN SBEK SBIL SBIZ SBJV SBLE SBMQ SBMS SBMT SBNF SBOI SBQV SBRB SBSR SBTF SBTT SBUA SBUG SBVH SCDA SDXF SECO SENL SETN SETR SFU SIFC SKSP SNBR SNQX SNUI SNVR SOOM SUDU SWBC SWKQ SWLC SWNV SYCJ T20 T74 T82 TE14 TFFM TFFR TGPY TJCP TJRV TJVQ TTCP TTPP TVSB TVSM TX26 U05 U09 U34 U55 UKBB UKDD UKDE UKHH UKKE UKLI UKLN UKLT UKOO UMMG UNBB URKG URMO UUWW VICG VIV VMMC VNPK VNSB VOMD VT8 VTSP VYYY W12 W94 WARR WBKL WIII WN47 X35 X60 XCYCNF4 XOM01 Y01 Y31 Y87 Y88 YBCG YBOA YBRK YDPO YMHB YMLT YOLA YPMQ YPPH ZBHH ZBSJ ZBTJ ZSOF ZUCK
(620 total):
New Features & Improvements
Version 3.0 of the X-Plane SDK (XPLM).
Joystick & keyboard profiles available to save different set ups per aircraft.
XPD-8070 We now allow aircraft to be marked as AI-only or user-only. This is configured in the Author window of Plane Maker. The default for legacy aircraft is “user-only.”
– User-only planes will be hidden by default in the AI planes configuration (for legacy support, users can go into “unsafe” mode and pick AI planes that don’t explicitly support doing so).
– AI-only planes will *never* be shown in the aircraft grid.
– User-only planes will be hidden by default in the AI planes configuration (for legacy support, users can go into “unsafe” mode and pick AI planes that don’t explicitly support doing so). – AI-only planes will *never* be shown in the aircraft grid. XPD-7574 Commands are back, because people wanted them: “sim/flight_controls/left_brake” & “sim/flight_controls/right_brake”
Quick-look views: There used to be 10 pre-saved viewing locations but now we have 20–enough for plenty of cockpit and exterior presets now.
G1000 GPS available. Included in a new Cessna 172 version & in the Cirrus SF-50.
Weapon improvements & fixes when using them in.sit &.rep files
Improved AI & ATC We now log the complete diagnostics of the ATC system XPD-7206 fewer repeated instructions
New electric and remote gyro system commands & datarefs.
Separate GPSS autopilot mode.
Screen-only popup instrument windows.
Rendering changes, including the algorithm to compute the shadow volume.
New art assets for terminals & airport buildings.
New airfoil format! Now you can save all the Reynolds numbers you like in each airfoil file! So this is pretty cool: To really do a good job of making an airplane, we USED to have to make a LOW Reynolds number airfoil for the low speed flight regime or the root of a prop, and a HIGH Reynolds number airfoil for higher-speed flight regime or the tip of a prop. We had to come up with foil data for the right Reynolds numbers and attach them to the “Lo Re” and “Hi Re” slots for prop or wing in Plane-Maker. This was annoying and cumbersome and nobody ever bothered to do it properly.
So NOW, an Airfoil-Maker, you can enter lift and drag curves for ALL the Reynolds numbers that you want, and they are saved in ONE file. This is especially good because it lets the airfoil-designer enter TONS of data into a single file, and SEE ALL THE REYNOLDS NUMBER PLOTS AT ONCE for a given foil, to really compare them all and be sure they they all lay out just like the real foils.
Then, in Plane-Maker, there is no need to fumble around looking for the Lo Re and Hi Re foil… just drop these new multi-Re foils into both slots and X-Plane will find the best Reynolds numbers in there to use and even interpolate for you, without you having to worry about selecting the right foils in Plane-Maker.
So this is really really good: The people that make airfoils can do an amazing job in creating their foils if they are up to it, and the airplane designers can then just drop their foils onto the plane in Plane-Maker without having to worry about Reynolds numbers, and X-Plane will choose the best Reynolds number data to use, interpolating as needed. This can result in more flight-model accuracy because if the person that enters the airfoil data enters curves for 2, 3, 4, or even up to 10 different Reynolds numbers, then X-Plane has more Reynolds numbers to choose from and interpolate between, giving more accurate forces.
So NOW, an Airfoil-Maker, you can enter lift and drag curves for ALL the Reynolds numbers that you want, and they are saved in ONE file. This is especially good because it lets the airfoil-designer enter TONS of data into a single file, and SEE ALL THE REYNOLDS NUMBER PLOTS AT ONCE for a given foil, to really compare them all and be sure they they all lay out just like the real foils. Then, in Plane-Maker, there is no need to fumble around looking for the Lo Re and Hi Re foil… just drop these new multi-Re foils into both slots and X-Plane will find the best Reynolds numbers in there to use and even interpolate for you, without you having to worry about selecting the right foils in Plane-Maker. So this is really really good: The people that make airfoils can do an amazing job in creating their foils if they are up to it, and the airplane designers can then just drop their foils onto the plane in Plane-Maker without having to worry about Reynolds numbers, and X-Plane will choose the best Reynolds number data to use, interpolating as needed. This can result in more flight-model accuracy because if the person that enters the airfoil data enters curves for 2, 3, 4, or even up to 10 different Reynolds numbers, then X-Plane has more Reynolds numbers to choose from and interpolate between, giving more accurate forces. Added animals (birds & deer) map layer.
XPD-8077 KSEA w/painted ground signs.
New analytics messages about renamed/moved runways.
New command line option –accurate_runways which will, when loading procedures for an airport, perform runway renames and even location fixes in-memory on the X-Plane scenery and then reload the region.
Command line can be used to override desktop topology for Linux setups.
Flight Model Changes
Rotor and propwash:
Better propwash DIRECTION, which matters for propeller-powered VTOLs that tilt their thrust vectors around, and helos that might cast downwash onto their horizontal stabs.Here is how it works: X-Plane USED TO cast wash on whatever was BEHIND THE PROP. This seems to make enough sense, but NOW we do it a bit smarter: NOW X-Plane runs wash off the props that flows with the vector SUM of the propwash speed and airspeed hitting the airplane! This is a wake that does NOT simply track aft of the prop disc, but instead flows aft along the airplane as the airplane speeds up, as the incoming speed displaces the propwash stream tube. Whatever wings or bodies are in that new vector-sum flow-field are now affected by propwash. This is probably a bit more accurate than what we had before.
More tuning of the propwash (and thus hover power requirement) and vortex ring state and effective translational lift based on momentum conservation and actual helicopter performance data. Definitely more accuracy there now, based on a lot of testing against very precise Bell-206 performance data in ground effect, out of ground affect, and at various flight speeds as well, and also in various decent rates including settling with power and power-off vortex-ring-state.
As well, new propwash SWIRL model. This is tested against flight-test in N844X which is a plane with huge power, very low speed capability, and a very in-efficient vertical stabilizer: All of the ingredients to get huge side-slip from spiraling propwash, so it is the perfect airplane to measure side-slip from spiral propwash, and therefore the spiraling propwash that causes it. So the propwash speed and swirl are more accurately modeled, with resulting performance improvements in all aspects of propeller and rotor thrust.
NOTE: Now in Plane-Maker, go to the Engines screen, Prop Geo tab. Now on the right you can see the prop advance ratio and prop “pitch” in inches, as is commonly used by propeller designers. This is controlled by the prop design speed and RPM in the Engines screen, Location tab as always, but now you can see the prop advance ratio and pitch since that is how prop data is commonly published.
We now have flap and leading-edge flap and slat extend and retract times, all of which can be different, and also a flap speed ratio when retracted, so the flaps can move slower near the small deployment angles, and faster at the larger angles, as real flap systems commonly do. So the flaps and slats are really dialed in here, done specifically for the Airbus project (certifiable flight Airbus A-320 sim we are working on) but with upgrades available to all as always.
Rudder, elevator, and aileron trim now only move the control surface when you have some airspeed over the control surface to really move it, as per real airplanes. What’s cool is that even if the plane is not moving, you might still have enough speed to move the flight control due to wind or propwash, which would likely be over the rudders and elevators, but not ailerons! X-Plane tracks the speed over each flight control, so the trim force in moving the control surface and force feedback forces on each control surface are all tracked, even for unusual aircraft configurations because X-Plane tracks the airspeed over each element of each wing on the airplane! Cool!
Effective angle-of-attack increase with control-deflection on the elements of the wing with ailerons, elevators, and rudders now a little more tuned (using an average of two DIFFERENT theories to give an averaged result that is known to be correct for very-small and very-large controls, with two different ways of interpolating between those cases that largely agree with each other, and both fit various experimental data). As well, we have adjusted lift and drag from speedbrakes as per documentaion on those.
I also added a new command called “sim/flight_controls/magnetic_lock”: “Controls magnetic lock.” This is for flying helos, which have magnetic control locks to lock the stick down in a given location. Deflect the controls as desired, hit a button to effectively lock the stick there, and then immediately release the stick. Bang: Leaving your stick centered, hands-off, will effectively hold the stick in that new location. This is done when flying the S-76 helicopter, for example.
In the controls screen in Plane-Maker, we now have a control-deflection time for the nose-wheel steering, so we can do nose-wheel steering more smoothly on those tiller-equipped airliners.
Flight dynamics:
New vector not trig based geometry for all the lift and drag vectors. Get in a plane with WING FLEX and hit control-M while puling major G at high speeds to see it in action…the lift vectors now all bend around with the wing! Cool!
This is so totally tested as being perfect that I have tested |
, thought to be 6 to 8 months old, was strapped into a car seat in the back. It was 10:15 p.m. The reports did not say whether the baby was awake or specify gender.
When an officer opened the driver's door, Kotkis threw her syringe at Swanson and, according to the reports, said: "Why are you doing this to me?"
Fluid in the syringes was tested on site. Both were positive for heroin, the reports said.
Swanson remained unresponsive and was taken to Memorial Regional Hospital for a medical check before being taken to jail.
The baby was taken into custody by police and was to be turned over to state child welfare workers. The car was towed. No other information about the child was disclosed.
Kotkis and Swanson are behind bars at the Paul Rein Detention Facility in Pompano Beach on felony charges of child neglect, heroin possession and misdemeanor drug paraphernalia possession.
Swanson is being held on $10,100 bond. Kotkis is being held without bond because she was on probation for an October 2014 charge of heroin possession.
tealanez@tribpub.com, 954-356-4542 or Twitter @talanezGerman Chancellor Angela Merkel suggested Saturday the European Investment Bank (EIB) could be strengthened and EU infrastructure funds used more flexibly to help spur economic growth in Europe.
"I can imagine that we could further strengthen the capabilities of the European Investment Bank (EIB)," Merkel told the Leipziger Volkszeitung newspaper.
Merkel also backed a more flexible use of European Union "structural funds'" earmarked for infrastructure, training and other areas, saying they could give a boost to small and medium-sized firms.
However, she said there could be no question of renegotiating a "fiscal compact" on budget discipline agreed by 25 of the EU's 27 member states last December. The deal is "not open to new negotiations" Merkel said.
"The fiscal pact is negotiated, it was signed by 25 government leaders and has already been ratified by Portugal and Greece," she added. "Parliaments across Europe are on the verge of passing it. Ireland is having a referendum at the end of May."
Merkel acknowledges the need for growth, but insists that deficits must be trimmed first to overcome the debt crisis and return to a stable path of growth.
French presidential vote
Her comments Saturday were part of the international discussion ahead of presidential elections in France next weekend on May 6 as well as locally in Germany itself shortly afterwards.
French polls indicate a win for Socialist candidate Francois Hollande who has criticized Merkel's emphasis on budget cuts and structural reforms. Hollande has also called for a more robust financing role for the EIB and the more efficient use of EU structural funds.
Hollande welcomed the latest comments from the German chancellor saying he was pleased she had “moved” on the question of growth within the EU and looked forward to her “moving still more” after May 6. If Hollande does win, it would be the first time since Francois Mitterrand left office in 1995 that France has a Socialist president.
EU finance ministers are due to discuss the EIB issue at their next meeting in mid-May.
jm/pfd (Reuters, AFP)I've heard from all sorts of places that it takes 43 muscles to frown and only 17 to smile (the numbers vary), but I can tell you from experience that spending half an hour grinning is a lot more tiring than half an hour of not smiling, which is pretty much the same as frowning. Is the whole idea bogus?
Cecil replies:
I’ve been hearing this for years. Supposedly it takes fewer muscles to smile than to frown; ergo, you should smile. Happiness, it seems, is the lazy person’s emotion. Time to put this platitude to rest. I arrived at the following detailed accounting of the relevant muscles with the aid of David H. Song, MD, FACS, plastic surgeon and assistant professor at the University of Chicago Hospitals. Song, among other things, reconstructs faces — in short, he ought to know. My apologies if this list seems obsessive, but we’re going to settle this once and for all. Caveat: Deciding which of the 53 facial muscles are important in smiling or frowning is a bit arbitrary — many make only minor contributions, and depending on the intensity of the expression may not be involved at all. I’ve listed here the ones Song feels are important, as corroborated by other sources.
Muscles involved in a “zygomatic” (i.e., genuine) smile:
Zygomaticus major and minor. These muscles pull up the corners of the mouth. They’re bilateral (one set on either side of the face). Total number of muscles: 4.
Orbicularis oculi. One of these muscles encircles each eye and causes crinkling. Total: 2.
Levator labii superioris. Pulls up corner of lip and nose. Bilateral. Total: 2.
Levator anguli oris. Also helps elevate angle of mouth. Bilateral. Total: 2.
Risorius. Pulls corner of mouth to the side. Bilateral. Total: 2. Grand total for smiling: 12.
Principal muscles involved in a frown:
Orbicularis oculi (again). Total: 2.
Platysma. Pulls down lips and wrinkles skin of lower face. Bilateral (though joined at midline). Total: 2.
Corrugator supercilii (bilateral) and procerus (unilateral). Furrow brow. Total: 3.
Orbicularis oris. Encircles mouth; purses lips. Unilateral. Total: 1.
Mentalis. Depresses lower lip. Unilateral. Total: 1.
Depressor anguli oris. Pulls corner of mouth down. Bilateral. Total: 2. Grand total for frowning: 11.
Despite the fact that smiling uses more muscles, Song believes it takes less effort than frowning — people tend to smile more frequently, so the relevant muscles are in better shape. You may feel this conclusion assumes a rosier view of the human condition than the facts warrant, but I defer to the doctor. Incidentally, a superficial, homecoming-queen smile requires little more than the two risorius muscles. So if your goal in expressing emotion is really to minimize effort, go for insincere.
Dear Cecil:
I’ve heard of this before, but didn’t believe it. Now I’ve seen it for myself, and my skeptical mind needs a good explanation. A lady in front of me at the supermarket swiped her credit card but it didn’t work. She tried again, didn’t work. The cashier tried, didn’t work. So far, everything was proceeding scientifically. Then the cashier says, “My friend who works at a bank taught me this.” What’s he do? He puts the credit card in a plastic shopping bag, pulls the plastic tight around the card, and swipes it. Now the part I don’t get: It worked.
— Tim, Newton, Massachusetts
At least the cashier’s friend didn’t tell him to bury the card at a crossroads at midnight. Wacky though the plastic-bag technique seems, several of Cecil’s engineering buddies admit they’ve seen it work. Here’s the deal. Standard bank cards use the F2F (Aiken biphase) modulation scheme, in which flux reversals encoded in the … eh, too much information. Let’s just say that when you swipe the card through the reader, the magnetized particles in its stripe generate a signal with “ticks” in it at intervals that the machine is able to interpret as digital ones or zeros. A scratch or other defect in the magnetic stripe can cause a spike (i.e., brief fluctuation) in the signal that a too-sensitive reader will interpret as a tick, meaning that the encoded data will fail the parity check (the numbers won’t add up right) and the card won’t work. Wrapping the card in plastic increases the distance between the read head and the magnetic stripe, thus reducing the strength and crispness of the signal and smoothing out anomalous fluctuations. Behold, the card works. Worth a try, anyway — God forbid the clerk should have to punch in the numbers by hand.
Send questions to Cecil via cecil@straightdope.com.A man looks over the Affordable Care Act signup page on the HealthCare.gov website in New York on Oct. 2, 2013. Mike Segar/Reuters
Despite months of outreach aiming to educate Americans about how to sign up for health insurance plans through new statewide exchanges and multiple speeches given by President Barack Obama encouraging them to do so, many uninsured people – who stand to benefit the most from the Affordable Care Act – have never even heard of the health insurance exchanges, according to a new nationwide survey.
Among more than 1,000 people between the ages of 18 and 64 who answered an online questionnaire about the Affordable Care Act in November 2013, 31 percent of those who didn’t have health insurance had never heard of the health insurance marketplaces, according to the Transamerica Center for Health Studies, a Los Angeles-based health care non-profit organization.
That’s compared with 15 percent of those surveyed overall who weren’t aware of the health insurance exchanges launched on Oct. 1, where those who don’t have insurance coverage through their jobs can buy individual or family plans that kick in on Jan. 1.
The findings echo a survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation which found that among more than 1,500 adults interviewed in September — just weeks before the exchanges were set to open — only 12 percent of uninsured people and 15 percent overall were able to correctly answer that the health-insurance marketplaces open Oct. 1.
President Obama’s signature health care law creates health insurance marketplaces in each state where people can shop for plans among numerous offerings from participating insurance companies. It also expands Medicaid programs for low-income adults in the states that have accepted federal funding for it, both of which are boons for the approximately 47 million Americans who did not have health insurance in 2012.
Since people who don’t currently have insurance coverage, then, are the ones who are set to benefit from the exchanges, the fact that nearly one-third of the uninsured people polled by the Transamerica Center don't know the exchanges exist does not bode well.
“More Americans are informed and prepared for the March 31, 2014 mandatory health coverage date, but a significant number have yet to actually sign up for health insurance in the exchanges or in the traditional insurance market,” said Hector De La Torre, executive director of the Transamerica Center for Health Studies, in a released statement. “The uninsured continue to be the least active, which could be because they feel the least prepared and also are the least satisfied with the health care system.”
Among the findings of the survey were that 61 percent of those uninsured people who were polled said they have done “nothing” within the last 12 months to prepare for the launch of the ACA. Just 35 percent of uninsured people said they were “somewhat” or “very” prepared for the new health care exchanges, a significant drop from the 53 percent of uninsured people who said so in a similar survey conducted by Transamerica in July.
Six percent of all people polled said they intended to buy health insurance through the new exchanges, but only 2 percent had already done so.
The Healthcare.gov website, where residents of the 36 states whose exchanges are operated by the federal government are supposed to sign up for individual and family health insurance plans, has been riddled with errors and delays.
As a result, enrollment numbers have been low, although the Obama administration says most of the kinks have been ironed out. More than 29,000 people enrolled in insurance plans on Healthcare.gov during the first two days of December, more than the approximately 27,000 people who enrolled during the entire month of October following the site’s launch, Reuters reported.In a New York Times op-ed published Thursday, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal stood firmly in favor of controversial religious freedom laws that sparked so-called “fixes” in Indiana and Arkansas.
Jindal, a potential 2016 GOP presidential contender, criticized businesses for joining “left-wing activists to bully” lawmakers in those two states into adopting the “fixes,” which many on the left and some on the right said were necessary to make sure LGBT individuals would not face discrimination.
“It was disappointing to see conservative leaders so hastily retreat on legislation that would simply allow for an individual or business to claim a right to free exercise of religion in a court of law,” Jindal wrote in the op-ed titled, “I’m Holding Firm Against Gay Marriage.”
According to Jindal, lawmakers in Indiana and Arkansas simply sought to ensure that businesses had the right to cite religious liberty as a legal reason to “not participat[e]” in a gay wedding. He also accused those politicians of “quickly cower[ing] amid the shrieks of big business and the radical left” with their calls to adopt fixes.
“As the fight for religious liberty moves to Louisiana, I have a clear message for any corporation that contemplates bullying our state: Save your breath,” Jindal wrote, vowing to sign a bill in Louisiana that would prevent the state from denying employment to someone “based on the person or entity’s religious views on the institution of marriage.”
Jindal also said corporations “under pressure from radical liberals” have already reached out to him asking to oppose the law, but asserted they won’t “deter” him. In addition, Jindal sought to ensure that the bill, the Marriage and Conscience Act, does not open the door to anti-gay discrimination, but “merely makes our constitutional freedom so well defined that no judge can miss it.”
Even though the tide seems to be turning on same-sex marriage support nationwide — which Jindal acknowledged — he urged his fellow conservatives to stand firm on the issue:
If we, as conservatives, are to succeed in advancing the cause of freedom and free enterprise, the business community must stand shoulder to shoulder with those fighting for religious liberty. The left-wing ideologues who oppose religious freedom are the same ones who seek to tax and regulate businesses out of existence. The same people who think that profit making is vulgar believe that religiosity is folly. The fight against this misguided, government-dictating ideology is one fight, not two. Conservative leaders cannot sit idly by and allow large corporations to rip our coalition in half.
Read the full op-ed here.
[Image via Shutterstock]
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>>Follow Andrew Desiderio (@forza_desiderio) on Twitter
Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.comIt’s been more than a year now since harassment against game developer Zoe Quinn snowballed into something broader. Gamergate, a campaign to discredit and ultimately terrorize people who advocated for more equitable treatment of women in video games, resulted in threats of rape and murder against several high-profile developers and cultural critics, in some cases driving them from their homes. Even for those not directly affected by the attacks, Gamergate has served as a chilling example of how online abuse can have terrible real-world consequences.
In the months since, Quinn — an indie game developer known best for her cult hit Depression Quest — has spent a lot of time investigating why people who have never met her have devoted so much energy to harassing her. The more she considered the problem, she says, the more she recognized herself in her attackers. And that gave her a new insight into why users of social platforms like Facebook and Twitter are so quick to pick up pitchforks when they perceive an injustice.
"I was nerdy and awkward and didn't know how to talk to people — except online."
Before Quinn was a game developer, she was a poor kid without any friends. "You may have known someone like me in high school," she said this weekend at XOXO Festival, a gathering of independent makers and creative types in Portland. "I was the funny-looking one who wore a trench coat and played hacky sack with the other greasy kids." Feeling like she didn’t fit in, Quinn said she found refuge on the internet. "I was nerdy and awkward and didn’t know how to talk to people — except online," she says.
At a high level, XOXO is a creative wonderland devoted to celebrating the works of independent game developers, filmmakers, comic-book artists, podcasters, and other makers of culture. But because of XOXO’s embrace of such controversial values as inclusion and kindness, XOXO has found itself a target of abuse. Last year, a Gamergate protester trespassed on the grounds of the festival. This year, a group assaulted the #xoxofestival hashtag on Twitter in an effort to drown out tweets from participants.
Quinn was drawn to forums populated mostly by men, and said she learned to fit in by denouncing "all things girlie" and saying proudly that she "wasn’t like those other girls." When they demanded to see her breasts, she said, she hurled back homophobic slurs. (Quinn today identifies as queer.)
As Quinn says, she came to recognize her younger self in many of the people who have lashed out at her online. "If Gamergate had happened several years ago to someone else, I would have been on that side," Quinn said. She added that she never would have threatened anyone else, but said she was the sort of "useful jerk" who would have insulted other people online as a way of bonding with her friends.
"Some kind of crappy internet Batman."
Quinn’s second insight into her abusers is that nearly all of them feel like they are heroes for speaking out — "like some kind of crappy internet Batman," she said. Most targets of online harassment Quinn has spoken with are subject to conspiracy theories that they are secretly rich, she said. "It’s this thought that if what they’re going after is so powerful and so corrupt, they still get to be the underdog," Quinn said. "They get to be the good guys."
Building on her experiences, Quinn co-founded Crash Override Network, an online anti-harassment task force that provides free counseling and other assistance to other victims of abuse. And while it may be small comfort to victims, she said, it’s clear that for many abusers, harassment is a phase they eventually grow out of. Prior to Gamergate, Quinn said, she interviewed 300 self-identified former trolls to ask what made them stop. "Almost every single time, more often than not, they expressed that someone they were close to, respected, or looked up to said that wasn’t cool," she said. "The social network supporting this kind of feeding frenzy was no longer reinforced."
That resonated with Quinn personally. "As I drifted away from the circle of people who shit on people for kicks, and started taking care of myself, got help for my depression that I needed, I started making friends that were different," she said. "And they would be like, ’Hey, what the hell are you doing, kid?’ And that sense of shame disrupted this mechanism of a bad habit that had built up in myself for me to go, oh, wait, what am I doing?"
"What the hell are you doing, kid?"
But there is much that can be done while we wait for harassers to grow up, Quinn said. "We need tech platforms to step up here," she said. The idea that Facebook, Twitter, and other tech companies need to do more to prevent harassment was a common theme at XOXO, which hosted several speakers who called on social media sites to do more to reduce abuse.
Anita Sarkeesian
Anita Sarkeesian, another prominent target of Gamergate harassment, appeared later at the festival to show a new clip from her Tropes vs. Women series about the ways women are depicted in video games. She said she continues to face daily harassment, but noted a handful of positive developments over the past year. Among them: she is regularly invited to speak at game studios, where she challenges developers to make games that treat characters respectfully regardless of their gender or sexual orientation.
"No single snowflake ever feels responsible for the avalanche."
And online crowd behavior isn’t always bad. In another talk, Eric Meyer, an expert on CSS and HTML, described the flip side of the internet’s ability to rally thousands of people around a cause. After his six-year-old daughter, Rebecca, died from cancer, friends campaigned to name her favorite color "rebeccapurple" in the official CSS specification. The effort was amplified through social media, and ultimately it was successful.
But the same system that allowed people to memorialize Rebecca also enabled Gamergate, Meyer said. Tech platforms aren’t neutral, he said — like the roads we drive on, they’re augmented with rules and values. "Nothing about a road is neutral except for the raw material," Meyer said. "On it and around it, there’s an entire set of values hovering like an aura." If tech platforms value the safety of the people who use them, they ought to re-examine the values reflected in their design, he said.
In the meantime, Quinn called on the audience to reflect on their behavior online. Idle snark can escalate quickly. Mobs organize themselves. And nobody ever thinks it’s their fault. "No single snowflake feels responsible for the avalanche," Quinn said.9/11 may have been an insiders’ job
News report by
9/11 may have been an insiders’ job – Dr. Hans Koechler
Syed Akbar Kamal
In a significant observation many time UN contributor & international observer Professor Hans Koechler said “9/11 may have been an insider’s job” in response to a question from one of the delegates attending his lecture The 'Global War on Terror - Contradictions of an Imperial Strategy' last night at the Trades Hall in Auckland.
“I am not a boy-I am 59. There are many inconsistencies and inaccuracies in the official version of events. Those who could not handle a Cessna pulled off 9/11,” he said.
But he was quick to note that the official version has to be challenged. Quoting David Ray Griffin he said these events, in terms of destruction caused, these incidents cannot have been exclusively organized by a shadowy network of Mujahedeen from the remote places of the globe.
The causes officially given for the incidents are not a sufficient explanation for what actually happened on that day, especially as regards the logistics of this highly sophisticated operation and the very advanced infrastructure required for it.
He has published more than 300 books, reports and scholarly articles in several languages. In his book The Global War on Terror and the Metaphysical Enemy he writes the atrocities of September 11, 2001- Instead of dealing with the contradictions and inconsistencies in the official version of events and the numerous gaps in terms of the factual information, a “dogma of political correctness” has been promulgated according to which 19 Islamic-inspired Arab hijackers, directed by an elusive “Al-Qaeda” (“base”), succeeded in carrying out the atrocities all by themselves.
During the course of his lecture he recalled the detailed and precise questions asked on 11 January 2008 by Yukihisa Fujita, member of Japan’s House of Councillors (Senate) and Director of the Senate’s Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence, about the 9/11 attacks as the origin of the war on terror are a rare exception.
The total silence about Mr. Fujita’s intervention before the Committee, that was broadcast live on Japan’s public NHK television channel, in the Western corporate media is a telling example of the
lack of courage in front a powerful political establishment. Thus, a rather docile and obviously opportunistic intellectual élite in the West, in tandem with client régimes in the Muslim world, has effectively silenced – or at least marginalized – critical opinion.
Against this bleak – geopolitical as well as civilizational – background we can basically identify two desiderata of international politics in the framework of the increasing alienation between Islam and the West, which accompanies the confrontation over the “global war on terror”:
The countries of the West, “assembled,” to varying degrees of intensity and loyalty, around the United States as the imperial hegemon, have to realize that they are about to embark upon an unwinnable test of wills: a conflict that cannot be ended in (conventional) military terms and that will, if not contained by means of multilateral diplomacy, completely absorb the “political energies” and exhaust, to a considerable extent, the resources even of advanced industrial societies.
At the same time, they have to correct and eventually reverse the process of “civilizational alienation” vis à- vis Islam for which they are responsible in important respects. There is a need, as then Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, has put it, “to unlearn the stereotypes that have become so entrenched in so many minds and so much of the media.”
Since 1972, UN Secretaries-General in their statements subsequently acknowledged Professor Köchler’s contributions to international peace. In April 2000, Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed Professor Koechler as international observer at the Scottish Court in the Netherlands (Lockerbie Trial).
He said “up to the present day, the government of the United Kingdom has rejected calls for a public inquiry into the circumstances of the explosion of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, on 21 December 1989. As international observer, appointed by the United Nations, of the Lockerbie trial in the Netherlands I have outlined the flaws in the proceedings and called for a revision of the court’s verdict.”
Eventually, in June 2007, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, apparently sharing the author’s original concerns, referred the case back to the appeal court.
He pointed out the sentencing of a lone intelligence officer from Libya for the downing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, which has caused the death of 270 people. While this individual most likely is not guilty as charged, i.e. is not the one who inserted the bomb onto the plane via Malta and Frankfurt (according to the “Opinion of the Court”: The High Court of Justiciary at Camp Zeist, Case No: 1475/99, 31 January 2001), no efforts have been made to date to comprehensively investigate the midair explosion and prosecute the actual perpetrators. The U.K. and U.S. governments have both rejected a public inquiry into the circumstances of this incident, thus preventing efficient measures against possible acts of terrorism against civil aviation in the future.
Prof Koechler is the Founder and President of the International Progress Organization (I.P.O.), an international non-governmental organization (NGO) in consultative status with the United Nations and with a membership in over 70 countries, representing all continents.
Through his research and international activities, Professor Koechler made major contributions to the debate on international democracy and United Nations reform, in particular reform of the Security Council. This was acknowledged by international figures such as the German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel. In 1985, Professor Koechler organized the first major colloquium on "Democracy in International Relations" on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the United Nations in New York. With Irish Nobel Laureate Seán MacBride he initiated the Appeal by Lawyers against Nuclear War, which set in motion an international campaign that eventually led to a General Assembly resolution and the issuing of an advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice. As President of the I.P.O., he dealt with the humanitarian issues of the exchange of prisoners of war between Iran and Iraq and with the issue of Kuwaiti POWs and missing people in Iraq.
*****
Syed Akbar Kamal is Producer/Director for current affairs programme Darpan - The Mirror nationwide on Stratos & Triangle TV.
www.teamworkproductions.co.nz
ENDS
© Scoop MediaRoland Miller has been documenting the slow crumble of abandoned NASA facilities for the past 25 years. Recently, his two-plus decades of work were published as Abandoned in Place, out now through the University of New Mexico Press.
The title comes from NASA's own designation for abandoned facilities that aren't easy to deconstruct, whether it's due to the thousands of tons of concrete used in construction or any number of other factors. Miller's photos show how the seaside environment at Kennedy Space Center in Florida has taken its toll on these facilities.
That location gives a safe place for rockets to crash away from inhabited areas if something goes wrong, but also leaves the facilities prone to briny, humid air that can chip away at buildings and infrastructure, bit by bit. Some of these unused facilities could cost millions to repair, something a cash-strapped NASA just doesn't have.
"I think the reality is that most of those launch complexes would be impossible to save even if the funding were available," Miller said in a phone interview.
The book travels to the facilities at Kennedy that were used in the early space program, roughly from Mercury up to Apollo. It took 25 years to complete the project, partly because of the slow process of retiring some of the facilities.
Many facilities struck Miller as he went along, but perhaps one of the biggest, he says, was Launch Complexes 31 and 32. There's "not a lot left," just some missile silos and sand bags. But inside those silos are the remains of the Space Shuttle Challenger, one of the few casualties of the space program.
"It's a poignant and peaceful place," he said.
You can check out some of the photos below, and read more about the project at Miller's site. All pictures were taken at Kennedy Space Center or Cape Canaveral Air Force Station unless otherwise indicated.Kiera Feldman's recent New Republic report on the convergence of rape culture and evangelical culture at a private Christian university in Virginia is a deeply troubling story. It's also a disturbingly familiar one.
In a series of interviews with female survivors of sexual violence at Patrick Henry College, Feldman uncovered an institutional pattern of victim-blaming and impunity for perpetrators that was grounded in the school's strict adherence to evangelical doctrine, specifically its "gender complementarian" norms and toxic purity culture.
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Though generally viewed as a safe haven for young people with an evangelical Christian worldview, Patrick Henry College turned out to be a very dangerous place to be a survivor of sexual assault. It is, in other words, much like everywhere else in this country.
Evangelical Christianity makes visible -- through purity pledges and doctrine assigning women the role of man's "helpmate" -- the norms and expectations about female virginity and subservience that so often remain hidden in the secular world. While it may be tempting to draw a red line around Christian fundamentalist views on gender and sexuality to distinguish them from supposedly evolved "secular" culture, there is considerable, uncomfortable overlap between the two.
Here are four ways "secular" American culture mirrors Christian purity culture.
Republicans are fighting to keep women from accessing birth control.
Whether it's Rush Limbaugh calling women who take birth control "sluts" or Mike Huckabee mansplaining why it's actually "empowering" to deny women insurance coverage for contraception, one point remains clear: Conservatives want to enshrine religiously defined norms about sexuality into law.
Republicans who oppose the Affordable Care Act have made contraceptive coverage a main point of attack against the policy because ensuring women have affordable and reliable access to birth control means accepting -- and culturally and institutionally sanctioning -- women's ability to control their own fertility and sexuality. (Women, of course, take birth control for reasons other than avoiding pregnancy, but you will notice that these "other" women never factor into conservatives' tirades against the evils of contraception.)
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But empowering women to control their sexuality and separate sex from pregnancy and childbearing is a violation of the conservative view of sex -- which is about reproduction and male entitlement.
Enabling women to make these choices also ensures they have equal access to opportunities in education and work, which also goes against conservative views about women's place in the home. As I have previously noted, a recent review of more than 66 studies conducted over three decades reveals that a woman’s ability to control her fertility impacts much more than just if and when she will have a child; contraception plays a significant role in shaping women’s financial, professional and emotional lives.
According to Adam Sonfield, the lead author of the review from the Guttmacher Institute, “The scientific evidence strongly confirms what has long been obvious to women. Contraceptive use, and the ensuing ability to decide whether and when to have children, is linked to a host of benefits for themselves, the quality of their relationships, and the well-being of their children.”
Mainstream news outlets are still running editorials chastising women for having sex before marriage.
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Susan Patton is a joke, but she's not the only person arguing in mainstream publications that women who have sex outside of marriage are setting themselves up for disaster and heartbreak. (Hi, Ross Douthat!)
In an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal last week, Patton warned single women, "The grandmotherly message of yesterday is still true today: Men won’t buy the cow if the milk is free.”
This is purity culture passed off as "commonsense" wisdom, which was published in a "serious" and secular paper. In 2014.
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Patton and others like her are focused on telling women and girls that their value is tied up with their chastity, and that their ultimate worth is defined by the way men view them. If this sounds a lot like a Christian purity pledge, it should.
Abstinence-only education ties girls' worth to their virginity.
In the United States right now, only 22 states require that schools teach comprehensive sex education. Of those states, only 19 have laws in place to ensure that what is being taught under that label is medically accurate. And a total of 35 states allow parents to opt out of sex ed classes on behalf of their children.
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Despite significant evidence indicating that such policies are harmful to young people, abstinence-focused education measures continue to circulate in state legislatures and local public school boards. This week, members of the Kansas House of Representatives debated a measure that would prohibit school districts from providing health and sex education to students without explicit consent from a parent or guardian, putting peer-reviewed sex education out of reach for students across the state. (In other Kansas news, some in the state are also looking to legalize hitting your child to the point of bruising.)
As I've noted before, in addition to dismal and uneven access to comprehensive sex ed, some public schools are now inviting religiously affiliated relationship "experts" to dispense purity culture advice about teen girls keeping their "mouths and legs shut" dressed up as generic wisdom about "dating smart."
Denying young people access to medically accurate information about safe sex and reproductive health has real consequences: a recent survey of teenagers reveals that 41 percent know little or nothing about how condoms work, and a staggering 75 percent have almost no understanding of birth control. It's also been documented again and again that access to sex education has been proven to help reduce unplanned pregnancy and unwanted sexual outcomes like STIs.
Police departments and others in the criminal justice system blame victims of sexual assault for the violence committed against them.
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As shocking as the allegations were that the Patrick Henry College dean of student life told a female victim of sexual harassment that she should think about her clothing and "the kinds of ideas it puts in men's minds” in response to this disclosure, victim-blaming happens regularly among law enforcement officials and others in the criminal justice system who have also been entrusted with handling such cases.
Last year, a Louisiana parish argued that it should not be held liable for the rape of a 14-year-old girl in a juvenile detention center because the victim “consented” to be sexually assaulted by a 40-year-old corrections officer at the facility. Court documents alleged that “[former guard Angelo] Vickers could not have engaged in sexual relations within the walls of the detention center with [the victim] without cooperation from her. Vickers did not use force, violence or intimidation when engaging in sexual relations.”
Commenting on the case, an anonymous parish official remarked that the 14-year-old should share the blame for her assault, saying, “These girls in the detention center are not Little Miss Muffin.”
Around that same time, Judge G. Todd Baugh said he believed that a 14-year-old student who was repeatedly raped by her 49-year-old teacher Stacey Dean Rambold "acted older than her age," thus making her complicit in her rape. Baugh further stated that Rambold should not serve time in prison for the rapes, he had “suffered enough” during his trial.
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Rambold's teen victim took her own life before the case was concluded; Baugh is currently facing the prospect of being removed from the bench.Heart surgery can be extremely complicated Outcomes for adult cardiac patients in the UK have improved significantly since publication of information on death rates, research suggests. The study also found more elderly and high-risk patients were now being treated, despite fears surgeons would not want to take them on. It is based on analysis of more than 400,000 operations by the Society for Cardiothoracic Surgery. Experts said all surgical specialties should now publish data on death rates. DEATH RATES Coronary artery bypass surgery alone:
2001: 2.3%
2008: 1.5% All coronary artery bypass surgery:
2001: 2.6%
2008: 1.7% Heart valve surgery alone:
2001: 5.2%
2008: 3.5% Combined valve and coronary artery bypass surgery:
2001: 8.3%
2008: 6.1% It had been feared that publication of death rates, which began in 2001, would make surgeons more defensive about their work, and reluctant to take on higher-risk patients who may damage their statistics. However, the latest analysis suggests that the availability of reliable data on risk has emboldened surgeons to take on more complicated cases. It suggests that more people who would have been considered too sick to undergo an operation just five years ago are now routinely treated and doing well. For instance, one in five coronary artery bypass patients are now over 75, and the average age of aortic valve replacement patients has increased from 61 in 1994 to 68 in 2008. Between 2001 and 2008 there was a 50% increase in the proportion of coronary surgery patients who had diabetes, and the proportion who had high blood pressure increased from less than 60% to nearly 75%. However, overall operation mortality rates are continuing to fall. Big progress has been made in coronary artery surgery, with the overall death rate falling by 21%, and the death rate for people under the age of 70 undergoing planned surgery now less than 1%. The data also shows that surgeons are having to open up patients for a second time less frequently due to complications such as internal bleeding and infections. And operations associated with elderly patients, such as aortic value replacement, are becoming more common, suggesting people with heart disease are living longer |
are set forward in the six principals of EWP.
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Notes [ edit ]
^ [10] After this period, they become residents of Saint Barthelemy for tax purposes.[11] New residents of Saint Barthelemy are considered residents of France for tax purposes, for the first five years after moving there.After this period, they become residents of Saint Barthelemy for tax purposes. ^ Saudi Arabia taxes the local business income of its residents who are not citizens of Gulf Cooperation Council countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) and of nonresidents. It also imposes zakat on the worldwide business income and assets of its residents who are citizens of Gulf Cooperation Council countries. Saudi Arabia does not impose tax or zakat on income or assets that are not related to business activities. ^ Puerto Rico does not tax foreign income of nonresident citizens. However, Puerto Rican citizens are also United States citizens, and the United States taxes their worldwide income regardless of where they live. ^ [10] After this period, they become residents of Saint Martin for tax purposes.[84] Residents of France who move to Saint Martin are not considered residents of Saint Martin for tax purposes, and continue to be taxed as residents of France, for the first five years after moving there.After this period, they become residents of Saint Martin for tax purposes. ^ The United States Virgin Islands do not tax foreign income of nonresident citizens. However, citizens of the United States Virgin Islands are also United States citizens, and the United States taxes their worldwide income regardless of where they live. ^ [41] Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands use the same income tax code as the United States, but each territory administers it separately. In the case of nonresident citizens, individuals who acquired United States citizenship by a connection to Guam or the Northern Mariana Islands are taxed by the respective territory, instead of by the United States. ^ [130] As of 2018, the following countries and territories are considered tax havens by Italy: Andorra, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Bahamas, Bahrain, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Brunei, Caribbean Netherlands (Bonaire, Saba, Sint Eustatius), Cayman Islands, Cook Islands, Costa Rica, Curaçao, Djibouti, Dominica, Ecuador, French Polynesia, Gibraltar, Grenada, Guernsey (including Alderney and Sark), Hong Kong, Isle of Man, Jersey, Lebanon, Liberia, Liechtenstein, Macau, Malaysia, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Mauritius, Monaco, Montserrat, Nauru, Niue, Oman, Panama, Philippines, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, Seychelles, Singapore, Sint Maarten, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tonga, Turks and Caicos Islands, Tuvalu, United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, Vanuatu. ^ [131] However, the provision does not apply if the country has a treaty to share tax information with Mexico. This provision applies to income whose tax in the new country of residence is lower than 75% of the tax that the person would have paid as a resident of Mexico.However, the provision does not apply if the country has a treaty to share tax information with Mexico. ^ [133] As of 2018, the following countries and territories are considered tax havens by Portugal: American Samoa, Andorra, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Bahamas, Bahrain, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Bolivia, British Virgin Islands, Brunei, Caribbean Netherlands (Bonaire, Saba, Sint Eustatius), Cayman Islands, Christmas Island, Cocos Islands, Cook Islands, Costa Rica, Curaçao, Djibouti, Dominica, Falkland Islands, Fiji, French Polynesia, Gambia, Gibraltar, Grenada, Guam, Guernsey (including Alderney and Sark), Guyana, Honduras, Hong Kong, Isle of Man, Jamaica, Jersey, Jordan, Kiribati, Kuwait, Labuan, Lebanon, Liberia, Liechtenstein, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Mauritius, Monaco, Montserrat, Nauru, Niue, Norfolk Island, Northern Mariana Islands, Oman, Palau, Panama, Pitcairn Islands, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Qeshm, Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, San Marino, Seychelles, Sint Maarten, Solomon Islands, Svalbard, Swaziland, Tokelau, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos Islands, Tuvalu, United Arab Emirates, United States Virgin Islands, Uruguay, Vanuatu, Yemen, and other Pacific islands (Micronesia, New Caledonia, Wallis and Futuna). ^ [135] As of 2018, the following countries and territories are considered tax havens by Spain: Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahrain, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Brunei, Cayman Islands, Cook Islands, Dominica, Falkland Islands, Fiji, Gibraltar, Grenada, Guernsey, Isle of Man, Jersey, Jordan, Lebanon, Liberia, Liechtenstein, Macau, Mauritius, Monaco, Montserrat, Nauru, Northern Mariana Islands, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Seychelles, Solomon Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands, United States Virgin Islands, Vanuatu.
References [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ]Grace VanderWaal rides the GoldieBlox float in the Macy's 90th Thanksgiving Day parade in New York City, NY on Thursday, Nov. 24, 2016. (Photo: Danielle Parhizkaran/The Record of North Jersey)
Grace VanderWaal is going black tie.
The tiny songstress who just performed at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade will sing the national anthem at the Rockland County Executive Ball, Jan 29.
VanderWaal will be a highlight of the annual Day campaign fundraiser, which kicks off at 5 p.m. at the Pearl River Hilton. The theme is "Celebrating Success To Shape The Future." Tickets start at $250.
Rockland County Executive Ed Day presented VanderWaal with a "key to Rockland" during her homecoming parade on Oct.1. During that event Day said of the singer: "Suffern knew she had talent. Rockland knew she had talent. Now America knows she has talent. It's rare to have someone so special to bring us all together."
It's been a busy year for the now internationally-known singer, who captured hearts when she first appeared on "America's Got Talent' in June, ultimately winning the coveted grand prize of $1 million and landing a record deal with Simon Cowell's Syco label.
RELATED: Grace album available for pre-order
RELATED: Grace in studio recording first album
Her first album, "Perfectly Imperfect," will be released Dec. 2 and she is set to appear on the "America's Got Talent Holiday Spectacular," airing 8 p.m. Dec. 19 on NBC.
Grace VanderWaal rides the GoldieBlox float in the Macy's 90th Thanksgiving Day parade in New York City, NY on Thursday, Nov. 24, 2016. (Photo: Danielle Parhizkaran/The Record of North Jersey)
Twitter: @krhudsonvalley
Read or Share this story: http://lohud.us/2gleevkImage caption Collisions at the LHC in Geneva have refined a mass for the Higgs-like particle
Scientists say they may be able to determine the eventual fate of the cosmos as they probe the properties of the Higgs boson.
A concept known as vacuum instability could result, billions of years from now, in a new universe opening up in the present one and replacing it.
It all depends on some precise numbers related to the Higgs that researchers are currently trying to pin down.
A "Higgs-like" particle was first seen at the Large Hadron Collider last year.
Associated with an energy field that pervades all space, the boson helps explain the existence of mass in the cosmos. In other words, it underpins the workings of all the matter we see around us.
Since detecting the particle in their accelerator experiments, researchers at the Geneva lab and at related institutions around the world have begun to theorise on the Higgs' implications for physics.
One idea that it throws up is the possibility of a cyclical universe, in which every so often all of space is renewed.
"It turns out there's a calculation you can do in our Standard Model of particle physics, once you know the mass of the Higgs boson," explained Dr Joseph Lykken.
This bubble will then expand, basically at the speed of light, and sweep everything before it Dr Joseph Lykken, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
"If you use all the physics we know now, and you do this straightforward calculation - it's bad news.
"What happens is you get just a quantum fluctuation that makes a tiny bubble of the vacuum the Universe really wants to be in. And because it's a lower-energy state, this bubble will then expand, basically at the speed of light, and sweep everything before it," the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory theoretician told BBC News.
It was not something we need worry about, he said. The Sun and the Earth will be long gone by this time.
Dr Lykken was speaking here in Boston at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
He was participating in a session that had been organised to provide an update on the Higgs investigation.
Two-year hiatus
The boson was spotted in the wreckage resulting from proton particle collisions in the LHC's giant accelerator ring.
Data gathered by two independent detectors observing this subatomic debris determined the mass of the Higgs to be about 126 gigaelectronvolts (GeV).
What is an electronvolt? Image caption The LHC's experiments create showers of particles Charged particles tend to speed up in an electric field, defined as an electric potential - or voltage - spread over a distance
One electron volt (eV) is the energy gained by a single electron as it accelerates through a potential of one volt
It is a convenient unit of measure for particle accelerators, which speed particles up through much higher electric potentials
The first accelerators only created bunches of particles with an energy of about a million eV
The LHC can reach particle energies a million times higher: up to several teraelectronvolts (TeV)
This is still only the energy in the motion of a flying mosquito
But LHC beams include hundreds of trillions of these particles, each travelling at 99.99999999% of the speed of light
Together, an LHC beam carries the same energy as a TGV high-speed train travelling at 150 km/h
That was fascinating, said Prof Chris Hill of Ohio State University, because the number was right in the region where the instability problem became relevant.
"Before we knew, the Higgs could have been any mass over a very wide range. And what's amazing to me is that out of all those possible masses from 114 to several hundred GeV, it's landed at 126-ish where it's right on the critical line, and now we have to measure it more precisely to find the fate of the Universe," he said.
Prof Hill himself is part of the CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) Collaboration at the LHC. This is one of the Higgs-hunting detectors, the other being Atlas.
Scientists have still to review about a third of the collision data in their possession. But they will likely need much more information to close the uncertainties that remain in the measurement of the Higgs' mass and its other properties.
Indeed, until they do so, they are reluctant to definitively crown the boson, preferring often to say just that they have found a "Higgs-like" particle.
Frustratingly, the LHC has now been shut down to allow for a major programme of repairs and upgrades.
"To be absolutely definitive, I think it's going to take a few years after the LHC starts running again, which is in 2015," conceded Dr Howard Gordon, from the Brookhaven National Laboratory and an Atlas Collaboration member.
"The LHC will be down for two years to do certain repairs, fix the splices between the magnets, and to do maintenance and stuff. So, when we start running in 2015, we will be at a higher energy, which will mean we'll get more data on the Higgs and other particles to open up a larger window of opportunity for discovery. But to dot all the I's and cross all the T's, it will take a few more years."
If the calculation on vacuum instability stands up, it will revive an old idea that the Big Bang Universe we observe today is just the latest version in a permanent cycle of events.
"I think that idea is getting more and more traction," said Dr Lykken.
"It's much easier to explain a lot of things if what we see is a cycle. If I were to bet my own money on it, I'd bet the cyclic idea is right," he told BBC News.
The Standard Model and the Higgs boson • The Standard Model is the simplest set of ingredients - elementary particles - needed to make up the world we see in the heavens and in the laboratory • Quarks combine together to make, for example, the proton and neutron - which make up the nuclei of atoms today - though more exotic combinations were around in the Universe's early days • Leptons come in charged and uncharged versions; electrons - the most familiar charged lepton - together with quarks make up all the matter we can see; the uncharged leptons are neutrinos, which rarely interact with matter • The "force carriers" are particles whose movements are observed as familiar forces such as those behind electricity and light (electromagnetism) and radioactive decay (the weak nuclear force) • The Higgs boson came about because although the Standard Model holds together neatly, nothing requires the particles to have mass; for a fuller theory, the Higgs - or something else - must fill in that gap
Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter: @BBCAmosPost: #5 Re: Are e-cigs Evil? - Channel 5 phone in show!
Can you comment on the fb page about the show then? (I am allergic to fb so don't use it) maybe everyone could slam the comments with loads of facts and references before the show goes out? If nothing of use is referred to in the programme then we can be safe in the knowledge that it was going to be hysterical bias from the start and there is nothing we could have done about it anyhow.
Maybe a point could be made about them not all looking like ciggies, cos you can bet your life the argument of it encouraging kiddies to smoke will come up...... Probably repeatedly with wails of 'but the children.... Won't somebody think of the children' It's time for Action!
http://nnalliance.org/
http://www.theindefatigablefrog.blogspot.co.uk/
@caeruleansea @caeruleanseaOrganizers of Ottawa’s Capital Pride festival say they are investigating “accounting irregularities” amid allegations by two suppliers and a DJ that their cheques have bounced and that they haven’t been paid for their services.
Guillaume Tasse said he has been given the runaround by festival organizers since he went to collect $42,000 he said he was owed after last month’s festival. Tasse isn’t alone. Sebastien Provost, the executive producer and president of production company House of SAS, said he’s out about $24,000 after he bought liquor for the festival only to later be told by his bank the cheque he received was no good.
Montreal DJ Stephan Grondin said he, too, is owed thousands of dollars after his bank told him the cheque he received from the festival didn’t clear.
Provost and Tasse said they have both filed complaints with Ottawa police.
Organizers for the Capital Pride festival weren’t talking Thursday, but in a short news release they said they were investigating “accounting irregularities that have come to light upon review of its post-festival finances” and said a police investigation “may be pending.”
Tasse said his attempts to collect on a bill for providing a stage, tents, toilets, tables, chairs and other infrastructure have not been successful. He initially approached Capital Pride festival’s treasurer, Giselle Gardipy, he said, but a meeting they set for Monday, Aug. 25, did not take place.
Tasse said he was told by board members that Gardipy was in hospital but that they had no other details.
The Citizen’s attempts to reach Gardipy, who was the first aboriginal person to win the title of Miss Gay Ottawa in 2005 and Queen of Capital Pride in 2006, were unsuccessful Thursday. Gardipy’s given name is Daryle.
Tasse said the chair of Capital Pride’s board of directors subsequently told him the board would have no further contact with him. Tasse said he and the other supplier have made continued attempts to contact the board to no avail. Tasse alleges that the $10,000 deposit cheque he was provided has bounced.
Production manager Provost said he deposited the nearly $24,000 cheque from the festival into his own account before buying the alcohol for the festival weekend. It wasn’t until the following Wednesday that he learned his account was overdrawn by about $15,000 because the cheque never cleared.
“I’m devastated and I’m broke,” said Provost, who said he volunteered his time to run the production and used his connections to book the performers.
Provost said he last spoke with Capital Pride’s treasurer on Aug. 26.
“We sent multiple emails, we tried calling them for multiple days after that, and there was no answer. No one returned our email,” said Tasse.
Montreal DJ Grondin said he, too, has had a hard time getting answers.
“Right now at the Capital Pride you can’t leave a message because the voice mail box is full,” he said.
Provost, who himself once chaired the Capital Pride board of directors, said he fears the situation may have undone all the good accomplished by this year’s festival. Organizers said 110,000 people came to Bank Street to see this year’s parade.
Tasse and Provost both said they offered to work with festival organizers if they were facing financial problems.
“We can talk. We can figure it out,” Tasse said he offered. “That was ignored completely.”
“I feel betrayed because we tried to help that event and support them. I gave them a $10,000 sponsorship,” said Tasse.
In their news release Thursday, Capital Pride organizers vowed to “continue to uphold its transparency with the LGBT community and its allies as details surrounding this situation emerge.”
Capital Pride chair Jodie McNamara declined an interview request, citing the advice of their lawyer. Assistant treasurer Stephanie Lavergne also declined to answer questions about the suppliers. Board secretary Rob Swartz wouldn’t comment.
Meanwhile, Mayor Jim Watson was not available Thursday evening to comment on the issue, but his spokesman, Brook Simpson, said the mayor was “disappointed to see that there have since been alleged issues related to payment and hopes that all parties involved can come to an amicable agreement quickly.”
aseymour@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/andrew_seymourSome 50 settlers and right-wing activists entered a key West Bank military base early Tuesday morning and threw rocks, burned tires, and vandalized military vehicles.
The settlers were acting in response to a rumor that the IDF would act to evict a West Bank settlement in accordance with an August Supreme Court ruling.
Settlers near the outpost of Givat Menachem, 2010. Haggai Ofen
What do you think of the attack on the IDF base? Visit Haaretz.com on Facebook and share your views.
In the attack on the Efraim Regional Brigade's base near the West Bank city of Qalqilya, right-wing activists threw stones at region's brigade commander and his deputy after forcefully opening the door to their jeep. The brigade commander was lightly wounded after a stone hit his head.
In addition to the attack on the IDF base, right-wing activists blocked a main West Bank road and threw stones at passing Palestinian vehicles and IDF soldiers in the area.
Around 100 right-wing activists and settlers came to the area of the base before 50 of them enetered the base, according to the IDF spokesman.
The youths were repelled by security forces. No arrests were made.
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Earlier during the night, the IDF and police rushed to the otherwise quiet border with Jordan after a group of 17 right-wing activists, three of them minors, occupied structures near the border. The activists said the action was intended as a message to Jordanian authorities to keep out of Temple Mount affairs.
The IDF and police surrounded the activists, who were hilltop youth, and prepared to evacuate. Four other activists were arrested before joining the group on the border.
The activists seized abandoned churches near the Qasr al-Yahud holy site, which is the believed site of Jesus' baptism.
The activists, accompanied by television crews, cut their way through a fence that used to protect a minefield surrounding the area, before it was cleared by Israeli security forces. The activists danced near the structures, entered one of the churches and chanted songs. They were all arrested.
In another incident overnight Tuesday, a group of five Breslov entered Joseph's Tomb in the West Bank to pray without permission. Palestinian security forces opened fire, but no one was hurt.
A similar incident took place in September, when unknown perpetrators infiltrated a base in the Binyamin region and snuck their way to a mechanics workshop on site, where they slashed the tires and cut the cables of twelve army vehicles.
The settlers were galvanized into action by rumors that the eviction of several West Bank settlements was imminent. The Supreme Court ruled in September that the state must destroy Migron, the largest outpost in the West Bank. Forty-five families live in Migron, which has a total population of 280 people.
Read this article in HebrewFourFourTwo's Steve Davis penned this when assessing what Week 1:
"A little more of this: Fans calling Ben Olsen into question. Actually, D.C. United fans calling the club’s entire front office structure and management into question. Olsen’s record now stands at 64-78-41, and a fluky U.S. Open Cup is pretty much the net-out for a guy who took over back in 2010. It just doesn’t look like United is going anywhere."
You probably agree with it. After all, "Bennyball" is ugly and boring. However, this request is absolutely absurd. I can even prove it to you.
First of all, although Olsen is going to his seventh season, he still is the 3rd youngest coach in the league. He was basically still in his DIAPERS, when he took the team's realm in 2010.
Morover, saying that team is going nowhere is false. As people say in Brazil, stats are like bikini, they show everything, except what matters the most. Olsen's total record is deceiving. Between 2010 and 2013, i.e., in Olsen's first four seasons, his record was 35-67-30.
However, considering his last four seasons, i.e., between 2012 and 2015, his record is 52-56-28. It is still a losing record, but the point is that his last four seasons were way better than his first four. Team is clearly going somewhere.
People seem to forget, but in the last four years, United has:
a. finished among the top-4 in the East three times, both in regular season (2nd, 2012; 1st, 2014; 4th, 2015) and in playoffs (2nd, 2012; 3rd, 2014; 4th, 2015);
b. won the Eastern Conference Regular Season once (2014);
c. qualified twice to CCL’s quarterfinals (2014, 2015).
However, Steve Davies decided to disregard all that, and asked Olsen's and Kasper's head. After all, the 2013 Open Cup title was a fluke, because, you know, 2013 is what DC United is all about. For him, you, and many people more, those other years have actually never happened.
The truth is Ben Olsen is becoming a better coach very year, and, with him, United is becoming a better team every year. So, do not be surprised if, by the end of the season, United was better than you thought we would be at the beginning. This 2016 DC United is not the 2013 DC United you, Steve Davis, Matthew Doyle, et al., wish us to be.George R.R. Martin is once again assuring fans that he will finish the A Song of Ice and Fire series in seven books and that the HBO show Game of Thrones won't catch up to him. He might be the only one who still believes this.
Martin spoke to Entertainment Weekly on Tuesday to respond to the growing sense that his ever-expansive fantasy series won't be finished in seven books. "My plan is to finish in seven," Martin said. "But my original plan was to finish in three. I write the stories and they grow." That's not exactly a confidence-inspiring statement.
Martin's comments come after Martin's editor Anne Groell answered a question about the series' length and said she was starting to "wonder" if seven would be enough, and hinted about "maybe eight books."
I begin to wonder—though 7 is what we currently have under contract. I remember when he called me, years and years back, to confess that his little trilogy was…well…no longer a trilogy. He predicted four books. I said Seven Books for Seven Kingdoms. Then he said five books. I said Seven Books for Seven Kingdoms. Then he went to six. I said… Well, you get it. Finally, we were on the same page. Seven Books for Seven Kingdoms. Good. Only, as I recently learned while editing THE WORLD OF ICE AND FIRE (another awesome thing you must buy when it comes out!), there are really technically eight kingdoms, all having to do with who has annexed what when Aegon the Conqueror landed in Westeros. So, maybe eight books for Seven Kingdoms would be okay.
Groell has worked with Martin from the beginning of the book series and has been saying there would be seven books since early on in the writing process. So she certainly is an expert on Martin's abilities and tendencies. Each book has taken longer and longer to write, with a five-year period to write book four and six years to finish book five, which came out in 2011.
In the Entertainment Weekly interview, Martin again emphasized his hopes that he would finish the series before the HBO show. The show-runners have said they will finish in seven or eight seasons, or about three-to-four years from now. Martin finishing two more books in that short period already seemed unlikely; the possibility of an eighth book would rule it out entirely.
But Martin is sticking to his belief that the show won't actually finish in seven or eight seasons. "I don’t think it will be enough to tell the story we’re telling in the books," he said. He advocates that HBO avoid passing the show by making staggered feature films. But HBO — a television subscription channel first and foremost — hasn't really warmed to that idea of stopping the show for a movie.
Martin is definitely still in control of the book series and the Thrones canon. But with both his editor and the show doubting his espoused plan, Martin's credibility on the series' future is just sinking lower and lower.Mirthful Mike’s Art Blog: Mage 20th Anniversary Art Preview pt 3
Mage: The Ascension
Hi Everybody,
Getting an earlier start today than I did on last week’s blog. This week we are revealing one more of Steve Prescott’s pieces, the Orphans “splat” (pictured to the left). Her description as written by the developer:
Vaguely sheltered from a storm stands a dark-skinned Brazilian girl, late teens/ early 20s, with long black hair and layers of ragged neotribal clothing – leggings, skirts, bangles, strategically-cut/ slashed t-shirt, long fingerless gloves, etc. Urban tribal tattoos and other body art compliment her deliberately ragged clothes. Barefoot on glass-strewn, rain-washed pavement, she looks haunted yet defiant – an impression enhanced by her makeup.
This week I’d like to ask you all what kind art blog posts you’d like to see? Would you like to see a monthly artist spotlight sort of like we used to do in the Night Editions? Maybe you would like to see the evolution of a piece of signature art from the early conceptualization to the final illustration? Leave your suggestions in the comment section and let me know.When you bring high level strikers under one roof together, you’re bound to get something spectacular in every event. That’s what GLORY kickboxing presents to the world currently: the biggest stage for kickboxers. Thankfully I have a friend there that green lit my breakdowns.
Joe “Bazooka” Valtellini’s High Kick
The first person I wanted to feature is Joe “Bazooka” Valtellini. He’s unique because of his rise and his story. While working as a full-time special education teacher, he also pursued his world championship dreams. As an amateur, he was undefeated under modified Muay Thai rules: 11-0.
Born in the rich Muay Thai community of Toronto, he studied under one of the best–Paul Minhas. Minhas had long been in the K-1 and MMA arena and being the head coach of Gary Goodridge. Minhas also studied under Ajahn Suchart of the famous Siam #1, a well known school that’s home to North American Muay Thai stars like Clifton Brown, Matt Embree, and Simon Marcus.
However, due to the combat sports laws in his province, Bazooka had difficulty finding amateur fights. With a short amateur career, he’d turned pro in 2010, fighting under the “Friday Night Fights” Muay Thai promotion in New York. There, he defeated highly ranked North American Nak Muays, all with t(ko). That moved him to fight under Lion Fight, North America’s biggest Muay Thai promotion. He faced against a very experienced Muay Thai fighter, and as Friday Night Fights is not full Muay Thai rules, it was a difficult jump. Bazooka lost for the first time via decision.
After one more full rules Muay Thai bout, he joined Glory, and took on fighters with 10 times his experience. With dynamite punches and kicks, he again finished all of them. He was given Murat Direkci on his first fight–a European champion with over 90 fights and a 90% finishing rate. This fight is a must-watch, see how composed Bazooka was with just 8 professional fights.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyVVQjbVEtM
Fight Against the Greatest Karate Kickboxer
On his 4th fight, he met Raymond Daniels, whom many consider to be the greatest American Kickboxer (full-contact karate) of this era. Daniels was undefeated, and no one before Bazooka knew how to deal with him.
The answer was ring cutting, pressure, and low kicks. A bit ironic that Duke Roufus was commentating this, knowing exactly how to deal with Raymond Daniels. It’s been a long way since “The Legendary Fight That Changed History” between Changpuek Kiatsongkrit and his older brother Rick Roufus.
Tournament Finale: Nieky Holtzken
This advanced Bazooka to the finals for a world championship match with Nieky Holtzken, whom many consider to be the best kickboxer competing today. It was a war and competitive match, but Bazooka was down on points. In the last round, he’d bite down and go out on his shield. To the world, he showed tremendous heart, and the fight was just stopped seconds before the bell could ring. Duke Roufus could barely contain his excitement during this bout.
Marc De Bonte: Another Shot at the Title
As the champion, Holtzken would get injured, and Marc De Bonte would capture the title in his place. It was then that Valtellini got another shot at the title. This time, he took home the gold.
Fighting for Glory Documentary
If you want to see a beautiful combat sports documentary, be sure to check this one out. Look behind the scenes on the fastest rising kickboxer and how he captured the prestigious world title in essentially just 6 kickboxing fights.
Great martial artists are also great human beings–it’s unfortunate that Valtellini had to halt competition due to injuries. Unlike MMA where there are big media companies and organizations sharing their story, kickboxers who are equally great athletes do not get their legacy passed on. It is up to the fans to show support to them and make sure it does.
Podcast with Muay Thai Guy
Be sure to subscribe to my mailing list in order to get a sneak peak and release dates on my e-book. My Nak Muay Nation partner, Sean “Muay Thai Guy” Fagan was fortunate to do a private session with Bazooka and great fight knowledge was shared. I have since then written an in-depth discussion of the ideas surrounding it. With the e-book, many more legends and their fight ideology will be featured and discussed.
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commentsSomebody recently told me that hardcore is dead. Through chipped teeth and bruised bones, I will promise you it is not.
I turned a corner into an alley on 18th street this past Friday afternoon to find a considerable crowd gathered together for the same purpose. The place: Alleykatz; the purpose: United Blood, Richmond’s fourth annual hardcore festival.
Gritty as hell and DIY to the core, United Blood gathers hardcore fans from all over the country, even as far as Europe and Asia, for two days of undeniably fun chaos, the realest kind of unity I’ve ever seen, and of course, skull-rattling, gut-pumping music.
Somebody recently told me that hardcore is dead. Through chipped teeth and bruised bones, I will promise you it is not.
I turned a corner into an alley on 18th street this past Friday afternoon to find a considerable crowd gathered together for the same purpose. The place: Alleykatz; the purpose: United Blood, Richmond’s fourth annual hardcore festival.
Gritty as hell and DIY to the core, United Blood gathers hardcore fans from all over the country, even as far as Europe and Asia, for two days of undeniably fun chaos, the realest kind of unity I’ve ever seen, and of course, skull-rattling, gut-pumping music.
Now I myself am not a dedicated hardcore fan, but I believe that good is good, and these truly were some of the best hardcore bands in the country. The first band I caught was Alpha and Omega from Los Angeles, CA. A rhythm section that reverberates straight up the spine, guitar tones straight out of hell, and a front man with a snarl like a kick in the teeth made this band the perfect introduction to an awe-inspiring weekend. Notables included hard-as-nails War Hungry and lightweight bad-asses Title Fight, both from Pennsylvania, as well as local heroes Swamp Thing, Naysayer and Wasted Time, and Boston’s resident nutcases The Rival Mob. The dual headliners were Connecticut’s Death Threat and New York’s hardcore veterans Madball.
I got a chance to talk with Collin Ackerman, co-founder of United Blood (along with David Foster, a native Richmonder now located in PA), and he had this to say:
Me: When did you start United Blood?
Collin: In 2007, it started small. The headliners were DTN, Bracewar, and Have Heart. It was just a small little thing. It’s probably doubled since we started. The past two years, we’ve had over 800 people.
Me: How did this thing come about?
Collin: There’s a fest in PA called Posinumbers, one of Foster’s friends, Bob Mac, was running it, and it stopped happening a couple years ago. We figured “There’s no reason we shouldn’t have this here, Richmond’s a great town and we have a great spot for it. Let’s try it and see what happens.” We just took a shot and it worked. Without Foster, though, there wouldn’t be this thing. Foster and I pretty much split everything up, doing our own paypal accounts for ticketing, booking all the bands, getting food and contracts for the bands, all of the promotions and everything
Me: So everything was pretty DIY, huh?
Collin: Yeah, no sponsors. We made a pact four years ago that we’d never have sponsors, we do everything ourselves and with the help of our friends, of course. It affects my life a lot, I meet kids from all over the world that I would never meet otherwise. All I care about is that people are having fun, I probably get made fun of for asking everybody that so much.
Me: What about the connotations that hardcore can be violent and hateful?
Collin: Honestly, it’s aggressive just like any other art form can be, but nobody has any bad intentions for the most part. Nobody’s out to get anybody, it’s just about getting what’s inside of you out. I don’t think it’s any different from Slaughterama or Best Friend’s Day, which I love and go to. In all four years, we’ve had maybe one fight, but fights happen at Beach Boys concerts too.
Me: Anything else to say?
Collin: Thanks to everybody that comes out and has fun, thanks to all the bands, thanks to you guys for covering it. I want everybody to have the opportunity to get exposure to things they don’t normally see. And check out Vinyl Conflict Records, that dude hooked us up a lot this year.
All weekend, what I was really overcome by, and Collin touched on it as well, |
Sans Frontieres (MSF) clinic in the Afghan city of Kunduz because of "human error", a US military inquiry said.
The investigation found the crew of the AC-130 gunship mistook the clinic for a nearby government building that had been seized by Taliban fighters.
At least 30 civilians were killed in the 3 October attack, amid a campaign to retake Kunduz from Taliban forces.
MSF said the report demonstrates "gross negligence" by the US military.
The group said the incident constituted "violations of the rules of war" and reiterated calls for an "independent and impartial investigation into the attack".
Shortly after the incident, the medical charity disputed initial US justifications for the attack, which said US forces had struck the hospital because they had come under fire in the area.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Gen John Campbell, head of Nato and US forces in Afghanistan: Bombing "direct result of human error"
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Joanne Liu, International President of MSF, says the charity "needs to know what happened"
The US military later admitted that the strike was a mistake and launched an investigation.
On Wednesday, the US commander in Afghanistan, Gen John Campbell, said the investigation had found that the attack on the hospital was "the direct result of avoidable human error, compounded by process and equipment failures".
He said that the crew of the AC-130 plane believed the building was a government compound, the NDS (or National Directorate of Security), which had been taken over by Taliban militants.
Analysis: Barbara Plett Usher, BBC News, Washington
The report catalogues a perfect storm of errors, at every level of the operation.
The most extraordinary admission was that military personnel failed to pick up on indicators the aircraft crew was shelling the wrong building, even though the target co-ordinates it transmitted to headquarters were clearly those of the MSF hospital.
Gen Campbell said he had ordered immediate changes to address the failures, but the long and detailed list of mistakes will prompt questions as to how often wrong targets have been struck before - without a group like MSF to raise the red flag - and whether something like this could happen again.
This is especially the case as the general noted that fatigue and the high tempo of operations in Kunduz contributed to the tragedy.
The fact that the crew thought it was hitting a Taliban command centre explains MSF's contention that the operation was conducted with a purpose to kill and destroy.
But predictably the report does nothing to address its accusation of war crimes: a military spokesman refused to talk about laws of war, saying only that the operation had violated US rules of engagement.
What we know about what happened
The aircraft identified the building based on a visual description provided by Afghan forces, he said, and did not refer to co-ordinates provided by MSF that were included on a no-strike list.
"Tragically this misidentification continued throughout the remainder of the operation, even though there were some contradictory indicators," he said.
"This was a tragic mistake. US forces would never intentionally strike a hospital or other protected facilities."
Image copyright Twitter
The gunship fired 211 shells at the MSF compound over 25 minutes, the US military said.
MSF General Director Christopher Stokes said on Wednesday: "It appears that 30 people were killed and hundreds of thousands of people are being denied life-saving care in Kunduz simply because the MSF hospital was the closest large building to an open field and 'roughly matched' a description of an intended target."
An MSF report released earlier this month said its staff contacted US-led forces several times during the attack, saying they were being bombed.
Gen Campbell said other factors that contributed to the mistake included:
"Fatigue and high operational tempo" endured by the troops
The loss of electronics communications systems on the aircraft
The nature of the "planning and approvals process for operations" in Kunduz
The absence of a single system to check targets for attack against the no-strike list
The US military said the troops involved in the attack had been suspended, and were awaiting disciplinary action.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The BBC gained exclusive footage from inside the MSF hospital in Kunduz
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Wednesday described the incident as a "painful demonstration of the cost of war".
"Such mistakes can and should be avoided," he said in a statement.
Differing US statements on hospital strike
Image copyright AP Image caption MSF staff were forced to take cover during the US bombardment
Saturday 3 October - Col Brian Tribus, spokesman for US Forces in Afghan
US forces conducted an airstrike in Kunduz city at 2:15am (local), Oct 3, against individuals threatening the force. The strike may have resulted in collateral damage to a nearby medical facility. This incident is under investigation.
Sunday 4 October - Pentagon press office
US forces conducted an airstrike in Kunduz city at 2:15am (local), Oct 3, against insurgents who were directly firing upon US service members advising and assisting Afghan Security Forces in the city of Kunduz. The strike was conducted in the vicinity of a Doctors Without Borders medical facility.
Monday 5 October - Gen John Campbell, US military chief in Afghanistan
We have now learned that on October 3, Afghan forces advised that they were taking fire from enemy positions and asked for air support from US forces. An airstrike was then called to eliminate the Taliban threat and several civilians were accidentally struck. This is different from the initial reports, which indicated that US forces were threatened and that the airstrike was called on their behalf.
Tuesday 6 October - Gen John Campbell to the Senate committee
On Saturday morning our forces provided close air support to Afghan forces at their request. To be clear the decision to provide aerial fires was a US decision, made within the US chain of command. A hospital was mistakenly struck. We would never intentionally target a protected medical facility… I assure you that the investigation will be thorough, objective and transparent.
Wednesday 25 November - Gen John Campbell statement
The US strike upon the MSF Trauma Centre in Kunduz... was the direct result of human error, compounded by systems and procedural failures. The US forces directly involved in this incident did not know the targeted compound was the MSF Trauma Centre. The medical facility was misidentified as a target by US personnel who believed they were striking a different building several hundred meters away where there were reports of combatants.Do you miss anything about the Premier League?
I had such a long time there I’m quite enjoying being out of the pressure of it all. I support Chelsea and have an interest in Man City, so I watch the games from afar. I will say I do miss the big Champions League nights, because I had some fantastic nights with Chelsea, especially winning it in Munich, so there will be the odd occasion I’ll miss that, or a big Premier League game and you get that tug to be there. But I’m happy with the challenge I have over here, and I’m happy with what I achieved in Europe.
You did pretty well…
I did alright, I’ll take it.
I imagine you’ll have an eye on the Euros this year too. Harry Kane, Wayne Rooney, Jamie Vardy – you have to start two, but which two do you play?
I’ll be honest, I’ll go for Kane and Rooney now. Wayne’s the talisman, the captain, he has to be in there, and Kane for what he’s done in the last year and a half. He’s the type of centre forward that England have been crying out for. Without taking anything away from Vardy, I think he will be a fantastic impact player, the sort of player who could come off the bench in game one and change it, using his pace later in games.
Which other young England players do you expect to make a big impact?
Well there’s Ross Barkley and Dele Alli in midfield. I love the pair of them. A couple of years ago I didn’t see that. I was looking at England, wondering where these exciting players were coming from, I wasn’t sure where. All of a sudden, you look at our team now and you have young boys coming through, attacking midfielders with bags of ability. Alli has a real knack for scoring goals and looks as though he’s already becoming a top player, as is Barkley, and I think they’ll go really far.
Who has been the most underrated player you’ve played with during your career?
Perhaps not at the end of his career but during his time with me at Chelsea, Claude Makelele. Early on nobody on the outside appreciated his role, and what he did at the time. He complemented me so well because I wanted to get forward a lot, he was just happy to stay back, break things up and make the ball move quickly. It was a messy job that people don’t always give credit for.
Should Chelsea offer John Terry a new deal?
I would like to see them offer it. I think it’s obvious John wants it and I think he can still stay at Chelsea. I’m friends with John, but purely from a football perspective and from what he’s done on the pitch, and as a starting player in all their big and important games when he’s started them this season, I think he’s been their best defender this year.
And would the dressing room be keen to see him stay?
Of course. What John offers is a link with the fans and an appreciation of the young players who he would want to help come through. He’s Mr Chelsea. Those are the sorts of players you need at the club. Without telling the club what to do, I think Chelsea are looking to change the old nucleus we had, what with myself, Ashley [Cole], Didier [Drogba] and Petr [Cech] gone, John’s almost the last one standing. But I don’t think he’s going to be an issue with that - he’ll even help the transition with helping the younger players. I don’t think Chelsea will make decisions for the wrong reasons but if I was there, that’s the message I’ll be saying.
Terry’s also been linked to the MLS. Would you like to play with him at New York?
He’s the best defender I ever played with, quite comfortably. So if Chelsea let him go and John’s sitting there, I’ll get his plane ticket and get him over here myself.
Speaking of the MLS, what’s the goal for New York City this year?
Well the ultimate goal is to win the MLS Cup, but the first goal is to get to the playoffs. Once you reach the playoffs it becomes a bit of a lottery in a way, and it depends how you are at that point, but we have to make the playoffs this year.Last year we had a few excuses, it was our first year so that’s perhaps why it didn’t go for us on the pitch. Whereas now we have a full squad, a strong squad, everyone knows each other and of course we have the arrival of Patrick Vieira.
He was a youth coach when you had a late spell with Manchester City. Did you get on well then?
Yeah, there wasn’t much love lost on the pitch given he was at Arsenal and I was at Chelsea – he was very competitive and we wanted to beat each other badly, but I respected him hugely and still do. I was with him for a year in Manchester, he was with the young boys and I’d spend time with him around the training ground. I really admire what he’s done on the pitch and he’ll bring a really European influence here which I think will make us a stronger outfit.
Patrick aside, you’ve enjoyed some other feisty midfield battles down the years, most notably with your former England team mate Steven Gerrard and Xabi Alonso against Liverpool. Did you relish those fixtures?
We all relished it. Stevie and Jamie Carragher would tell you the same. For a short period we played each other like five or six times a year and kept getting drawn together in the Champions League. They were good days, if competitive. We didn’t like each other much on the pitch. Stevie G and Alonso were top players. I actually met Alonso on holiday a few years ago and we got on very well. Sometimes it’s difficult - when you’re so competitive on the pitch you don’t realise what nice guys they are off it.
Frank is supporting Football Shirt Friday. For more information on the Bobby Moore Fund or to sign up for Football Shirt Friday on 22 April, go to Bobbymoorefund.org
[Images: Rex]An 8-month-old female harbor seal rescued from a beach in Plymouth, Mass., swims in a pool at Mystic Aquarium in Mystic, Conn., in 2013. (Rodrique Ngowi/AP)
Baby seals are incredibly cute and can melt the coldest of hearts, yes. And what better prop is there for your social media and online dating profile photo needs?
But resist the urge to get close, pet or even snap a selfie with a seal pup, because such contact can cause mother seals to feel threatened and abandon their pups, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warned last week.
“There is no selfie stick long enough!” reads the advisory about harbor seals. “Getting too close to a wild animal puts you — and the animal — at risk.”
Governmental agencies have previously issued warnings against getting too close and snapping selfies with wild animals. Yellowstone National Park, for instance, has launched many public campaigns about getting too close to bison. People have been seriously injured while taking selfies with the animals, and last month a mother rejected her baby bison because of human interference. The park had to euthanize the calf.
[Seriously, people, stay away from the bison]
The problem isn’t going away. Officials have noted a steady, dramatic rise in cases of stranded harbor seals because of human harassment in NOAA’s Greater Atlantic Region, which stretches from Maine to Virginia.
In 2015, there were 53 such harassment cases in the region involving harbor seals. That’s nearly double from just two years prior, when humans harassed 28 seals, leading to the animals being stranded.
“We are starting to see the increase of harassment cases that does involve sometimes people taking pictures or holding them up to get photos,” said Mendy Garron, marine mammal stranding program coordinator for NOAA Fisheries Greater Atlantic Region.
A distressed harbor seal pup lays stranded in the sand in Laguna Beach, Calif., in 2015. (Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images)
It’s illegal to harass wild marine mammals under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which also outlaws the hunting, capturing and feeding of marine mammals.
Harbor seals, which also can be found on the west coast of the United States, aren’t the only species that face the threat of human interference. NOAA has had similar issues with dolphins and whales.
Sometimes individual animal interference stories attract international attention, particularly when they involve threatened species. A baby dolphin belonging to an endangered species died earlier this year after swimmers in Argentina took the creature out of the water and passed it around a beach for selfies.
[Endangered baby dolphin dies after swimmers pass it around for selfies]
Harbor seal pups on Maine and New Hampshire beaches face the threat of humans during pupping season, which starts in mid-May through July. Mother seals out foraging can leave pups by themselves for up to 24 hours.
“Generally, we do think the mom can come back several times throughout the day to check on the pup and to nurse,” Garron said. “If people are around, that could interfere with her coming back on the beach and reuniting with the pup. She sees people as a threat.”
Orphaned baby seals could face a grim future if they aren’t rescued. “Those pups are not going to survive in the wild,” Garron said.
Some people also move pups, and then their mothers can’t find them, said Sarah Wilkin of NOAA Fisheries Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response programs. Touching a pup could also cause later rejection.
“Even if the interaction was short and not very disruptive, it could have lasting impacts on the animal,” she said.
[R2D2 and C-3PO are the first ever grey seal pup twins found in the wild]
While the rise of smartphones and selfies could be playing a role in the rise of harassment cases, humans have longed interfered with wildlife — often as a misguided attempt to help a creature.
In Yellowstone, tourists put a baby bison into their car because they thought it looked cold, a decision that proved fatal for the calf.
For harbor seal pups, people may see a pup by itself and assume it has been abandoned by its mother. Often, the mother is just away, foraging.
“There have always been people who observed a seal pup on the beach and thought, well-intentioned, they needed to do something and help it,” Wilkin said.
NOAA advises people to keep themselves and their pets at least 150 feet away from seals. And if you think a harbor seal pup has indeed been abandoned by its mother, you can call NOAA’s hotline to report a possible stranded animal.
And just as with bison, getting too close to seals can have dire consequences. Adult seals have powerful jaws.
“We have received reports of a number of injuries to humans as a result of getting too close to an animal during a quick photo op,” NOAA said in an advisory. “When you get too close to a wild animal, you risk stressing or threatening it, and stressed animals are much more likely to act unpredictably.”LOS ANGELES—Federal authorities have arrested 14 people named in two federal indictments that allege long-term schemes to manipulate stock prices that led to more than 20,000 investors losing over $30 million when artificially inflated stock prices collapsed. As one defendant described his scheme during a wiretapped phone call: “What I do is turn stock into money.”
The arrests were made yesterday after two grand jury indictments were unsealed Wednesday. The indictments detail two separate, large-scale fraud schemes in which conspirators gained control of the majority of the stock of publicly traded companies, often co-opting company management to assist in these efforts; concealed their control of the stock by purchasing and transferring shares to offshore accounts and to nominee entities with names such as “Dojo,” “Picasso,” and “Big Dog”; fraudulently inflated the prices and trading volumes of the companies’ stocks through slick marketing campaigns, misleading press releases, payments to stock promoters, and “cross-trading” among co-conspirators that made it appear the stocks were being actively traded; coordinated the sale of the companies’ shares at the peak of the fraudulently manipulated market; and hid profits in nominee and offshore accounts.
According to court documents, the defendants are serial market manipulators who carried out several fraudulent deals each year, each of which generated several million dollars. The defendants generally targeted marginal companies operating in areas they believed could easily be touted as generating breakthroughs or deals that would explain sudden increases in trading volume and price, including companies purportedly involved in pharmaceuticals, hair restoration, green technologies, entertainment, oil and gas development, and e-commerce websites. The indictments allege that increased trading volume and higher stock prices were actually the result of the defendants’ fraudulent actions. A company CEO brought into one of the schemes summed up a typical deal during a wiretapped call: “There’s nothing in there, there’s nothing to the company. It’s monkey business.”
The indictments allege that the schemes collectively engaged in five specific deals that defrauded more than 20,000 investors around the world and generated more than $30 million in illegal profits.
“This case has dismantled a far-reaching stock market manipulation scheme run with ruthless efficiency and operated with one goal in mind—to steal money from the investing public,” said U.S. Attorney André Birotte Jr. “This type of predatory behavior cheats the average investor, erodes overall confidence in the markets, and has a devastating impact on companies and their employees.”
One indictment alleges a scheme led by Sherman Mazur and his nephew, Ari Kaplan, charging that they “perpetrated a multi-million-dollar scheme to fraudulently inflate the prices and trading volumes of public company stocks and then sell millions of shares of those companies at the fraudulently inflated prices to the investing public for substantial profits.” The indictment alleges that the scheme involved a number of companies, but focuses on deals involving two businesses—GenMed, which purported to develop, manufacture, and distribute generic pharmaceuticals; and Biostem, which purported to develop and license regenerative stem cell treatments, including hair regrowth technology.
The 32-count Mazur indictment charges nine defendants, all of whom were taken into custody yesterday morning. They are Sherman Mazur, 63, of the Westwood district of Los Angeles, who controlled a company called the London Finance Group, Ltd.; Ari Kaplan, 40 of Venice, who is Mazur’s nephew and was his partner in the London Finance Group, as well as in a series of other business endeavors; Grover Henry Colin Nix IV (who generally used the name “Colin Nix”), 39, of the Los Feliz district of Los Angeles, who controlled the Santa Monica-based Calbridge Capital LLC, which purported to be a “boutique investment banking firm”; Regis Possino, 65, of the Pacific Palisades district of Los Angeles, a now-disbarred attorney who was Nix’s partner at Calbridge Capital; Edon Moyal, 32, of Carlsbad, California, who controlled a company called 8 Sounds, Inc. and while allegedly involved in this scheme was free on bond pending trial in a criminal case filed in federal court in San Diego; Mark Harris, 56, of Scottsdale, Arizona, a stock promoter who controlled Apache Capital LLC, an investor relations firm in Scottsdale; Joey Davis, 46, of the Los Feliz district of Los Angeles, who controlled Scripted Consulting Group, a public relations firm in Los Angeles and who was allegedly involved in this scheme while free on bond pending trial in a criminal case filed in federal court in Los Angeles; Curtis Platt, who turned 51 today, of Sarasota, Florida, who controlled Big Dog International LLC; and Dwight Brunoehler, 62, of Maitland, Florida, who is the CEO of Biostem, a company based in Clearwater, Fla.
The Mazur indictment alleges that the nine defendants conspired to commit securities fraud and wire fraud. The indictment alleges that members of the scheme generated at least $13 million in illegal proceeds when they sold their shares of manipulated companies, a figure that includes at least $2.1 million in illegal proceeds from the manipulation campaign for Genmed, as well as $500,000 in illegal proceeds from the ongoing manipulation campaign for Biostem. The indictment further alleges that Mazur, Kaplan, Nix, Possino, and Harris engaged in money laundering, using funds transferred from offshore accounts to promote their fraudulent scheme.
“The defendants’ alleged combination of celebrities, press releases, gimmicks, and lies was similar to a how a magician deceives unsuspecting believers into an illusion,” said Bill Lewis, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office. “While operating the schemes alleged in the indictments, the defendants kept their audience captive until stock prices peaked, while investor money vanished into defendants bank accounts.”
The second indictment concerns a stock manipulation ring allegedly headed by Possino—a former Los Angeles County deputy district attorney—and Nix, both of whom are also key players in the Mazur indictment. This second indictment also outlines a broad scheme to manipulate stock prices and it focuses on deals involving three companies—Sport Endurance Inc., which purported to develop, manufacture, and distribute energy drinks and nutritional supplements; Imobolis, Inc., which came to be known as FrogAds and which purported to operate an online bulletin board for classified advertisements; and Empire Post Media, which purported to provide media services, including post-production services, for feature films and television programs. This 37-count indictment charges 11 defendants, some of whom are also charged in the Mazur indictment. Those named in the second indictment are: Regis Possino, who along with Nix, controlled a series of companies used in relation to the stock manipulation scheme; Grover Henry Colin Nix IV, who was generally known as Colin Nix; Tarun Mendiratta, 42, of Weston, Conn., who claimed to have earned between $75 million and $80 from market manipulation schemes over the past decade and who allegedly participated in the current scheme, in part, by using a cell phone smuggled into the prison where he was housed; Ivano Angelastri, 49, a resident of Switzerland and Dubai, who controlled funds and securities in foreign accounts for himself and Mendiratta (Angelastri is the one defendants who was not arrested yesterday; he is currently being sought by authorities); Mark Harris, the Arizona-based stock promoter; Edon Moyal; the San Diego County man; Joseph Scarpello, 52, of Tustin, California, a disbarred attorney who controlled Taylor Financial, Ltd.; Julian Spitari, 47, of Encino, California, who was the CEO of the company that came to be called FrogAds; Peter Dunn, 72, of the Brentwood district of Los Angeles, who was the CEO of Empire Post Media; William Mackey, 61, a stock promoter who resides in Plantation, Florida, who allegedly was free on bond in a federal case filed in New York City when he committed the crimes alleged in this indictment; and Joseph Davis, the PR executive.
The Possino indictment alleges that members of the conspiracy made at least $18 million in illegal proceeds from selling their shares of manipulated companies. This figure includes at least $1 million in profits from the Sport Endurance campaign, at least $6.8 million from the FrogAds deal and at least $1 million in profits from the Empire Post Media deal. The defendants named in this indictment are charged with conspiracy to commit securities fraud and wire fraud. Possino, Nix, Mendiratta, Angelastri, Harris, Moyal, Scarpello, and Spitari are also charged with money laundering related to funds transferred from offshore accounts.
“This investigation took law enforcement above and beyond its traditional role in financial crimes,” said N. Dawn Mertz, Special Agent in Charge of Internal Revenue Service (IRS)-Criminal Investigation’s Los Angeles Field Office. “Using foreign bank accounts to promote their scheme, the case put us square in the middle of the world of international banking and the sophisticated electronic movement of money. IRS Criminal Investigation is proud to bring our accounting skills to this joint venture and to put a stop to this and other types of white-collar fraud.”
While the two indictments outline conspiracies to engage in wide-ranging market manipulation, each focuses on a small number of deals that illustrate the overall schemes. One deal concerns the alleged manipulation of FrogAds stock. After buying up all of the company’s stock just over a year ago, members of the conspiracy arranged for FrogAds to issue a series of press releases touting the company’s successes and growth potential, which included making bogus claims that the FrogAds website was among the most visited on the Internet. At the same time, several online stock pickers and at least one analyst recommended FrogAds after being paid by some of the defendants. After the company held a press conference with a well known actress (who was not part of the conspiracy) announcing that she would serve as FrogAds’ celebrity spokeswoman and while members of the conspiracy cross-traded stock to give the false appearance of increased market demand, the price for FrogAds stock went up. But the purported success of FrogAds and the apparent interest in the company’s stock were an elaborate fabrication. The indictment quotes one member of the conspiracy saying in a recorded phone call: “You’re dressing this thing up as a multi-million dollar deal, you gotta make sure that we have all our ducks in order.” The manipulation of FrogAds’ stock allegedly orchestrated by the conspiracy resulted in profits of nearly $7 million for the defendants.
The defendants arrested yesterday morning—all of the charged defendants except Angelastri—made their initial appearances in federal courts in the districts where they were arrested. Mazur and Possino, both of whom entered not guilty pleas to the charges in their indictments, are currently being held without bond, but they are scheduled to have detention hearings next week in U.S. District Court. Trial dates for both cases were scheduled for April 9 in federal court in Los Angeles.
An indictment contains allegations that a defendant has committed a crime. Every defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.
If convicted, each of the defendants would face statutory maximum penalties of at least 100 years in federal prison. Some of the defendants, including Mazur, Possino, Nix, and Mendiratta face potential life sentences.
Yesterday’s arrests were made under two indictments unsealed today that are the result of ongoing investigations being conducted by the FBI and IRS-Criminal Investigation. The investigation involved a series of wiretaps that resulted in the interception of more than 60,000 phone calls and 24,000 text messages.With over 30 years industry experience our family run scaffolding company Access 4 U Scaffolding Ltd has had 3 generations leading its way to success. As experts in the field providing our services to the Chesterfield, Sheffield, East Midlands, South Yorkshire and Derbyshire area we have gained a wealth of skill and knowledge to make us highly proficient and experienced. We keep abreast of all the latest technologies and advancements in equipment and are continual observing the newest innovations that 21st Century science has to offer. The Scaffolding industry is forever changing producing new products that improve erection, handling and safety which are all important to us. We want to deliver products and scaffolding systems that not only meet your requirements but exceed your expectations. Our service is second to none and all our staff are here to help; providing a friendly, helpful and approachable manner.Restoring Vinyl Records with Sony PSHX500
This turntable was a purchase that I wished I would have made right from the start. First of all let me just say that I have always been a vinyl enthusiast. I have also purchased a great many turntables from Direct Drive to Belt Driven, From USB to just RCA Composite cable input. I also love the warm sound of an old analog record, it isn't the pops and the hissing that I enjoy it is the warmer sound stage presence that one can clearly hear from a vinyl record. I also enjoy being able to listen to my music collection on the go. With the use of a FiiO X3 Gen 2 I was able to do that, but still some of my files that I had were compressed maybe not to the degree that one would be turned off to it but a degree of the sound stage was still missing. That was clearly taken care of by the Sony PSHX500 Turntable. This turntable is in my opinion the best audiophile turntable on the market for under $1000.00. It records at DSD 5.6 1:1 ratio. Some of my records do pop,click, and crackle but not all but the quality of sound is so amazing. I currently have 3 turntables that I use 1st one that is hooked to my hi-fi system is an Audio Technica ATLP120 USB and that used to be the turntable that I recorded my vinyl on. And I am in the process of buying a longer extension rca cables so that I can hook my Sony PSHX500 to my hi-fi and my computer at the same time thus eliminating the Audio Technica all together. The third turntable which I purchased not to long ago and it turned out to be a piece of junk was a Marantz TT42. It wasn't so much the sound quality that was bad in the Marantz it was that the turntable began malfunctioning first I lost the ability to change from 33 1/3 to 45 RPM speeds then the belt began to slip and because I purchased it on Ebay I was unable to use the warranty because it was not from a consumer based store. I did purchase the Sony on Ebay but so far I have had no complaints. The hook-up and installation of the unit and the software was so easy and then the recordings are so amazing, when I play back the recording on my hi-fi or in my auto I feel like I am sitting at home listenting to my actual turntable playing the music as it was designed and meant to be enjoyed. Thanks for reading this.
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Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: pre-owned | Sold by: superiorsales74When GameTap shut down the servers for MystOnline: UruLive earlier this year, it was a major disappointment for the small, but dedicated, fan base the game had acquired over the years. Those fans will now have a chance to shape the future of the game, as developer Cyan Worlds has announced that the source code for the title will soon be released, giving fans the ability to mold and update the now-open source game as they see fit.
UruLive has experienced a tumultuous existence since first being launched in 2003. The massively-multiplayer title was originally to be published by Ubisoft, which promptly left the project while it was still in beta. The game was kept alive on a number of fan-run servers for nearly three years, at which point it was picked up by GameTap. This deal continued until February of this year when GameTap dropped the game; however, in spite of all of these problems, the game has maintained a steady, loyal group of fans.
"Cyan has decided to... make MystOnline available to the fans by releasing the source code for the servers, client and tools for MystOnline as an open source project," Cyan Worlds CEO Tony Fryman told Spokane, WA paper Spokesman Review. "We will also host a data server with the data for MystOnline. More is still possible, but only with the help from fans."
According to Fryman, the developer simply does not have the funding or resources necessary to support MystOnline in an official capacity. With such a strong connection to the property, giving the reins to the fans is a good way to keep the title from slipping into obscurity.
"After the shutdown of MystOnline with GameTap, we again were thinking of 'how can we keep the dream alive,'" Cyan CTO Mark DeForest, the man in charge of moving the game to open-source, told Ars. "Our first thoughts were to work on MystOnline on the side, get the servers up and with the help of those many talented fans, MystOnline could slowly grow back up to something viable. This was the MORE (MystOnline Restoration Experiment) project.
"Then the downturn in the economy hit. One of Cyan's revenue streams was indirectly affected by Wall Street and that dried up over night. This forced Cyan to put MORE on hold. So, again, how can we keep this dream alive?"
It's an interesting question, and Cyan found a brave answer. "After weighing several options, the only thing that made sense was to get those talented and skilled fans directly involved with MystOnline by opening the source to them."
"I think there are many reasons (why the game has such a steadfast
fanbase)," DeForest explained. "In my opinion, I think because
UruLive/MystOnline is still a very unique virtual world experience and
these fans do see that promise. Most MMOGs focus a lot on the 'game'
part and not on the experience part, after all that is what is
currently making money... But this group of core fans see that underlying
experience part that they want to keep alive."
Given the long-running support that MystOnline has received from fans for several years, it seems as though the game will be in good hands. Currently there is no word on when the game tools will be released, though Fryman expects it to happen "quickly."
Where will the game go from here? It's up to the fans. After the release of the code and tools, they're welcome to do whatever they'd like with it. "I'm not sure I can predict where UruLive/MystOnline will be in the future," Deforest told Ars. "But our hope is that it becomes something bigger than even we have ever thought of."It’s no secret Nail Yakupov is struggling. A third of the way through his sophomore season, the offensive dynamo has managed just 9 points while posting an NHL-worst minus-16. Edmonton Oilers coach Dallas Eakins has been at his wit’s end trying to find a soft landing spot for the talented Russian: left wing, right wing, first line, “soft minutes” line. He also went the tough-love route and introduced the former first-overall pick to a seat in the press box.
Eakins has gone out of his way to give his youngest player cushy zone starts — in his 26 games Yak has been deployed for 41.3% of Oilers’ offensive zone starts at even strength, by far the most on the team; and just 18.6% of the d-zone starts, fewer than even Luke Gazdic and far below any full-time player. (As a point of reference, Yakupov ranks 8th on the club in EVTOI/G, so would play something under a third of the overall minutes, probably around 30%.) His overall O/D start rate of 69% is more than 10 points clear of any teammate and ranks fifth in the entire league. He’s played primarily with offensive linemates. Yet after 333 minutes — 5½ games for pete’s sake — Yakupov has yet to score a single goal at even strength.
Things have gone a little better on the powerplay, where the sniper has tallied all 4 of his goals. Yet that area has also been a sore point, as the Oilers PP unit has allowed 4 shorthanded goals-against with Yakupov on the ice. Two of these came in the past four games, a period of time where Yakupov posted 0-0-0, -2, with both minuses coming on the powerplay. Playing the point, he was a primary culprit on both shorthanded goals against, breakaways by Jonathan Toews and Ryan Garbutt that opened the scoring in two different games. Killer goals.
Let’s have a closer look at last night’s goal, which turned out not to be a killer thanks to a late comeback but sure could have been. The lone true defenceman on the four-forward powerplay, Denis Grebeshkov, was rightfully pilloried for his role in the play, but the lack of support from his forwards, most notably the putative point man Yakupov, also played a crucial role in the breakdown.
The sequence picks up with Grebeshkov retreating into the neutral zone after failing to keep the puck in at the left point. Yakupov, who has been peripherally involved as the Oilers battled for possession along the wall, begins to drop back from the right point position. Perhaps Grebeshkov’s best option was to feather the puck over to Yakupov’s wing at this point.
As Grebeshkov absorbs pressure from Shawn Horcoff, Yakupov continues to approach the play but is not really well-positioned for an outlet pass at this moment. The eventual goal scorer, Ryan Garbutt, is just entering the frame on the left, a good 20 feet behind Yak. The other forwards are |
“We ask customers to submit a government--certified ID. We understand Aadhaar is the most widely held. So it is our preferred one,” said an Amazon India spokesperson.The check can be done without an Aadhaar number too. “If a customer is unable to share a government-certified identification proof, Amazon, as a customer-centric organisation, will continue to process the request based on other details shared by the customer,” the spokesperson said.Zoomcar, on the other hand, is making no exceptions and has made Aadhaar mandatory, without which users in north India and Vijayawada cannot book a vehicle. It started insisting on Aadhaar in June and will extend it to users across the country in a month.“Aadhaar has the best API integration, the latest documents are getting connected with bank accounts. If you have an Aadhaar card, you have the KYC (know your customer) sorted,” said a Zoomcar spokesperson. The company, founded in 2013, operates in 27 cities.Mobile wallet Paytm has also requested users to link their Aadhaar details. Cab aggregators Uber and Ola are looking at ways to integrate Aadhaar into their platforms. Currently, Aadhaar is mandatory for consumers to get government subsidies, operate a bank account, and get a phone connection. People are required to link their Aadhaar number to existing bank accounts by the end of the year.Former monarchs Prince Albert and Queen Victoria (Shutterstock)
Disney chose a white girl from a former slave state who stakes out land on African soil to be its next princess. The colonially reminiscent movie plot did not generate overwhelming sympathy from the Internet writ large, prompting tense interactions between the screenwriter and a slew ofcultural diversity advocates on Twitter.
On Wednesday, the Hollywood Reporter announced Disney had tapped Stephany Folsom to write “The Princess of North Sudan,” the company’s next animated princess movie. The “real” princess of North Sudan, upon which Folsom’s script is inspired, is daughter to Jeremiah Heaton, a farmer from Abingdon, Virginia.
Thus began an onslaught of #PrincessOfNorthSudan criticism on Twitter. A notable example:
Disney's 1st black princess was a frog for 90% of the movie & they r making the 1st African princess a white girl. Ok #PrincessOfNorthSudan — 🥰 (@naaomibella) May 14, 2015
Folsom took to Twitter herself to defend the movie she’s writing. “Agree w/everything people are saying. Wouldn’t write that story. But if you want to focus your hate on me, go for it,” Folsom said in a tweet that is now deleted. The screenwriter elaborates, “There is no planting a flag in Sudan or making a white girl the princess of an African country. That’s gross.” And: “I’ve been to the Sudan. The people there are amazing. Colonialism is bullshit. Hope you all have a beautiful night.”
Early Thursday, Folsom assured Twitter users that the movie plot she is writing is “NOT the story” they think it is:
As laid out by @THR article I can understand why you'd be upset. Rest assured that is NOT the story we are telling. #PrincessOfNorthSudan — Stephany Folsom (@StephanyFolsom) May 14, 2015
By way of background, Agence France-Presse interviewed Heaton last year regarding his voyage with his daughter to Sudan, whereby Heaton, “planted a flag in a tiny parcel of uninhabited land on the border between Egypt and Sudan on June 16th, Emily’s seventh birthday,” and “the Kingdom of North Sudan was born.”
Describing his motivations, Heaton says, “With a child you don’t want to ever tell them they can’t be something they desire to be, and at age six, her frame of reference for the world was to be a princess. So I told her that she could be.”
Why go all the way to Sudan to establish a seven-year-old’s princess credentials? Heaton explains to AFP: “Initially I looked at the Antarctic continent, which doesn’t have a population… but due to the Antarctic Treaty, there are no new claims that are allowed to be made.”
Behold, more of the Internet’s wisdom on Disney’s “Princess of North Sudan.”
Colonialism ain't heartwarming how the hell are they gonna make a kid movie out of it #PrincessOfNorthSudan — ♡ reem ♡ (@queenreemmm) May 14, 2015
If this backlash was intended to drum up controversy and interest early on, that's the only way I can see #PrincessOfNorthSudan making sense — Adam Abadir (@AyoAbadir) May 14, 2015
The true story behind #PrincessOfNorthSudan is horrifyingly disgusting and there is no "angle" where it is anything but an outrage. — @red3blog (@red3blog) May 14, 2015
I really hope #PrincessOfNorthSudan is just a white privileged pipe dream that never comes to pass. You have a choice here @DisneyPictures. — Megane-hime「眼鏡姫」 (@BaelockHolmes) May 14, 2015Sailfish OS 2.0.2 is named 'Aurajoki', the river going through Turku, a beautiful Finnish city. To gain some momentum, we have decided to switch our release codenames from lakes to rivers!
This release continues to improve the Sailfish OS 2.0 experience. Storage settings allow users to format, and safely eject memory cards. It also provides access to the files on the device and on memory cards. Cloud support continues to evolve with a support of VK and with backup support for OneDrive and DropBox. With release 2.0.2 Sailfish OS adds support for Intex Aqua Fish and Jolla C devices. New hardware features of the devices, like FM radio and Dual SIM are now supported.
This release brings a lot of improved features and fixes. Thank you for the feedback and making yet another big upgrade possible!
Upgrade version history
2016-07-28: 2.0.2.48 Early access release
2016-08-31: 2.0.2.51 Early access release updated
2016-09-07: 2.0.2.51 Released to all
Release Highlights
Ambiences
Wallpapers are always copied to system memory to avoid losing ambiences when removing SD card
Backup
Simplified backup experience
Backup of local (personal, non-synced) calendar is now possible
Backups can be made to cloud services (supported for DropBox and OneDrive)
Browser
Open external links to new tabs
Fixes missing search engines
Connectivity
Fix missing LTE bands support in Jolla C
Customer specific features
Fix issues in SMS activation
Camera
Flash can now be used while taking video
Added reset to default settings option to Camera application
Improved Camera launch time
Cloud services
Added support for VK
Connectivity
Dual SIM support for devices with Dual SIM
Migrate Facebook features away from deprecated Graph API 2.0
Email
3rd party email API supports attachments
Events view
'Flashlight switch' for events view Actions and shortcuts
Five-day weather forecast updates now automatically
Gallery
Dropbox gallery integration.
OneDrive gallery integration.
Large photos open faster
Home and Lock screen
Press volume up and down together for 0.5 seconds to create a screenshot
HW adaptation & kernel
Support for Intex Aqua Fish & Jolla C
Fix support for certain SD cards that were failing
Positioning
Support for Mozilla Location Service positioning assistance, which can use nearby wifi access points and cell towers to help determine your location. This service is not available for Jolla1 and Jolla Tablet.
Localisation
Locale specific numbers are now supported around OS
Common smiley characters supported
Keyboard layouts and fonts added for Indian languages Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Punjabi, Tamil and Bengali
Keyboard layout for Greek
New Russian ruble symbol taken into use
Lock screen
Setting to add favorite actions and app shortcuts to lock screen pulley menu
Lock screen transition shortened
Media controls are hidden if no music is played for 30 minutes
Media
New layout for front page
Support for FM Radio (only on devices with FM radio hardware). Big thanks to Matti Lehtimäki (mal-) for writing its middleware plugin!
Messages
Setting to display remaining character counts for text messages (SMS)
Show MMS download progress
Office
Allow copying text to clipboard
People
Ability to delete and share multiple contacts at once
Phone
Long tap * in dialer for +
Setting to enable automatic call recording on Jolla C and Aqua Fish
Faster dialing transition
Settings
SD Card settings for formatting SD cards, and for safely removing them
Setting to add reboot button on top menu
Factory reset is not be allowed if battery is under 15%
Show app version number in Android app settings page
Storage space view with a simple file manager
"Flip-to-silence" gesture setting
SIMATK
Fix issues in Mobile electronic signature
Security
Untrusted software installation no longer requires Jolla account
UI elements
New Sailfish logo
Changelog
For detailed changelog, see https://together.jolla.com/question/139609/changelog-202aurajoki/
Upgrading your devices
This is the usual drill before attempting to upgrade your devices,
If you use Phonehook from OpenRepos, uninstall it before upgrading.
If you use Patchmanager, revert all applied patches before upgrading.
Take a backup of your data before attempting to upgrade your device. A successful backup operation is indicated by a green dot in the UI.
Do not reboot the device while the update is in progress.
The device screen may blank out during the update process, you may waken the display by a short press on the power key to monitor the progress.
Do keep the phone connected to a battery charger during the whole process.
For detailed instructions on updating software, visit Zendesk [ https://jolla.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/201836347 ].
If connected to the internet, and your account is subscribed for Early Access releases, your Jolla device should receive an OS update notification shortly.
Known issuesDonald Trump wants YOU to be rich!
But he has some pretty disturbing advice on how exactly you should do that: Don’t save your money, he says; spend it! In fact, live above your means — it will fill you with confidence. Getting a job is for losers; the key is to get other people to work for you. And spend other people’s money, too. Above all, market yourself aggressively and enthusiastically.
And, of course, buy more of his books and take classes through his now-disgraced Trump University.
Trump’s get-rich schemes are described in two books co-authored with the controversial wealth guru Robert Kiyosaki: Why We Want You to Be Rich (2006) and Midas Touch (2011).
In their books, Trump and Kiyosaki — the author of the Rich Dad Poor Dad business book series (guess which one Trump had) — discourage readers from orthodox financial practices such as thrift, or making safe investments in low-risk mutual funds.
The authors instead recommend that readers get involved with network marketing companies — the kinds of businesses that can often be nothing but pyramid schemes. (In a pyramid scheme, the original creators use money coming in from new recruits to enrich themselves and pay off early-stage investors until eventually the pyramid collapses.)
Both books by Trump and Kiyosaki repeatedly stress investing in “financial literacy” — by shelling out for their various educational products and seminars. These promotions include an advertisement in Why We Want You to Be Rich for Trump University, the now-defunct real estate training company over which Trump is currently facing three massive fraud lawsuits.
Trump and Kiyosaki frame their advice around the premise that the American middle class is disappearing — in that way, mirroring the rhetoric Trump uses on the stump. Why We Want You to Be Rich describes how “America and many other countries are becoming two-class societies — rich or poor, classes or masses.”
But here, Trump’s goal is not broadening the middle class. It’s getting you to pick your side.
“The rich will spot the opportunities,” Trump writes in Why We Want You to Be Rich, “while the poor will hide their heads and pretend it isn’t happening.”
Explaining why he and Trump got together for their first book, Kiyosaki writes in Midas Touch that “as the middle class disappears, there’s only one of two ways you can go: rich or poor. We want you to be rich.”
Trump and Kiyosaki are big fans of network marketing companies, where compensation is based on recruiting more members into the company. The two authors devote an entire chapter to network marketing in Why We Want You to Be Rich and write positively of the business model in Midas Touch.
Rebuffing claims that network marketing is a pyramid scheme, Kiyosaki writes that “corporations are really pyramid schemes. A corporation has only one person at the top, generally the CEO, and everyone else below.”
“A network marketing business,” Kiyosaki later adds, “is designed to bring you up to the top, not keep you down at the bottom.”
Trump gives a more measured endorsement of network marketing, writing positively of the opportunity to learn sales and advertising techniques. “My nutshell advice about network marketing is to do your research and then put everything you’ve got into your product. Genuine enthusiasm is hard to beat, and the odds will be with you,” Trump writes.
As it happens, Trump has some personal experience in that realm. He licensed the Trump Network in 2009, a venture that peddled health supplements through a network marketing business scheme. The supplements had little science behind them, and when Trump’s licensing agreement ended in 2012, the company was unable to pay its lab, vendors, or marketers.
In both Why We Want You to Be Rich and Midas Touch, Trump and Kiyosaki discourage their readers from taking jobs and “working hard” for money when they can become entrepreneurs and investors.
“When Donald and I think about working hard,” Kiyosaki writes in Why We Want You to Be Rich, “while we both work hard individually, we mostly think about other people working hard for us to help make us rich.”
Kiyosaki uses the acronym “OPT,” or “other people’s time,” to describe this method of getting rich. Likewise, Kiyosaki and Trump employ “OPM,” or “other people’s money,” in reference to taking out loans for investments, recommending their readers take on “good debt” in pursuit of becoming rich. They encourage readers to invest in real estate, oil companies, and gold and silver mines, while discouraging investment in any and all mutual funds.
“Given the choice between buying mutual funds or a fake Rolex,” Kiyosaki writes in Midas Touch, “I would take the fake Rolex.”
Trump and Kiyosaki also dismiss saving money or living frugally as antithetical to the entrepreneurial mindset. In Why We Want You to Be Rich, Trump writes, “So many people think cheap and buy cheap. You can get rich by being cheap, but who wants to be a rich cheap person?”
Likewise, in an infomercial with Kiyosaki, Trump discusses an unnamed friend who would only fly first class even when he was in financial trouble because “he needed it mentally. … He wanted to fly first class because mentally, he wanted to think he was the best. … It put him in a good state of mind and he became a very, very successful guy.”
The notion of “living below your means” actually cracks Kiyosaki up on camera. “When you say to somebody ‘live below your means’ you wipe their spirit out,” Kiyosaki says. He later describes instructing people to pinch pennies as “almost inhumane.”
On the campaign trail, Trump calls for tariffs and retaliation against trading partners and assures Americans that he would keep them safe, but the introduction to Why We Want You to Be Rich explains that “governments, even the U.S. government, cannot protect their people as they once could” from threats like globalization, terrorism, and the collapse of the middle class.
Trump and Kiyosaki’s books assert that “no government, neither ours nor theirs, can create real jobs.” Job creation, they argue, can only be done by entrepreneurs. But both books contain little to no discussion of management or hiring practices, for instance.
By contrast, during his campaign, Trump has promised college students that they will all have jobs when they graduate because he will be “the greatest jobs president that God ever created.”B.C.’s independent police-oversight body, the Independent Investigations Office (IIO), is investigating the case of a fatal officer-involved shooting in Victoria.
The province’s police watchdog is appealing for witnesses to the deadly shooting to come forward.
Victoria police say the shooting happened at approximately 11:00 a.m. Saturday morning in the James Bay area, along Dallas Rd., near Odgen point.
Officers attended a residence in response to a 911 call. Police say they were confronted by a man, who was shot by police and died as a result of his injuries.
Several potential witnesses were questioned at the scene.
Police and the IIO are not revealing many details.
We will have an update later in the day regarding the officer involved shooting and more information at that time. — Victoria Police (@vicpdcanada) November 1, 2014
Earlier today Victoria police also tweeted:
We're on scene of a serious incident in the 200-Blk of Dallas Rd. Updates will be provided shortly. #yyj — Victoria Police (@vicpdcanada) November 1, 2014
Victoria Police Chief Constable Frank Elsner provided a statement but said he will be unable to answer questions of an investigative manner due to the IIO’s ongoing investigation. He did add that the officer who fired his weapon is seeking medical attention following the confrontation.
The shooting has rattled what residents say is a quiet neighbourhood.
“It’s very shocking,” says resident Margaret Dickinson. “It’s so quiet here. Nothing like this ever seems to happen.”
Late Saturday, a woman who answered the phone at the residence where the incident took place said she was not ready to discuss what happened.
Audio: Statement from Victoria PoliceThe Walt Disney Co. will lease the Fox lot in Century City for seven years as part of the former’s pending acquisition of 21st Century Fox. Insiders told Variety that 21st Century Fox President Peter Rice informed employees of the lease agreement in a town hall meeting Thursday on the lot.
According to sources inside the meeting, Rice, president of 21st Century Fox, assured employees that no one who works on the lot would be relocated in the near future. Rice did concede that Disney will need to look at Fox’s businesses and that redundancies will be identified, leading to inevitable layoffs. But he did promise “big severance packages” along the lines of the buyouts the company offered two years ago. During those buyouts, employees were offered a month’s pay for each year they worked.
According to one insider, Rice spoke with employees for roughly an hour. The overall mood was characterized as positive, but there was also tangible uncertainty in the room.
Rice called the event “a momentous occasion,” adding, “I’ve been here for 30 years, and I never in my lifetime thought that Rupert would sell.”
Related Bob Iger on Hostless Oscars: 'It's Been a Rollercoaster' Last Hostless Oscars Were Memorable — for the Wrong Reasons
On Thursday, it was announced that Disney had reached an agreement to purchase the bulk of Fox’s assets, including its television and movie studios, in a deal that values the Fox assets in the transaction at $66.1 billion, including $13.7 billion in 21st Century Fox debt, or $28 a share. The deal was unforeseen until rumors surfaced this fall that Fox chief Rupert Murdoch had begun entertaining the notion of selling off his company’s entertainment properties
“In uncertainty, there’s change, and in change, there’s opportunity,” Rice told employees. He said the new combined company would generate $20 billion a year in profits, which will allow it to “compete with the Amazons of the world.” He also dismissed the notion that the two companies were joining to challenge Netflix, noting that Netflix loses $2.5 billion a year. Rice also said the new Fox entity will only do business in the U.S. and will generate $3 billion a year.
Rice did not address how Fox Broadcasting, which is remaining in the slimmer 21st Century Fox alongside the company’s news assets and Fox Sports 1, will source content. However, insiders tell Variety that rumors abound on the lot speculating that profits from the sale to Disney could be used to buy a new studio.
Rice also predicted that the deal would take 12-18 months to close and emphasized that there would be no short-term effect on business operations.
As for pending approval of the deal from federal regulators, Rice told those assembled, “The lawyers believe it will pass.”
Other Fox television executives, including Fox Television Group co-CEO Dana Walden and FX Networks CEO John Landgraf also addressed staffers at the meeting. Stacey Snider, the head of Fox’s film division, has canceled a trip to Washington D.C. for the premiere of the film “The Post.” She has stayed in Los Angeles for a series of small meetings with employees to discuss the Disney deal, and is maintaining what one insider described as extended “office hours” with the door to her office left open.
Her message was: “We’re aligning with one of the world’s greatest companies, whose goal is to enable us to reach more people with more variety of content, which is great news and a huge opportunity for us. They also are going to enable us to continue doing what we love.”
On the film front, employees are being told that films are still being greenlit and that production on such major upcoming releases as “Gambit,” an X-Men spinoff, is expected to still commence in the coming months.
Like Rice, Snider has stressed that over the next year and a half until the deal closes, it will be “business as usual” and she told staffers that she expects them “to do what we do at a high level of excellence and with our typical swagger.”Although yesterday, April 15th, is an annually observed National Day of Mourning, this year it fell on a Sunday, a holy day when no federal postal workers must be roused from their beauty naps. So our omniscient guardian angels at the Internal Revenue Service have postponed the filing deadline until tomorrow.
By a sparkling stroke of magical cosmological coincidence, tomorrow is also what is known as “Tax Freedom Day“”according to one calculation, the average American will work from January 1 to April 17 merely to pay off their combined federal, state, and local taxes. The idea is that tomorrow you will finally be “free” to start making your own money until the end of the year. According to an even more ominous estimate”which possibly includes consumption taxes, hidden taxes, ghost taxes, buried taxes, invisible taxes, tucked-away taxes, and sleight-of-hand taxes”the average American working serf will toil until August 12 before finally paying their personal “Cost of Government.”
By golly, by gosh, jeepers, gee willikers, and snap my suspenders until my nipples sting, but that simply doesn”t sound fair to me.
I mailed in my tax return last Friday”the 13th. Filing a tax return always feels like I”m snitching on myself. Licking that envelope shut feels uncomfortably like performing an act of oral servitude on the feds. Being forced to mail those gilded insects in DC money skimmed from my prodigious labor has never seemed fair to me, not a stinking penny of it.
Today the Senate is scheduled to vote on the Paying a Fair Share Act of 2012, also known as the “Buffett Rule.” Politicians, pundits, and the usual cyber-cluster of lobotomized chirping retards have been bloviating and flatulating over this law’s “fairness” as if such a thing could actually be measured.
“Fairness is in the eye of who feels they”re getting screwed. At any given time, that’s pretty much everybody.”
Yahoo! News seems so deep in Obama’s pockets that they”re basically up his ass. Their recent reprint of a Reuters story, “Obama likely paid higher tax rate than Romney in 2011,” bore the sour stench of partisan unfairness. The first red flag is the word “likely”; the second is the fact that although Romney’s tax rate was lower, he”ll pay about TWENTY TIMES the amount of taxes to the federal government that Obama did last year. Did he use twenty times the government services? Not bloody likely, especially considering all of Obama’s international hunting safaris, local rodeo and karaoke-bar appearances in the American heartland, and hip-hop barbecues at the White House. It’s probable that Obama received a laughably larger amount in free government perks than he paid in taxes. If anything, the tax rate seems unfair to Romney, as much as it pains me to defend him in any way.
Both Romuloid and Obamatron seem like slithery slimy sneaky snakes to me. I bear equal amounts of distrust for both men. But seeing how Yahoo! appeared to selectively choose pieces of the jigsaw puzzle to create the impression that Obama was being maltreated made me realize how unfairly terms such as “fairness” and “paying your fair share” are being bandied around this election year.
Statistics are almost easier to manipulate than voters are, which is why we”ll see endless pictograms until Election Day that define unfairness in contradictory ways. We”ll hear that the dreaded “1%” make a huge chunk of the money, but not that they pay an even bigger chunk of the taxes. We”ll hear that the upper crust is paying a consistently lower percentage of their income in taxes, but not that the bottom half is, too. And even though it’s widely acknowledged that the Buffett Rule will accomplish next to nothing when it comes to digging us out of the $15-trillion trench into which we”ve been unwillingly dug”perhaps with the intent to bury us”we”re expected to take cheer that this empty gesture merely symbolizes fairness.
Pay to Play - Put your money where your mouth is and subscribe for an ad-free experience and to join the world famous Takimag comment board.Another Tuesday, another primary in the U.S. presidential campaign. This time, both a Democratic and Republican primary in Wisconsin. Another night of the most surreal, mind-blowing TV coverage imaginable.
After the GOP town hall on CNN last week, I finally, truly understood the meaning of the word "gibberish." And while watching the GOP town hall on MSNBC, I finally experienced what is meant by the term "gobsmacked."
There was a lot of fodder for the late-night TV hosts last week, but they're all guys, so they might be missing the point. We'll get to that.
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The town halls were followed, inevitably, by outrageously accusatory punditry on various news channels. Some of the defending of Donald Trump was being done by one Katrina Pierson, already notorious for outlandish remarks and accusations. And, if you want truly surreal, take note that Pierson is a regular on the tiny WE tv reality series Sisters in Law. It follows a group of "elite high-powered black female lawyers as they juggle their families, busy careers and even more demanding social calendars." The summary is this: "From trial prep and courtroom cross-examinations, to opposing counsel and opposing each other, watch as these powerful women struggle to remain civil under fierce competition and pressure."
The key phrase is "remain civil." From what's available, Sisters in Law is about women bickering. That makes Pierson (who appears as a friend of one of the main women) an ideal Trump woman. Bickering, finger-pointing, preposterous in her affinity for a spat, any spat. A reality-TV cliché.
Everything about the U.S. campaign, especially the Republican race, is all very male and roaring along on toxic, testosterone-driven twaddle. Anderson Cooper jeered Trump with "Sir, with all due respect, that's the argument of a five-year-old." Chris Matthews jeered Trump's bizarre and grotesque approach to the issue of abortion. Matthews: "If the man who got the woman pregnant is also responsible …?" Trump: "I would say no." Matthews: "Well, they're usually involved."
What's interesting, if you're looking for deeper meaning, is that the sexism and misogyny are erupting all over the place at a time when it is likely that Hillary Clinton will be the next president of the United States. This likelihood seems to have ignited the dormant volcano of sexism that is always there, ready to erupt in the American culture. You can see it on TV almost every night of the week.
The first truly freakish detonation in the Trump campaign was his lavishly odious and innuendo-filled attack on Megyn Kelly of Fox News. That had a whiff of a young male's loathing of women who aren't obsequious or motherly in the presence of men. There was an air of disgust in Trump's aspersions that smacked of the five-year-old that Cooper accused him of being.
From there, it was on to Trump's utterly bugged-out comments that Clinton's use of the bathroom at a Democratic debate was "too disgusting" to talk about and that in 2008 she was "schlonged" by Barack Obama. And then on to the clattering childishness of the Twitter battle involving photos of Ted Cruz's wife, Heidi.
There is something going on here; something repugnant and reeking of the male establishment's fear and loathing of women. In the same way that the election of Obama seemed to wake up and unleash an abeyant racism, the likelihood of a woman president has caused a casual, dozing sexism to become rampant and livid.
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Across the late-night TV shows from cable to network, the hosts are male. The fact that Samantha Bee got a look-in with a weekly half-hour show is, in the context, astounding. Further, since the departure of Jon Stewart, late-night TV, from The Daily Show through to Conan O'Brien and Jimmy Kimmel and all the other guys, has become frothier and less cutting in humour. Possibly because that male-centric corner of the TV universe is blind to what is actually going on – the dogs of chauvinism have been let off the leash and are running wild.
We are, after all, talking about a popular culture in which romantic comedies inevitably feature an emotionally damaged, attractive woman being wooed by a nerdy guy, and network sitcoms feature a schlubby droll guy with an attractive, thin and usually younger wife.
Everything about the appalling maleness of the U.S. culture is illuminated by this election cycle. There are the antics, the sexist innuendo that bespeak an outright disgust and distrust of women. And there is very male coverage of all that. It's a culture in which women are preferred as silent or as the stereotyped shrill, bickering harpies of reality TV. It's quite a sight, on a primary night, or on any other night you turn on the TV.A spectacular strawberries and cream naked cake that’s perfect for birthdays, celebrations, wedding and baby showers.
Strawberries and cream are, for me, summer in a nutshell. When I was little I couldn’t wait for strawberry season and I still greet the arrival of proper strawberries with equal enthusiasm now. I love using them in baking and desserts, in smoothies and drinks, or just eating them whole with a tiny dusting of sugar and squirt of lemon juice.
According to research conducted by Seasonal Berries, strawberries are the fruit that most awaken our senses and evoke strong memories and emotions. They discovered that certain sounds and smells actually make the strawberries taste sweeter and ‘fruitier’. You can put this to test if you like by listening to the soundscapes Seasonal Berries have put together along with instructions on how to create the whole sensory experience.
I am not entirely convinced that listening to the sounds makes the fruit taste any different, but I am in complete agreement that strawberries usually bring back wonderful memories. I baked this strawberries and cream naked cake for my neighbours’ daughter’s birthday and it was a dual celebration as they had just welcomed a baby boy two days previously. It is a beautifully simple, very tasty cake – I hope you make it and report back!
[amazon_link asins=’B0185ZSYAE,B00J473QOC,B00OOWZ8MU,B00OOWZNZ2,B00S9BX3B0,B00VBQRFOG,B00JFXSW4O,B01LXQYYK9′ template=’ProductCarousel’ store=’superbakes0e-21′ marketplace=’UK’ link_id=’0d5a515c-01c4-11e7-903e-3f7512081d9a’]The Treasury Department on Monday called for scrapping or softening some of the rules for banks and other financial firms put in place after the 2008 financial crisis.
In a nearly 150-page report, Treasury recommends more than 100 changes to financial rules, some of which could have a major impact on the type of credit made available to American families and businesses.
Broadly, the report recommends streamlining supervision of the financial sector and giving political leaders more influence over the process — taking away some power from independent regulators.
Specifically, the report calls says the White House should have the ability to fire the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — an independent consumer watchdog agency created in 2010 — and giving Congress the ability to slash that agency’s budget.
But many of the other recommendations are meant to help eliminate rules that impact small and regional banks, which Treasury officials believe are ensnared by regulations designed for the country’s largest lenders.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, talking about the report at a congressional hearing, said the focus of the report was “what are the things that we can do to unlock burdensome regulations and overlapping regulations and work with the regulators.”
The report is part of a broader debate about how the financial sector should be regulated, and whether current regulations are needlessly hindering economic growth. Many supporters of the current rules believe they protect consumers from abusive lending and have prevented banks from taking on so much risk that they threaten the broader financial sector.
The report stopped short of calling for the repeal of the Dodd-Frank financial regulation law, which the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress pushed into law in 2010. Treasury officials support a House GOP bill that would effectively gut many parts of the law, but Treasury’s new list of recommendations focuses on other, targeted changes that could be made in the absence of a repeal of that law.
These include exempting many banks from certain “stress tests” that are supposed to gauge how they would weather future economic strains. It also calls for exempting most banks from a Dodd-Frank provision known as the “Volcker Rule,” which essentially limits a company’s ability to make certain types of trades.
Treasury stops short of specifying precisely what size bank should have to follow the Volcker Rule. It calls for scaling back regulations, but, in some cases, doesn’t give precise recommendations for which banks should face rules and which banks should not.
The banking system is overseen by a patchwork of regulators, many of which have competing interests and overlapping jurisdictions. Before the financial crisis, a number of financial companies took advantage of this phenomenon by playing the regulators off each other and shopping for the lightest approach.
The Dodd-Frank law was supposed to streamline some of this supervision, but it stopped short of a wholesale overhaul, in part because it was too politically difficult.
President Donald Trump — who received the recommendations from Mnuchin in the Oval Office Monday — has called for a complete overhaul of financial-sector rules, saying that restrictions are hurting lending and holding back economic growth.
Trump has previously called Dodd-Frank a “disaster” and said he would do a “big number” on it.
There’s debate about whether the banking rules put in place after the financial crisis are preventing banks from lending. Many financial companies, particularly small banks, say they are being smothered with so many regulations that they can’t lend. They say this is leading to large-scale consolidation within the industry, as many companies are forced to sell themselves or risk closure.
Those statements, however, are at odds with federal data showing the banking sector is healthy, with a near-record number of outstanding loans extended to borrowers. Federal Reserve data show there was roughly $2.1 trillion in outstanding commercial and industrial loans as of May, more than at any period before the financial crisis.
And total loan and lease balances rose close to $360 billion at the end of March, up 4 percent from one year earlier, according to data from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
Mnuchin, a former banker, has talked about the financial regulations more carefully than Trump. He has called for making changes – some of them substantial – but he has stopped short of calling for gutting all of the new rules. Instead, he has said targeted changes could be done to ease restrictions and fuel more lending, and he outlined many of those changes in Treasury’s new report.
And in some cases, Mnuchin is calling for expanding the architecture that Dodd-Frank put in place.
For example, Dodd-Frank created the Financial Stability Oversight Council, which is compromised of the top financial regulators and tasked with monitoring risks that could spark a crisis. The new Treasury report will expand the ability of this council so that it has more power to coordinate how regulations are enforced.
And FSOC would be able to elevate one regulator over the others to take the lead if multiple regulators “have conflicting and overlapping regulatory jurisdiction,” according to the report’s executive summary.
The report ensures that the CFPB will remain in the crosshairs of lawmakers and the White House in the coming months. The House of Representatives last week passed the Financial Choice Act, which would repeal many parts of Dodd-Frank law. A central tenet of that bill would allow banks to escape many rules if they held a larger cushion against losses.
Treasury’s new report alleges that the CFPB needs a “significant restructuring” saying it “was |
2008, the series appeared in Canada on Teletoon Retro. A French-language dub aired on Radio-Canada's Saturday-morning lineup into the mid-2000s. Episodes of the series have been posted in the "Videos" section of the Marvel website.[citation needed]
Home video releases [ edit ]
VHS [ edit ]
A number of episodes were released on VHS during the 1980s, 1990s and the early 2000s, usually compiled with other Marvel Comics characters' cartoons. The early-2000s releases were included as bonus episodes with the 1990s animated series. The episodes on The Ultimate Villain Showdown and The Return Of The Green Goblin were mastered from pre-2004 tapes, and the remaining tapes, Spider-Man vs. Doc Ock and Daredevil Meets Spider-Man, used the 2004 remastered versions.
DVD [ edit ]
In 2008 and 2009 Morningstar Entertainment released a number of episodes on DVD in Canada. These were reissues (mastered from VHS and Betamax copies) of the 1985 Prism Video Marvel Video Library. Compared to the early 2000s DVDs by Disney, the video and audio quality on the Morningstar are poor.[citation needed]
On June 29, 2004, Buena Vista Home Entertainment (whose parent company would acquire Marvel five years later[5]) released the complete series on DVD in Region 1 as Spider-Man – The '67 Collection. The six-disc box set, with all 52 unedited, uncut original episodes of the TV series and an introduction by creator Stan Lee, was discontinued after a few years. Pre-owned copies go for high prices online today and there are currently no plans for Marvel and Disney to re-release the set.
DVD Name Ep # Release Date Spider-Man – The '67 Collection 52 June 29, 2004
On November 10, 2008, the UK company Liberation Entertainment released the first season of Spider-Man as The Original '67 Series on Region 2 DVD. Another UK company, ClearVision, later acquired the Region 2 rights.[6]
Popular culture [ edit ]
During the "Spider-Verse" storyline, a variation of the TV show's universe appears with the designation of Earth-67. The Spider-Army recruit the Spider-Man of Earth-67 in order to help fight the Inheritors.[7]
In Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Spider-Man 2099 goes to the "beginning" at Earth-67 where he encounters the local Spider-Man (voiced by Jorma Taccone with the character being credited as "Last Dude") with footage from "Double Identity" being used.[8]Bill C-51: The Government's Phishing Expedition Against Canadian Citizens
Ed Broadbent, former leader of the federal NDP and former president of Rights and Democracy, along with Roy Romanow, the former premier of Saskatchewan who also previously served as a member of the Security and Intelligence Review Committee, have together released a joint essay to The Globe and Mail. In their essay, the two take the stance of warning Canadian citizens to oppose the new Bill C-51. For those who don't know, this bill is an anti-terror piece of legislation that is aiming to give more powers to CSIS, further limit the rights of Canadians, and introduce even more worries. Canadian citizens should oppose this piece of legislation and “this bill should be withdrawn, or defeated in Parliament,” Broadbent and Romanow assert.
As mentioned in our previous article, these writers are also reiterating the fact that Canada already has mechanisms in place, we already have practices and laws in place that are necessary to deal with terrorism. For example, these mechanisms “include surveillance, immigration controls, preventative detention and incarceration for criminal activity” explains Broadbent and Romanow. Aside from these precautions and defense systems in place however, the Prime Minister still wants to expand police powers. Broadbent and Romanow claim that the new Bill C-51 will remove “reasonable restraints on Canadian security authorities but give them no new resources or strategies to more effectively do their real work.” This bill directly attacks the civil rights of every Canadian citizen, in that the government wishes to initiate an expansive phishing expedition under the guise of “fighting terrorism.”
The new bill also aims to re-define threats to the nation's security, any interference with economic or financial stability might now possibly be seen to violate national security. Meanwhile, the Bank of Canada continues with its corrupt fiat currency system that breeds inflation and perpetually deteriorates the purchasing power for every single Canadian citizen, but when the government's actions interfere with economic stability in a negative way, it is assumed to be seen as acceptable from those who they supposedly represent. Like the controversial Patriot Act, Bill C-51 affords the power now for authorities to hold suspects as a preventative measure if they believe that they might commit an act of terror in the future. This will then “make detention a matter for the purely subjective views of security officials,” both Broadbent and Romanow warn. The exercise of security powers must be open to an independent and a critical review process, however the new bill does not clearly state how any effective assessment would take place. Ultimately, the authors call for Parliament to vote down the bill.
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CanadaI wrote not long ago an article on why I stopped using m43 cameras: flat rendering. Some has asked me to switch to Panasonic as their cameras render images differently from Olympus despite following the same standards and using the same lenses. A friend of mine has compared using his Leica M lenses on a Sony A7ii vs. a Leica SL and the results in depth are day and night. I hope the GX8 does the same to lenses I have deemed flat (perhaps because of Olympus).
A call for testing
Many of us asked for truer side by side comparisons. I have acquired the latest in amazing m43 gear:
The amazing Lumix GX8: New sensor with hopes of better results.
New sensor with hopes of better results. Leica 15 (9 elements): my favorite walk-around prime lens for m43
(9 elements): my favorite walk-around prime lens for m43 Lumix 20 (7 elements): the only low-element count fast prime lens of the m43 lineup
(7 elements): the only low-element count fast prime lens of the m43 lineup Lumix 42.5 1.7 (10 elements): the newest m43 telephoto prime
I’ve decided to use the lenses I know will pop on my fullframe Nikon D750.
Nikkor AF 28mm 2.8D (6 elements): a low element count wide angle street lens
(6 elements): a low element count wide angle street lens Voigtlander 40mm f2 Ultron (6 elements): a low element count normal lens to match the lumix 20
(6 elements): a low element count normal lens to match the lumix 20 Nikkor AF 85 1.8D (6 elements): a low element count telephoto lens
The images will be shot and compared like the previous blog entry (fullsize images here):
tripod + timer: same angle, pure sharpness/stability
same angle, pure sharpness/stability f8 (half aperture and half ISO values for m43 meaning f4 on the Gx8): wide depth of field (dof), to make sure elements are in focus
(half aperture and half ISO values for m43 meaning f4 on the Gx8): wide depth of field (dof), to make sure elements are in focus focussed on the bunny: round head, best hint of pop.
round head, best hint of pop. matching frames (either d750 or gx8 shots were cropped at 4:3 aspect ratio to match frames): better comparisons
(either d750 or gx8 shots were cropped at 4:3 aspect ratio to match frames): better comparisons matching colors in raw on lightroom: better comparisons
PredictionsWhy I Love Riding On The Women-Only Car On Delhi's Metro
Enlarge this image toggle caption Yirmiyan Arthur/AP Yirmiyan Arthur/AP
Last week, Germany announced that it will introduce train cars for women and children only to provide a secure space for female passengers.
That's an idea that other countries have tried. And it's not always a popular plan. An essay in Quartz published in 2014 argued that the women's car confines women to the "periphery of public spaces" and reinforces gender roles.
I'm a regular passenger in a women's car. And I disagree.
The Delhi metro rail is by far my favorite mode of transportation in the city, thanks in part to the ladies' car. Each train has either six or eight coaches, of which one is reserved for women. It is the only public space in the city where men are on the periphery. It is a joy to see so many women, most of them young — students and working professionals — and from all economic backgrounds, traveling together, free from the male stares and aggressions that assault them elsewhere in the city.
The body language of women in this car feels different. They look carefree. Some listen to music on their headphones or read a book or newspaper, rarely looking up. They don't have to worry about being groped or stared at by creepy men. Women traveling in groups often speak loudly as they catch up with friends or colleagues, gossiping, laughing, discussing school, work or family problems, even taking selfies! Some will strike a sexy pose, smiling and tilting their heads in ways they wouldn't dare to outside the women's car.
Safety is why this car exists. On a daily basis here, women in public spaces are disrespected by men. On buses, men push women or pretend to fall on them, says Neetu Singh, 27, a primary school teacher and a regular user of the metro rail system. It is a pretext to touch women inappropriately. This is common in other Indian cities, which is why commuter trains in Mumbai and Kolkata have had women's cars for decades. Here in Delhi, the metro rail system was launched in 2002, but the women's car wasn't added until 2010, after complaints of sexual harassment.
Some women who commute on the metro think men behave better on the metro than on the streets and buses. This may be true. The stations and trains are new and well-maintained, unlike the streets of Delhi. Perhaps that puts people on their best behavior. (See my recent post about the Delhi metro for more details.) Besides, the stations have heavy security and surveillance cameras.
Still, there are incidents of sexual assault. "I've been groped in the general compartment," says Jyoti Kulchander, 23, a student and a regular commuter. She did not feel comfortable sharing details. There are no data on sexual assault on the metro, but occasionally some women do report an incident.
There is an unintended consequence of the women's car. Some men think women simply shouldn't ride in the general compartment. But to me, the women's car asserts women's right to having their own space in public. This is a new concept in this city, as evident from the many men who often end up in the women's car, unaware that it is illegal for them to ride there. Maybe they missed the signs in pink. Or maybe they can't read.
I once watched with irritation as two groups of men rode along in the women's car. In my hometown, Kolkata, this would have led to yells and probably physical violence by the female passengers, who no doubt would have tried to push the men out. But none of the women in this car asserted their right to this space. Disappointed at this lack of protest, I walked over to the men and told them to leave. The younger men, who seemed to be in their 20s and looked like recent migrants to the city, left immediately. The older men stared at me and remained sitting. I called the metro police. As I left the train, I watched a policeman enter the car and talk to the men, asking them to leave or be fined 250 rupees (about $4). I couldn't see how the men reacted, but I was satisfied.
It would be wonderful if men learned to accept women's presence in public spaces without feeling the need to harass them. We wouldn't need the ladies' compartment then. But until they do, the women's car is one good way for us to assert our right to public spaces. I can't speak for my sisters in Germany, but women here in India's capital love the women's car. They don't have to worry about wearing a sleeveless shirt, or how loudly they laugh or talk. The space is theirs, and they feel safe and comfortable.Security cameras may hold the clue officials are looking for to find the person who shot ambush-style a woman while she was driving to work Wednesday morning. Kim Baldonado reports for NBC4 News at 5 p.m. from Atwater Village Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2014. (Published Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2014)
A woman was hospitalized after an assailant opened fire on her sedan as she exited the 5 Freeway in Atwater Village just before 6 a.m. Wednesday.
A 41-year-old woman was struck by gunfire when a gunman opened fire with a shotgun at her white Nissan sedan. She was transported to a local hospital with wounds to the neck, arm and upper body. She was taken into surgery, but was in stable condition, according to LAPD's media relations section.
The woman, who has not yet been publicly identified, is an employee of the City of Glendale's Community Services and Parks Department. They became alarmed when she didn't arrive by her normal 6 a.m. time and figured out the commotion less than a mile from their office might be connected.
Police do not have a suspected motive for the shooting.
Woman Struck By Gunfire Driving to Work
A 41-year-old woman was hospitalized after a gunman opened fire on her car while she drove to work. Toni Guinyard reports live from Atwater Village for NBC4 News at Noon Aug. 20, 2014. (Published Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2014)
The first shots were fired from a gray SUV while the victim was still on the 5 Freeway northbound, and additional shots were fired on the offramp, police said.
The shooter's car fled the scene along San Fernando Road, according to LAPD. Witnesses reported the vehicle had distinctive 20" or 24" custom rims.
Earlier reports said the shooter's vehicle was a dark-colored sedan, but police have since revised that description.
After the shooting, the victim’s white Nissan came to a stop near the intersection with San Fernando Road.
Several blocks in the area as well as the northbound Colorado Boulevard offramp from the freeway were closed as police investigated the shooting. All roads were reopened and the victim's car was towed from the scene before 9 a.m.
Detectives combed the industrial area looking for surveillance video soon after the incident.
"We're currently doing our investigation and reviewing videotape," said Sgt. Munish Bharadwaja of LAPD's Northeast station.
Investigators have not disclosed a possible motive for the shooting.“Giovanni’s Room” by James Baldwin is now porn because Baldwin was gay and the book has gay characters? Excuse me?
This is one of those reports that is difficult to confirm. But I did check Giovanni’s Room on Amazon, and in fact, Amazon no longer shows a “sales ranking” for it, just as the reports allege. And I just found out that the LA Times appears to have confirmed it:
“American Psycho” is Bret Easton Ellis’ story of a sadistic murderer. “Unfriendly Fire” is a well-reviewed empirical analysis of military policy. But it’s “Unfriendly Fire” that does not have a sales rank — which means it would not show up in Amazon’s bestseller lists, even if it sold more copies than the Twilight series. In some cases, being de-ranked also means being removed from Amazon’s search results.
Other books virtually burned by Amazon for being gay, per the LA Times:
Our research shows that these books have lost their ranking: “Running with Scissors” by Augusten Burroughs; “Rubyfruit Jungle” by Rita Mae Brown, “Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic” by Alison Bechdel, “The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1” by Michel Foucault, “Bastard Out of Carolina” by Dorothy Allison (2005 Plume edition), “Little Birds: Erotica” by Anais Nin, “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” by Jean-Dominque Bauby (1997 Knopf edition), “Maurice” by E.M. Forster (2005 W.W. Norton edition) and “Becoming a Man” by Paul Monette, which won the 1992 National Book Award.
Michel Foucault, E.M. Forster, and Paul Monette are now porn brokers simply because they’re gay, or their books have gay characters?
I was going to wait to post this until tomorrow, but the story is flying around gay Internet users, so I’m posting this now. Amazon has a serious, and fast growing, problem on its hands.CHARLESTON, S.C. (Jan. 5, 2017) – The Citadel Bulldogs may have entered Thursday night’s game leading the Southern Conference in scoring this season, but it was the ETSU men’s basketball team that put on a show.
Scoring a season high 115 points and using a stifling defensive effort to hold The Citadel 29 points below its season scoring average, the Buccaneers took the bite out of the Bulldogs and cruised to a 115-71 win inside McAlister Field House. With the victory, the Bucs improved to 12-3 overall and 2-0 in SoCon play, while the Bulldogs dropped to 8-9, 1-3.
Seven ETSU players reached double figures in the win, led by a game high 19 points each from senior guard T.J. Cromer (Albany, Ga.) and junior guard Devontavius Payne (Carbondale, Ill.). Meanwhile, senior guard A.J. Merriweather (Jackson) finished with 14 points, senior posts Hanner Mosquera-Perea (Istmina, Colombia) and Tevin Glass (Norcross, Ga.) posted 12 points apiece, junior guard Jermaine Long (New Orleans) netted 11, and junior post David Burrell (Milwaukee) collected 10.
“I thought we really did a good job of sharing the ball on offense and finding the open man all across the board,” said ETSU head coach Steve Forbes, whose team dished out 23 assists on 39 made baskets. “Having seven guys in double figures is great, but I think our defense is what won the game. I thought we really needed to come in here and guard them like we did last year down here and we did that. They shot just 23 percent in the second half and only made six 3-pointers. That’s a pretty good effort on defense.”
The game was certainly statistically lop-sided in favor of the Bucs, with ETSU shooting 55 percent from the field and 44 percent from 3-point range on the night, compared to a 31 percent clip from the field for the Bulldogs. The Bucs also out-rebounded The Citadel 55-40, while besting the Bulldogs by large margins in points in the paint (58-22), points off turnovers (32-12), second chance points (25-17) and fast break points (10-0).
Playing the team that entered the game leading the SoCon with an average of 100 points a game, it was the Buccaneers who turned the tables on the Bulldogs, scoring a season high 56 points in the first half and leading by 18 points at the break, 56-38. In the first half, the Bucs shot 57 percent from the floor and outrebounded The Citadel 25-13, while outscoring the Bulldogs 28-10 in the paint and 18-4 in second chance points.
Merriweather led the offensive effort in the first half, scoring a game high 12 points before the intermission. He was the only player on the floor to reach double figures before the break.
In the second half, the Bucs continued to pressure The Citadel defensively, holding the Bulldogs’ frenetic offensive attack in check and continuing to increase their lead. In fact, following back-to-back 3-pointers from senior guard T.J. Cromer (Albany, Ga.) midway through the half, ETSU enjoyed its largest lead of the game at 80-52 with 10:50 left in regulation.
However, from there the lead only grew and eventually ended at 44 points following a dunk by senior post Peter Jurkin (Juba, South Sudan), which capped the game’s scoring.
For The Citadel, Brian White finished with a team high 15 points, while teammate Quayson Williams finished with 13.
The Bucs will continue their current SoCon road trip by traveling to Macon, Ga., for a Saturday matchup with Mercer. Tip is set for 4:30 p.m. For more on ETSU men’s basketball throughout the 2016-17 season, visit ETSUBucs.com and click on the men’s hoops link.New Delhi: Digital India initiative in mind, the human resources development ministry is aiming to give online education a big push, in an attempt to widen the reach of higher education.
Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and leading universities—both private and public—will come together on 9 July in an initiative taken by the human resources development ministry to chart an online education policy for the University Grants Commission (UGC) and deliberate how best to integrate it with the mainstream.
An online degree finds no recognition by regulators in India though several countries including the US have adopted them in a big way in the higher education space.
“When the country is adopting digital in most sectors, keeping education away is not the right approach. Pure online courses—adopted and aided by Indian institutes—will push quality higher education to the masses," said a human resource development ministry official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The official said the promotion of massive open online courses (MOOCS) was the first step and it was time to take the initiative forward. In the past year-and-a- half, the government has asked top Indian institutions to develop MOOCS on various subjects for supplementary knowledge. These are in the nature of short-term, subject-specific capsule courses, available online to all.
“The UGC is already working on a plan and top educational institutions will be in a better position to tell us about the market demand, the drawbacks if any, and the way forward," a second government official, who will be attending the meeting, said.
The second official, also on condition of anonymity, said Aadhaar or the unique identity number will be made part of the online education policy for authentication of students and linking them to the upcoming national academic depository. Institutions will be asked to present their innovations and best practices in the digital education space in sync with the ‘Digital India’ push of the Union government.
The new online education rules will enable institutions to offer courses for both regular students as well as working professionals. While online courses for regular students will allow the higher education space to grow, and cater to more students, the offerings for professionals will help re-skill them and be a good source of revenue for institutions as they can charge market rates.
Indian has 799 universities, 39,071 colleges and 11,923 stand-alone institutions catering to around 30 million students. Despite the size of the sector, the gross enrolment in higher education is just 24%, way below leading economies. With limited government spending on education, online education could spur the sector.
The second government official cited above said that the outcome of the meeting will aid in formulating online education rules, which may also find a place in the broader education policy being formulated by the K. Kasturirangan Committee. “The meeting will familiarize the leaders of higher education with all digital initiatives of the government and help evolve action plans for effective adoption and utilization of these digital initiatives in higher educational institutions," he said.Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said she intends to vote for Roy Moore, the Republican special election candidate for U.S. Senate, who is facing multiple allegations of sexual misconduct.
Speaking to reporters on Friday, Ivey, a Republican, cited future Supreme Court vacancies as a leading reason for her decision.
"I believe in the Republican Party, what we stand for, and most important, we need to have a Republican in the United States Senate to vote on things like Supreme Court justices, other appointments the Senate has to confirm and make major decisions,” Ivey told reporters on Friday. Ivey also said she has no reason not to believe Moore's accusers, but noted that the timing of their accusations is "curious."
On the same day Ivey made the comment, Trump added five new judges to a list of candidates to fill the next vacancy on the Supreme Court should one occur during his presidency.
Moore, a longtime judge in Alabama, is facing numerous allegations by women who claim he pursued romantic or sexual relationships with them as teenage girls while he was in his 30's. The first accusations came out in a Washington Post report earlier this month, and that list has since grown. Moore denies any wrongdoing and has resisted calls by top Republican lawmakers, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, to drop out.
Moore defeated Sen. Luther Strange in the GOP primary in September. The general election contest, which aims to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions when he was picked to be Trump's attorney general, is scheduled for Dec. 12. The Democrat in the race is Doug Jones, a former U.S. attorney.
Recent polls have shown Moore trailing Jones in the deep red state, and there has been reporting to suggest a surge in fundraising support for the Democrat.
Ivey said Thursday she has no intention of pushing the special election to next November when another nominee might emerge.A disabled Hawaii man is suing Delta Airlines after he says that the company forced him to crawl across the airport tarmac three times and only offered him cardboard so he would not get his suit dirty.
A lawsuit filed last week in U.S. District Court in Hawaii claims that Baraka Kanaan was “forced to crawl across an airport tarmac, up and down the stairs of an airplane, down the aisle of the aircraft and out of and into his seat” on a series of flights between Massachusetts and Hawaii July 2012.
Kanaan, who is a former college professor and currently heads a nonprofit, was left disabled after a car accident in 2000 caused severe spinal injuries.
“I was forced by Delta Airlines, just days before having a spinal fusion surgery, I was forced to crawl from my chair, through the cabin of the plane, down a flight of stairs with no backing or sides and across the tarmac to get to my wheelchair,” Kanaan explained in a video posted to Facebook on Saturday. “Here we are in the modern day and people who are able bodied were standing around with their arms crossed watching me crawl under the guise that they could not touch me lest they be liable.”
Kanaan said that he did not initially go public about the incident because Delta swore to him that it would never happen to him or anyone else again. The company promised to be prepared before his next flight and offered him a $100 voucher for his troubles.
But when he arrived for his flight two days later, he was once again forced to crawl up a flight of stairs as Delta employees refused to assist other than offering him “a piece of cardboard to put down so that his clothes wouldn’t get dirty,” the lawsuit states
According to the complaint, Delta offered Kanaan 25,000 SkyMiles, but he refused because he never intended to fly the airline again.
As The Huffington Post noted, the Air Carrier Access Act requires airlines to “provide boarding assistance to individuals with disabilities by using ramps, mechanical lifts, or other suitable devices where level-entry boarding by loading bridge or mobile lounge is not available.”
“This has to stop. The question is, what’s the incentive to get Delta to stop?” Kanaan asked in Facebook video. “Well, my request is that you would call Delta headquarters… call them, complain that this stuff is happening. Complain. Call your representatives. Call somebody. Make it known that Delta cannot get away by treating disabled people this way. Because otherwise, they’re not going to do anything.”
Watch this video from Baraka Kanaan, uploaded July 27, 2013.NEW IBERIA, LA – After yesterday’s horrendous incident on the I-10 near Baton Rouge in which literally dozens of cases of perfectly good Bud Light spilled onto the freeway, Iberia Parish officials officially declared today a day of mourning in light of the incident.
Prayer services and other forms of remembrance will take place throughout the day, and a two-minute silence will be observed at 5pm – the time at which residents are usually feeling their peak Bud Light buzz.
City official Mark Rogers explained how the city has been coping with the news.
“This is something that has shocked most people in Iberia Parish to their core”, he said. “Everyone who loves a nice cold Bud Light has been reeling today. And I mean everyone. From the 5-year old drinkers, to the 85-year old drinkers. A lot of them have lost loved ones out on that freeway, and this is something that they – we, are going to have to get through together.”
“This is an extremely tough time for the parish and its residents, and we’d appreciate any help at all. Time will heal, but it’s going to be a little while.”
“We’ve already begun preliminary planning to erect a statue Downtown, which will most likely be a Bud Light six-pack. We will not let their memories be forgotten.”
“We thank you for your thoughts and prayers. God be with the ones that we’ve lost.”
All are welcome to attend the remembrance services today.Whether it be panel-going or meeting up with friends and family, always have a back-up plan in place at Comic-Con!
All of our panel rooms tend to fill up quickly each day, so we highly recommend you have an alternate choice in mind for your favorite panels. Even though you might stand in line in advance for a particular program in a particular room, there’s no guarantee you’ll get in to see it, unfortunately. The Fire Marshal sets all room capacities in the Convention Center and once a room is deemed full, it’s closed. The good news is there’s always something else to do at Comic-Con! With 22 separate programming rooms running most days at the event, chances are there’s another great panel or event you’ll want to attend, happening at the same time. Check out the complete Programming Schedule when we post it (about 2 weeks before Comic-Con) here on the website and use our MySched feature to track the panels you want to see … and plan those alternate destinations!
With so many people using smart phones and tablets at the Convention Center—phoning, texting, emailing, Tweeting, Facebooking, Instagramming, and whatever—it may not always be possible to make a call or send a text. And there’s also the danger of a dead battery. Always schedule a time and place to meet up, when it’s time to get back together. Pick a Convention Center “landmark” and set a time to meet. That way you’re always covered!
Remember your first, best, and most accurate source for information—including our daily Toucan Tip—is right here on the Comic-Con website and Toucan, the only OFFICIAL SDCC blog. Bookmark Toucan and the Comic-Con Front Page for the latest updates for the big show!2017 was a challenging year. Between having a trawler crash into my previous boat, dealing with insurance payout delays, shopping for a new boat, getting it moved to Jacksonville and dodging a hurricane or two I was stretched financially and spent the last three months focusing on rebuilding my cash reserves. This boat project is being done on a cash available basis. This has limited the projects I could undertake and the rate that I could work on them. The aft cabin makeover was one of those low budget (relatively) projects that I decided to tackle this year.
Aft Cabin Makeover: Before
One of the issues with S/v Pomaika’i has been water intrusion. She’s been sitting exposed to the weather with little maintenance being done for years. Water has seeped in around the mast, leaked through the portlights and dripped from the hatches. Hurricane Irma passed within 10 miles of where she was berthed in Fort Myers which didn’t do any favors.
I’ve been working on plugging these leaks by sealing the mast holes and adjusting the portlights. Eventually, I’ll rebed all the portlights. But this left me an issue with a lot of mold and rot build up.
Here are the before shots. The Morgan Out Islands have a fabric liner inside the hull. While this saved them money during construction (they didn’t have to finish the fiberglass on the inside of the hull) it was now wet, moldy and out of style. I also didn’t like the “checkered” pattern of the liner as it was more difficult to wipe down.
Aft Cabin Makeover: Demolition
The first step was to remove all liner and wallpaper, taking it down to bare fiberglass and wood. I also removed the enclosed cabinet on the starboard side. When I lived in the jungle on Hawai’i (high humidity), I learned that enclosed cabinets collect mold. The port side had to stay as it held the electric connections and reading light.
I also removed all the portlights. When I finished painting the outside of the cabin, I’ll rebed the portlights correctly. The portlights were installed according to manufacturer specs (with most of the sealant on the inside edge of the portlight hole). Unfortunately, if you don’t properly seal the outside the portlights leak but only to the plywood layer inside the cabin which has caused wood rot. I’ve rebuilt the core in areas around the portlights.
Aft Cabin Makeover: Fairing and Priming
The next step was to sand down all the fiberglass; it was smooth as a cheese grater, and fairing with epoxy to smooth out the finished surface. I also sanded and epoxied all the wood surfaces. This smoothed out the areas where removing the wallpaper removed some of the wood and provided a layer of waterproofing to protect against further rot. There were small two areas, about the size of a baseball, of rotted wood that I rebuilt with epoxy and fiberglass cloth. The surface isn’t perfectly smooth as you can see in the pictures. I could have spent another two days making it perfectly smooth but felt that this was good enough, and I’d spent enough time and expoxy on the project.
Then I applied two coats of primer in preparation for painting.
Aft Cabin Makeover: Finished
The final step was to apply two coats of high gloss Interlux Brightsides paint. I like this paint for interior exposed surfaces. The high gloss white is easy to wipe clean, hard as nails and makes the cabin light up. I even eliminated one of the reading lights as I didn’t feel I needed that much light. I’m not a fan of the “man cave” feeling of most sailboat cabins. The white makes the cabin feel more open than the 1970’s dark wood-heavy style.
Aft Cabin Makeover: Time and Materials
This was a fairly inexpensive project, and it only took so long due to laziness and procrastination.
Supplies:
1 Gallon of Interlux Pre-Kote (used all of it)
1 Gallon of Interlux Brightsides (high gloss white, left over was about 1/2 a quart)
Various brushes, rollers, and painting supplies
Time:
Demolition – about 4 hours
Sanding and Fairing: I did this over two days, total of about 8 hours
Painting: Sanding, masking, and painting each coat took about 4 hours each. Two layers of primer and two coats of Brightsides. 16 hours total.
I am happy with the finished product, but as I’m cheap labor, you can see minor issues with the finish. If I had to do this over, I would have broken the cabin in half and only worked on one half. For me, this would have allowed me to focus on the details more and done a better job (even though it would have taken longer).
I also need to sand and oil the wood, but this might be a project that would be better done anchored off some Caribbean island in between scuba dives.
Next, I’ll start working on the interior of the cabinets with the same process.I’m trying to get an early start on the deals this week, but I hope I haven’t started too soon; if you notice some deals show up later in the week, be sure to let me know here or on reddit, and I’ll get them updated ASAP.
This week, we’ve got a pretty standard set of deals, with a few major exceptions. For what I’m assuming is going to be a short time (as long as they’re in stock!) TRU is offering all Disney Infinity 1.0 power discs for only 25 cents per pack, and unlike the last time they did this it is available online. Power disc deals are the rare unicorn in the DI Deals wilds, so don’t hesitate to pick up a bag or two (or a whole stack!). This is the best online power disc deal I’ve ever seen.
Another big deal this week (and I’m almost afraid to share this one, since I’m sure it’ll evaporate fast, too) is you can get the Syndrome and Dash preowned bundle at Gamestop online right now. While this one’s quite a bit pricier than the TRU deal, Syndrome is such a rare sight, it’s worth it at any reasonable price. You can also get the [easyazon_link identifier=”B00C68MXBS” locale=”US” tag=”discodes-20″]Villains pack for $31.99 at Amazon this week[/easyazon_link] (thanks to The_Keto_Warrior), so it’s a good week for Syndrome!
Lastly, following up last week’s great 25% off on figures with Target’s Cartwheel, this week you can get 40% off on all Disney Infinity 2.0 items. It’s worth noting that M |
ushered in a new generation of spaceflight technology.
It was STS-1, the first of more than 130 flights of the Space Shuttle program.
Shuttle Columbia was selected for the maiden voyage of the program. Not only was this the first crewed flight for the shuttle, it was the first flight period. Shuttle Enterprise had been utilized for flight (and landing) tests within the atmosphere, but wasn’t designed to be space-ready (including not having a heat shield for re-entry).
So Columbia was not only a mission, but a flight test in its own right. Her crew consisted of Commander John W. Young and pilot Robert L. Crippen. Young was already a veteran of the space program, having flown as pilot of the Gemini Program’s first manned flight (Gemini 3 – known around these parts as that time John Young smuggled a corned beef sandwich into space), served as commander of Gemini 10, was the command module pilot of Apollo 10 (the “dress rehearsal” for Apollo 11), and also walked on the Moon as commander of Apollo 16. This, however, would be Crippen’s first spaceflight. Both of these men were qualified test pilots, and STS-1 was one heck of a test flight.
At 7:00am on April 12, 1981, after a two-day delay, STS-1 lifted off from Launch Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center–the same launch pad that took Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins to the Moon, and is currently leased to SpaceX where it will serve to create a new type of spaceflight history. The launch was just as flawless as Launch Controller Chuck Hannon wished, when one minute and forty-five seconds prior to lift-off, he told the crew: “Smooth sailing, baby.”
SHUTTLE LAUNCH CONTROL: T minus ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, we’ve gone for main engine start, we have main engine start. And we have lift off of America’s first space shuttle, and the shuttle has cleared the tower.
Minutes later, Columbia and her crew were beginning the first of 37 total orbits to take place over the course of just more than two days. A new era was born, as we became a world with reusable space planes.
The primary mission of STS-1 was to conduct a general check-out of the Space Shuttle system, reach orbit successfully, and land safely back on Earth. Despite a few anomalies, which were recorded and solved for future flights, STS-1 was a smashing success. Orbiter Columbia performed amazingly and would be used for the next four shuttle missions until STS-6, when Challenger became the second orbiter in the fleet.
STS-1 was the solid first step in the three decades-long adventure that was the Space Shuttle program.
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PinterestMy international snack delivery from Canada arrived today and I'm thrilled with all my goodies! My snack Santa was super thoughtful in her selections for me. Most of the treats are Canadian but she also threw in a couple of my special favorites I had listed in my profile. I received:
~ Lancaster Soft Caramels (because I'm a caramel freak!)
~ Truede Rose & Lemon Turkish Delight (another sweet obsession of mine!)
~ 4 Hard Candy Lollipops
~ Dare Maple Leaf Cookies
~ Nestlé Smarties (Very different from US Smarties which are like sweet tarts)
~ Nestlé Lion Candy Bar (I'm very intrigued to try this! Will I ROAR with delight?)
~ Coffee Crisp Candy Bar (Hello, delicious marriage of coffee & chocolate!!)
~ Hawkins Cheezies (My kids are going to fight over these, I'll have to divide evenly!)
The next two items in my snack box deserve an extra special mention because both made my little foodie heart sing for joy!
~ Jar of Maple Butter!!! Maple. Butter. Together!!!! <squeal>
~ Packet of Poutine Gravy Mix!! I've heard of Poutine for years and I know certain random restaurants in the US offer it on their menu BUT I've never had it and I've always wanted to try it! Now I can - in the comfort of my own home. I'm really excited!
Secret Snack Santa (aka /u/aleedye), thank you so much for your thoughtfulness and generosity!JUNE 22, 2017 — The nation’s population has a distinctly older age profile than it did 16 years ago, according to new U.S. Census Bureau population estimates released today.
New detailed estimates show the nation’s median age — the age where half of the population is younger and the other half older — rose from 35.3 years on April 1, 2000, to 37.9 years on July 1, 2016.
“The baby-boom generation is largely responsible for this trend,” said Peter Borsella, a demographer in the Population Division. “Baby boomers began turning 65 in 2011 and will continue to do so for many years to come.”
Residents age 65 and over grew from 35.0 million in 2000, to 49.2 million in 2016, accounting for 12.4 percent and 15.2 percent of the total population, respectively.
These latest estimates present changes among groups by age, sex, race and Hispanic origin at the national, state and county levels between April 1, 2010, and July 1, 2016. The estimates also present changes over the same period among groups by age and sex for Puerto Rico and its municipios.
The median age is increasing in most areas of the country.
Every state experienced either an increase or had the same median age as a year earlier. At 44.6 years, the median age in Maine is the highest in the nation. New Hampshire’s median age of 43.0 years is the next highest, followed by Vermont at 42.7 years. Utah had the lowest median age (30.8 years), followed by Alaska (33.9 years) and the District of Columbia (33.9 years).
Two-thirds (66.7 percent) of the nation’s counties experienced an increase in median age last year. In 2016, two counties had median ages over 60: Sumter, Fla. (67.1 years), and Catron, N.M. (60.5 years).
Between 2000 and 2016, 95.2 percent of all counties experienced increases in median age, which can be seen in the graphic.
Sumter, Fla., home to a large retirement community, was the county with the highest median age, and it also showed the highest median age increase. Sumter’s median age jumped from 49.2 years in 2000 to 67.1 years in 2016, an increase of 17.9 years. Noble, Ohio, is a small county in the southeastern part of the state. It has experienced net outmigration and deaths nearly equal births. Noble’s 2016 median age of 51.5 years is 16 years higher than what it was in 2000 (35.5 years). Since 2000, 56 counties showed a median age increase of 10 years or more.
The population continues to be more diverse.
Nationally, all race and ethnic groups grew between July 1, 2015, and July 1, 2016. Throughout the release references to race groups indicate people who would be included in that group alone or in combination with any other race group, unless otherwise noted.
The Hispanic population (including all races) grew by 2.0 percent to 57.5 million.
The Asian population grew by 3.0 percent to 21.4 million.
The Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander population grew by 2.1 percent to 1.5 million.
The American Indian and Alaska Native population grew by 1.4 percent to 6.7 million.
The black or African-American population grew by 1.2 percent to 46.8 million.
The white population grew by 0.5 percent to 256.0 million.
Those who identified as being of two or more races grew by 3.0 percent to 8.5 million.
The non-Hispanic white alone population grew by 5,000 people, remaining at 198.0 million.
Deaths continued to exceed births for the non-Hispanic white alone group.
While all other groups experienced natural increase (having more births than deaths) between 2015 and 2016, the non-Hispanic white alone group experienced a natural decrease of 163,300 nationally.
The Hispanic Population (All Races)
Among states, California had the largest Hispanic total population (15.3 million) in 2016, while Texas had the largest numeric increase in the Hispanic population (233,100). New Mexico had the highest Hispanic share of its total population at 48.5 percent.
Among counties, Los Angeles County, Calif., had the largest Hispanic population (4.9 million) in 2016, while Harris County, Texas, had the largest numeric increase (39,600). Starr County, Texas, had the highest Hispanic share of the population (96.3 percent).
The White Population
Among states, California had the largest white population on July 1, 2016 (29.9 million). Texas had the largest numeric increase since 2015 (281,200). Maine had the highest percentage of its population in this group (96.5 percent).
Among counties, Los Angeles County, Calif., had the largest white population in 2016 (7.5 million). Maricopa County, Ariz., had the largest numeric increase from last year (59,100). McPherson County, Neb., was the county with the highest white percentage of the population (99.6 percent).
The Black or African-American Population
New York had the largest black or African American population of any state or equivalent in 2016 (3.8 million). Texas had the largest numeric increase (91,900). The District of Columbia had the highest percentage of its total population being black or African American (49.4 percent).
Among counties, Cook County, Ill. (Chicago), had the largest black or African American population in 2016 (1.3 million). Harris County, Texas, had the largest numeric increase since 2015 (16,400). Claiborne County, Miss., was the county with the highest black or African American percentage of the population in the nation (86.3 percent).
The Asian Population
California had the largest Asian population of any state (6.6 million), and the largest numeric increase (152,400). Hawaii had the highest percentage for this group (57.0 percent).
Among counties, Los Angeles County, Calif., had the largest Asian population of any county (1.7 million), as well as the largest numeric increase (22,400). Honolulu County, Hawaii, had the highest percentage in the nation for this group (61.3 percent).
The American Indian and Alaska Native Population
California had the largest American Indian and Alaska Native population of any state in 2016 (1.1 million), while Texas had the largest numeric increase since July 1, 2015 (10,800). Alaska had the highest percentage (19.9 percent) of the American Indian and Alaska Native population.
Among counties, Los Angeles County, Calif., had the largest American Indian and Alaska Native population of any county in 2016 (233,200), and Maricopa County, Ariz., held the greatest increase from the previous year (4,100). Kusilvak Census Area, Alaska, had the highest share for this group (91.8 percent).
The Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander Population
Hawaii had the largest Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander population of any state in 2016 (381,000). Since 2015, this group increased the most in California (4,900). Hawaii had the highest percentage of its population in this group in 2016 (26.7 percent).
Among counties, Honolulu County, Hawaii, had the largest Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander population (245,600) in 2016, and Clark County, Nev., had the largest increase during the last year (1,500).
The Population of Two or More Races
Among states, more people who identified as being of two or more races lived in California (1.5 million) than in any other state, with an increase of 32,900 from 2015. Hawaii had the highest percentage for this group (23.7 percent).
Among counties, Los Angeles County, Calif., had the largest population of two or more races in 2016 (305,000). Maricopa County, Ariz., had the highest numeric increase since 2015 (5,300). Hawaii County, Hawaii, had the highest share for this group (30.1 percent).
The Non-Hispanic White Alone Population
Among states, California had the largest non-Hispanic white alone population on July 1, 2016 (14.8 million). Florida had the largest numeric increase since 2015 (114,200). Maine had the highest percentage of its population in this group (93.5 percent).
Among counties, Los Angeles County, Calif., had the largest non-Hispanic white alone population in 2016 (2.7 million). Maricopa County, Ariz., had the largest numeric increase from last year (24,700). Keya Paha County, Neb., was the county with the highest share of its total population in this group (98.0 percent).
This is the last of the population estimates for 2016. Previously released were estimates of the U.S. population by age and sex, county and metro area population estimates and city and town population estimates.
Unless otherwise specified, the statistics refer to the population who reported a race alone or in combination with one or more races. Censuses and surveys permit respondents to select more than one race; consequently, people may be one race or a combination of races. The detailed tables show statistics for the resident population by "race alone" and "race alone or in combination." The sum of the populations for the five "race alone or in combination" groups adds to more than the total population because individuals may report more than one race. The federal government treats Hispanic origin and race as separate and distinct concepts. In surveys and censuses, separate questions are asked on Hispanic origin and race. The question on Hispanic origin asks respondents if they are of Hispanic, Latino or Spanish origin.
Starting with the 2000 Census, the question on race asked respondents to report the race or races they consider themselves to be. Hispanics may be of any race. Responses of "some other race" from the 2010 Census are modified in these estimates. This results in differences between the population for specific race categories for the modified 2010 Census population versus those in the 2010 Census data.
-X-Vancouver, B.C. -Manny Malhotra was been nominated by the Vancouver chapter of the Professional Hockey Writers' Association as the Canucks nominee for the Masterton Trophy which is awarded annually to the player who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to hockey.
"It's obviously very special — especially with what the Masterton stands for," said Malhotra. "You look back at the guys who have won in the past and what they've overcome and triumphed over in very serious situations. To be thought of in that regard, is very humbling to me. Whether I win or not is irrelevant. Being held in that regard is pretty special to me."
It's been a special challenge for Malhotra to recover from a March 16, 2011 incident when a deflected puck struck him during a game against the Colorado Avalanche and four subsequent procedures on the injured eye. He has maintained dominance in the faceoff circle with a 58.2 per cent efficiency — sixth in the NHL — and has seven goals and 18 points in 73 games.
"Manny as a person, is one of the best individuals I've ever met in my life as far as dealing with and getting it," said Canucks coach Alain Vigneault.Over the weekend a Lion Air Boeing 737 crashed just short of the runway in Bali. At the time we covered the event just after it happened.
Lion Air 737 crashes into the sea in Bali
This was a brand new Aircraft delivered last month direct from Boeing in Seattle.
Here at planefinder.net we have a vast network of receivers and tracked the aircraft into its final minutes before ditching. Using Google Earth we can produce some nice visualisations and share with you the final data points which show it didn’t even make the beginning of the runway.
Download the KML file yourself into Google Earth and play around for yourself and make your own assessment before the authorities produce any reports!
http://cdn-misc.pinkfroot.com/LNI904.kml
Related posts Lion Air 737 crashes into the sea in BaliPosted by Guest Voice on Jun 4, 2017 in Cities, Environment, International, Politics |
San Diego Will Ignore Trump and Fight Climate Change Anyway
By Chris Jennewein
President Trump may have pulled America out of the Paris Climate Agreement, but San Diego and other big cities will make sure most of the country lives up to that landmark agreement’s goals.
San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer joined dozens of his counterparts from Los Angeles to Houston to Pittsburgh Thursday in blasting Trump’s decision and vowing to follow the agreement.
“Today’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement underscores how important it is for major U.S. cities to lead the way and take definitive action to leave a better planet than the one we inherited,” said Faulconer, a Republican who has been outspoken about the importance of protecting the environment.
“San Diego remains as committed as ever to implementing our landmark Climate Action Plan and being a national leader in solar, renewable energy use, water purification and green job creation,” he said. “We cannot protect America’s interests without a seat at the table, so San Diego will continue to lead on environmental protection.”
In his Rose Garden announcement, Trump singled out Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania’s coal and steel country, saying “I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris.”
But Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto quickly fired back on Trump’s favorite medium, Twitter: “As the Mayor of Pittsburgh, I can assure you that we will follow the guidelines of the Paris Agreement for our people, our economy and future.”
In a later interview on CNN, he said coal is never coming back as a significant industry and Pittsburgh’s future is in robotics, artificial intelligence, clean energy and other new technologies.
Like Faulconer, Peduto said it’s now up to America’s cities to lead on the environment in the wake of Trump’s decision. “The United States joins Syria, Nicaragua & Russia in deciding not to participate with world’s Paris Agreement,” Peduto tweeted. “It’s now up to cities to lead.”
That sentiment may be the silver lining in what struck many Americans as a dark day for their country and the world, with some suggesting Trump was willingly relinquishing America’s world leadership position.
The silver lining is that in the U.S. federal system of government, cities and states have wide powers. Trump’s now coal-friendly Environmental Protection Agency may no longer care about greenhouse gas emissions, but local governments can set standards and create tax benefits. Controls on auto emissions began with laws in California, after all.
The same goes for immigration. Los Angeles, New York and other big cities are openly celebrating their “sanctuary” status, even providing legal assistance to immigrants threatened with deportation.
Behind this newfound sense of civic independence is straightforward economics. Immigrants help local economies by building businesses in depressed areas. Clean energy from solar and wind is getting less and less expensive. And in built-up urban areas, electric cars and rooftop solar panels simply make good sense.
“We don’t want other countries and other leaders to laugh at us anymore,” said Trump in explaining his decision.
San Diego, Pittsburgh and other forward-looking American cities will have the last laugh.
Chris Jennewein is editor and publisher of Times of San Diego which, along with The Moderate Voice, is a member of the San Diego Online News Association. This article is reprinted from that website.Africa-based Reuters photographer Finbarr O'Reilly has been going on embeds with Canadian and U.S. forces since 2007, documenting the military struggle in southern Afghanistan. On the war's tenth anniversary, he recounts his experiences covering the daily lives of soldiers and tells of Sir Elton John's interest in one of his images of a dusty Marine. "One of the biggest challenges of being embedded involves finding ways to illustrate the story without showing the Western military in an overly sympathetic or even heroic light. The opening image of this selection feels both honest and representative of the conflict: Despite all their machinery, muscle and technology Western forces have become bogged down in a complex war against a resilient enemy -- insurgents who wear lightweight traditional robes and sandals and fight with Soviet-era or homemade weapons. The physical imbalance is striking. But the Taliban have drawn their Western opponents into a battle of attrition and wills on their home turf. Perhaps the most effective weapon the Taliban has is time. Will Western troops still be there in another 10 years?" 31 PHOTOSBillie Joe has been listed as a special guest for the upcoming event, "Front Row with Lars Ulrich and Friends," on March 2nd on the campus of UC Berkeley in Berkeley, California.Put on by Cal Performances and hosted by Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, this event is the first of a series of "Front Row" events exclusively for UC Berkeley students. The goal of the series of events is to "explore the San Francisco Bay Area's attraction to artists and innovators."The first event of the series takes place on March 2 at Zellerbach Hall (on the campus of UC Berkeley) and will feature a live discussion from Ulrich as well as performances from special guests, which include Billie Joe, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, Metallica's James Hetfield, and more.Tickets to “Front Row with Lars Ulrich and Friends” are $5 and only available to current UC Berkeley students. If you're a student, you can purchase a ticket to the March 2nd event by clicking hereFormer Director of National Intelligence James Clapper questioned Donald Trump’s fitness for office, so the President fired back with an angry tweet Thursday morning.
Clapper drew headlines Wednesday after questioning Trump’s mental state following a 77-minute rally in Phoenix, Arizona, where the president threatened a government shutdown, criticized Republican senators and argued that the media is unpatriotic.
“I don’t know when I’ve listened and watched something like this from a President that I’ve found more disturbing. Having some understanding of the levers of power that are available to a President if he chooses to exercise them, I found this downright scary and disturbing,” Clapper told CNN’s Don Lemon Wednesday evening.
“Are you questioning his fitness?” Lemon asked.
The Brief Newsletter Sign up to receive the top stories you need to know right now. View Sample Sign Up Now
“Yes I do,” Clapper said. “I really question his ability — his fitness to be in this office — and I also am beginning to wonder about his motivation for that.”
The following day, Trump fired back, noting the controversy over Clapper’s testimony to Congress that the U.S. was not collecting data on millions of Americans, which was later disproved by documents leaked by Edward Snowden. Clapper has said he misspoke.
“James Clapper, who famously got caught lying to Congress, is now an authority on Donald Trump. Will he show you his beautiful letter to me?” Trump tweeted at 9:15 a.m., the sixth of seven Twitter posts he wrote or shared that morning.
Shawn Turner, Clapper’s spokesman, said the letter Trump was referring to was the note he had prepared for the winner of the Presidential election, that was handed to to Trump with the presidential briefing the morning after he had won. Clapper had prepared nearly identical notes for Trump and Clinton, Turner said. Both contained congratulatory sentiments and reiterated the values and commitment of the intelligence community to holding truth to power.
Turner said Clapper, who was unavailable to speak with TIME, had no comment on the President’s tweets this morning.
Write to Alana Abramson at Alana.Abramson@time.com.Advertisement
One year ago, we got super excited when a micromouse managed to negotiate a maze in under five seconds. At the 2011 All Japan Micromouse Robot Competition in Tsukuba, the micromouse pictured above shaved an entire second off of that time, completing the maze in a scant 3.921 seconds. That's fast.
This robot, called Min7.1, was designed by Ng Beng Kiat. It has a top speed of just over 12 kph, which is wicked quick for something that's 10 cm long and weighs only 90 grams. Of course, the micromouse has to figure out where it's going before it can put the hammer down and blaze through on its final run, which is why it first gets an autonomous exploration phase:
If we continue the trend, next year we'll have a three second robot, followed by a two second robot, and by 2016 or so, robots will be blowing through mazes before we even ask them to.
[ Ng Beng Kiat ] via [ Robots Dreams ]A pump is a mechanical device used to move fluids or slurries.
Pump may also refer to:
Music [ edit ]
Pump (band) was an experimental, pre-electronica, band, active between 1979-1993.
Pump is a hard rock and heavy metal band from Germany, active since 2002.
Pump (album), an album by Aerosmith
(album), an album by Aerosmith "The Pump", a song by Quiet Riot from QR III
Two different Caribbean drums, one each used in the music of Barbados and St Maarten
Lil Pump, an American rapper and songwriter
Court shoe, a heeled slip-on shoe with a low-cut front
Plimsoll shoe or pump, a style of athletic shoe
Reebok Pump
Ghillies (dance), soft, laced shoes worn by Scottish and Irish dancers
Ballet pump or ballet flat, a flat-soled ballet shoe
Other uses [ edit ]Waymo continues to press its lead in terms of actual miles driven on roads, which is potentially the most important metric out there when it comes to building successful autonomous driving technology. The Alphabet-owned company that began life as Google’s self-driving car project around a decade ago now has 4 million miles driven autonomously on roads.
That 4 million miles represents the self-driving effort of Waymo’s entire test fleet, covering its original autonomous vehicles all the way up to its current driverless Chrysler Pacifica minivans, which are actually now testing on Arizona public roads, right alongside everyday human drivers, with no safety driver behind the wheel at all.
Waymo puts the milestone in perspective by noting that it would take a human around 300 years to drive that many miles, if they were driving at the average rate of a person in the U.S. today. Plus, the pace of Waymo’s accumulation of distance driven is ramping up: It managed to gain 1 million miles between just May and November of this year — it took the company six years to rack up its first million, by comparison.
This excludes the 2.5 billion miles that Waymo has “driven” virtually in simulation, and its private testing time on its Castle facility track. The number is one that Waymo isn’t likely to stop talking about anytime soon either — miles driven in real-world conditions is a key ingredient in building a comprehensive, virtual artificially intelligent driver that can operate in service of a commercial driverless ride-hailing service, which Waymo has set as the target for its first public driverless product deployment.This post has been reviewed by the Vancouver Media Co-op editorial committee.
by murray bush - flux photo
COAST SALISH TERRITORIES - Rising Tide'scientists' laid out the case against fracking outside Science World in Vancouver today. Presentations included descriptions of what fracking is, the chemicals used in the process and the effect on wildlife and the environment. The event was timed to coincide with World Water Day.
The event wrapped up with a banner drop from the roof of the Telus Science World pointing to the facility's unscientific support for the provincial government's massive LNG extraction dreams under the slogan " NO CONScience World - fracking with climate science."
Most of the exhibits and exercises were aimed at kids, from catching "fractoids" with a magnetic fishing pole to playing Pin the Poison on the Pond to a Fracking Quiz. The kids loved it.
Rising Tides' Michael Smiley said “we can’t sit idly by while Science World is working alongside Christy Clark to greenwash the Liquified Fracked Gas industry. Today we are not only engaging with and educating children in the dangers of fracked gas and its impact on the climate and environment but also reaching out to the management of Science World to consider the impacts of their actions”.
He added that “as our popular education stalls showed today fracked gas is hugely environmentally damaging, opposed by local communities and fundamentally not an ethical or viable energy solution. The young kids passed our fracked gas quiz today, if only the same could be said for those planning the energy infrastructure of the region.”
For more information visit the Rising Tide websiteThis week sees the arrival of Mockingbird, Bobbi Morse, in her first ever ongoing series. Written by bestselling author Chelsea Cain and Marvel newcomer Kate Niemczyk, the series picks up on the momentum from Cain's Mockingbird one-shot last year, along with the increased exposure of the character as part of the cast of Agents of SHIELD.
Mockingbird is a character with a long history, and ties to just about every Avenger. But who is she when she stands alone, and what motivates her as one of the best-known Marvel heroes with no super-powers to depend upon. There's a lot going on behind those awesome shades, so ahead of the first issue debut this week, ComicsAlliance spoke to Cain and Niemczyk about their take on one of Marvel's toughest secret agents. As an added bonus, Marvel shared a first look at Niemczyk's black and white pages for issue #2!
Cover by Joelle Jones
ComicsAlliance: As the series kicks off, what can we expect from Mockingbird? Where is she and what is she up to when we pick up with issue #1?
Chelsea Cain: Issue #1 is bonkers. Bobbi is considered “high risk” because she’s been exposed to Super Solider Serum and Infinity Formula, so her health is being closely monitored by S.H.I.E.L.D’s medical division. She has to go in every week to a S.H.I.E.L.D medical clinic (imagine any big city clinic, but for super heroes) for testing.
Issue #1 consists of four of these appointments.
Each one is increasingly bizarre, and a lot goes unexplained, because there’s a lot we’re not seeing --- namely what goes on between appointments. So the next four issues will fill in those gaps, and complete the puzzle. I had a lot of fun with the medical offices, imagining what would be the same as civilian clinics (crappy magazines, long waits, endless forms) and what would be different (super heroes in the lobby, informational posters questioning if you can get cancer from radioactive friends).
CA: Marvel seem to have found real success in focusing on the off-duty lives of their characters. Will Mockingbird also follow that path for this series?
CC: It’s a combination. She goes on missions and has adventures but they all have a personal component --- rescuing a certain ex-husband, say.
CA: Kate, how did you first come to get involved with Mockingbird?
Kate Niemczyk: I was lucky to be able to show my portfolio to CB Cebulski and this is how it started, then Chelsea picked me for Mockingbird and here I am.
CA: What kind of look did you want Bobbi to have? How did you want to express her personality through her fashion, body language, and so on?
KN: I wanted her to be trim, but more in a casual way than classic elegance. For me, Bobbi is a woman who likes to feel comfortable when she's in her casual clothes, she's aware of her sex appeal, but her looks are definitely not the most important thing in her life. She's way too smart to be focused on that. That also relates to her body language.
CA: You didn’t design her new costume --- but I’m aware you made a few changes to it as you came onboard. How have you found jumping into superhero comics? What kind of approach are you taking as artist on this book?
KN: Yes, I've made only some minor changes in her new design --- I liked how her new costume looked more like a special forces uniform than super hero suit, but I missed the orange 'glasses', so that was the most important change for me to be done. As for my approach on this book --- I just want to be myself and put as much heart into this series as possible, I've been reading a lot of Marvel comics in my life and I like how different each artist's approach on a super hero comic could be. And this is great!
CA: It seems like Bobbi has always been a character stuck in the shadows, off to one side, rather than the spotlighted hero. What’s your take on her?
CC: Well except for the one-shot we did for the S.H.I.E.L.D 50th Anniversary, Bobbi has never had her own solo book. She’s only appeared in other people’s stories, so of course she’s served their narratives. She’s had some great moments, despite this, which I think speaks to her potential. But mostly she’s been a victim, or a love interest, or ex-wife, or --- most frequently --- a plot device. I just want her to have her own identity. I want to be able to say that I’m writing Mockingbird without having to add, “You know, Hawkeye’s ex-wife?”
I think she has a lot of surprises in store, and putting her at the center of a story is the first step in making up for what has been, essentially, forty-five years of character slander.
CA: Sometimes it feels she spends her time being defined through others, being “the unpowered one” --- do you think that gives her something more to prove? Does that weigh on her?
CC: I think Bobbi doesn’t see herself as “unpowered” at all. It’s easy to be a superhero if you can shoot rays of frost out of your palms or throw busses like Nerf balls. Bobbi has had to be twice as smart and twice as tough to get where she is. She’s fought for everything she has. She has a PhD, she’s trained herself to kick ass on an elite level, she’s taken on terrible undercover assignments, made hard choices. She’s proved herself.
KN: I definitely want to take her out of the shadows. I believe this is a character that many women can somehow relate to --- she's not a mutant nor super hero, she owes everything to her skills and intelligence. And thanks to Chelsea, she's also funny!
CA: What’s it like working with each other? What’s the collaborative process been like?
KN: Chelsea is great, she always has a lot of reference to show and is really open to any new ideas. She's got a lot of knowledge and knows perfectly how to use it in her scripts so working with her is a pleasure and definitely an exceptional experience.
CC: It’s been great, especially issue #2, where I think we really hit our stride. She’s in Poland and I’m in Portland, which I am only just now realizing is two-letters away from being the same place. There’s a nine-hour time difference. And you’d be amazed at what a non-issue that’s been. I am pretty sure that Kate never sleeps. It’s been a crazy process.
We are both new to comic books, so there’s definitely a learning curve, but we’re helping each other through it. It’s weird because I think we have different visions of the style of the book. So we are constantly working to accommodate each other’s instincts.
I couldn’t ask for a more graceful, hard-working, committed, and flexible artist. She is so tolerant and patience with me. And I think we communicate really well with one another.
CA: What does her art bring to the character and story, for you?
CC: She draws a wonderful Bobbi. That hair! Here’s the thing about Bobbi as a character --- she’s way too pretty. It’s a real problem. I knew early on that we were either going to have to reimagine her as a more realistic looking human, or just go with it…
So we embraced it. Keep in mind, Bobbi is the one telling us these stories. They are from her point of view. She’s the narrator. And the way she remembers it, she looked great! I just love that. This is a female character with complete confidence in herself. And Kate draws her that way --- unapologetically beautiful.
But Kate also works in these wonderful physical moments that subvert that fantasy. There’s a panel in issue #1 that shows Bobbi, dressed like a dominatrix (long story), standing on a scale at the medical clinic, and the physicality is just perfect. Her arms are crossed, her weight is kind of shifted to one leg, and there’s a natural looking curve to her thighs. It’s how people stand. It really humanizes her, in this completely ridiculous setting. Bobbi doesn’t have a whole lot to do physically in this issue. She’s at medical check-ups, so she does a lot of sitting and walking down hallways. And frankly, Kate was in the same boat --- because the whole issue takes place in a medical clinic, and medical clinics are about as fun to draw as they are to be in.
I’m excited for everyone to see Kate’s work in the next issues --- the ones that fill in the missing time between appointments --- which have a lot more exotic locations and loads more punching.
CA: In other interviews, you’ve said that you’re looking at a '70s aesthetic for the series. What interested you in establishing that style, at a time when a lot of other characters are being revamped to be contemporary, or futuristic?
KN: I think that when it comes to interiors the colors played a major role to make it more '70s. I had a bunch of reference from Chelsea for the look of the clinic. I'm sure Rachelle Rosenberg ’s colors are what made all the rooms look more '70s. As for Bobbi, the most significant thing in drawing her in comics was a change of her hair. For my first concept art I made Bobbi's hair straight --- back then I didn't know anything about Chelsea's vision, so the wavy hair came in later.
CC: I |
be considered sanctuary cities.
What are mayors and politicians in sanctuary cities saying?
This issue will be contentious because so many mayors in the country’s largest cities have expressed their support for immigrants. Rahm Emanuel said Chicago “will always be a sanctuary city.”
D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser issued a statement reading, "The values, laws, and policies of Washington, D.C. did not change on Election Day. We celebrate our diversity and respect all D.C. residents no matter their immigration status." In San Francisco, city attorney Dennis Herrera is investigating whether or not the city can sue the federal government if they end up withholding funding.
And according to New York City’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, “We are not going to sacrifice a half million people who live among us, who are part of our community. We are not going to tear families apart."
Many cities, such as LA, have created legal defense funds to help support immigrants who may be subject to increasing targeting and raids from the Trump administration.
Since Trump signed his executive order this afternoon, many cities and mayors have announced they will continue to function as sanctuary cities, despite the consequences.
What is the potential impact of this executive order?
The potential impact depends on Trump’s willingness to make non-compliance merely an issue with law enforcement budgets, or a stance that triggers a ban of all federal funds for cities that don’t cooperate. Based on the text of the executive order, he may be pushing for the later.
This could not only impact funding for the police, but take away funding for transportation and other big projects. According to an analysis by Mother Jones, cities that continue to be sanctuaries may forfeit billions, depending on the Trump administration’s decisions. Denver, for example, may have $175 million at stake.
There’s also the question of how Trump defines a sanctuary city, and how that definition stands up in court. The Center for Budget and Tax Accountability has noted that to strip all federal funds from sanctuary cities, Trump would likely require Congressional approval of a new law.
The executive order suggests the Secretary of Homeland Security can define a sanctuary jurisdiction, and these jurisdictions “are not eligible to receive Federal grants, except as deemed necessary for law enforcement purposes by the Attorney General or the Secretary.”
What happens next?
Trump has also been unclear in the past about just whom he plans to target, and how many people may be affected.
During an interview with 60 Minutes, Trump said two-to-three million criminals would be deported. Immigration rights advocates dispute that number: Frank Sharry, head of America's Voice, an immigration advocacy group, told the Los Angeles Times that, “We suspect he’s gearing up to implement a very harsh and radical deportation regime and he’s going to deploy it under the pretext they are criminals, when they are not.”
A recent Los Angeles Times article quotes two senior officials in the Trump transition team who said the government may pursue “migrants who have been charged but not convicted, suspected gang members and drug dealers, and people charged with such immigration violations as illegal reentry and overstaying visas, as well as lower-level misdemeanors.”
To accomplish his goals, Trump will have to follow through on previous promises to substantially increase the size of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement force, which would be necessary if he were to attempt to deport millions of people from the country. The executive order signed today approves the hiring of 10,000 more immigration officers.
Trump’s threats of punishing sanctuary cities may also run afoul of the 10th Amendment, which address the separation of powers between the federal government, states, and cities.
The Supreme Court has ruled that federal government can’t compel local law enforcement to assist with federal law enforcement, hence using funding as a cudgel of sorts to force states or cities to comply (for example, tying federal transportation funding to the drinking age helped push states to adopt a stricter standard).
But a 2012 ruling over Obamacare said that the Federal government can’t be too “coercive,” and take away funds already promised for different reasons. Any move to hold back federal funds would likely face a court challenge.
Here’s the full text of the portion of the order referencing sanctuary cities:Image copyright Natalie Welden Image caption These little round pellets have a name - nurdles
A search of 279 beaches around the UK has found that almost three-quarters of them were littered with tiny plastic "nurdles".
Volunteers signed up to search their local shoreline, ranging between Shetland and the Scilly Isles, for the lentil-sized pellets, used as a raw material to make plastic products.
They can cause damage to such wildlife as birds and fish, which eat them.
The findings will be reflected in a government study into microplastics.
What's the problem?
Campaigners estimate that up to 53 billion of the tiny pellets escape into the UK's environment each year.
This happens during the manufacture, transport or use of plastic products.
The nurdles are often spilt accidentally into rivers and oceans or fall into drains where they are washed out to sea.
Experts warn nurdles can soak up chemical pollutants from their surroundings and then release toxins into the animals that eat them.
How easy is it to find a nurdle?
Image copyright Tracey Williams Image caption Many thousands of nurdles were found near Newquay, Cornwall
The Great Winter Nurdle Hunt survey was carried out by 600 volunteers over a weekend in early February.
The largest number recorded were found at Widemouth Bay, Cornwall, where 33 volunteers collected some 127,500 pellets found on a 100-metre stretch of beach.
But there were some beach hunts that yielded no nurdles at all, including Spurn Point in Yorkshire and Sully beach in south Wales.
Nurdles are one of the main sources of "primary microplastics" - small pieces of plastic which have come from larger items broken down into little bits - in European seas.
The Great Winter Nurdle Hunt 53 billion nurdles estimated to escape into the UK environment each year 230,000 tonnes estimated to be entering the ocean in Europe annually
73% of 279 shorelines surveyed had plastic pellets on them
127,500 nurdles were found on one 100m-stretch of beach in Cornwall PA
What can be done?
Image caption Madeleine Berg says there are thousands of nurdles buried on Gullane beach in East Lothian
Madeleine Berg of Fidra, a Scottish environmental charity which organised the hunt, said it showed action was needed.
"Simple precautionary measures can help spillages and ensure nurdles don't end up in our environment," she said.
"We are asking the UK government to ensure best practice is in place along the full plastic supply chain, and any further nurdle pollution is stopped."
One of the companies that has signed up to Fidra's Operation Clean Sweep is Scottish hauliers, John Mitchell, who distribute plastic pellets.
Each of their transporters are fitted with spill kits and black bin bags to collect spilled pellets, which are then recycled.
Plastic oceans: What do we know?
The beaches where Lego washes up
Another step in wider 'war on plastic'
The findings come after another campaign by Fidra, which saw Johnson & Johnson announce that their cotton buds will no longer have plastic stems.
As of this week, the multinational company will change their buds from plastic to paper in almost half the world's countries, including the whole of Europe, in an attempt to cut marine pollution.
Image copyright Fidra Image caption Johnson & Johnson's iconic blue cotton bud stems will no longer be made from plastic
Plastic stems are one of the most common items of litter found on UK beaches. They end up in our oceans after the cotton buds - which are not supposed to be flushed down the toilet - enter the sewage system.
Waitrose, John Lewis, Marks and Spencer and the Body Shop are among the brands already selling non-plastic cotton buds.
A further 10 retailers including Tesco, Boots and Mothercare have said they will change from plastic to paper stems by the end of 2017.The paths trodden by Jurgen Klopp and David Wagner have seen the two friends end up in England at Liverpool and Huddersfield Town.
“I watch a lot of Championship football,” said Klopp prior to Liverpool’s League Cup game against Derby County. “I’m interested in how Huddersfield are doing.
“It’s a wonderful story. I love it. We saw it in pre-season that they were in a good way.”
A wonderful story indeed—that the two managers ended up in England is a story in itself.
From the pre-season Shankly Trophy match between their two sides, to their similarities on and off the pitch, it appears that there could be plenty of entertaining chapters to come.
The two men are going about reviving their respective sides in similar ways, tinged with influences from their time spent together at Mainz 05 and Borussia Dortmund.
Going to Town
Huddersfield’s club badge sits proudly beneath three stars. It’s a reminder of a time, over 90 years ago, when they dominated English football.
The stars represent their three consecutive league titles won between 1924 and 1926, while in 1922 they won their first and only FA Cup trophy.
Only three other clubs have won the league three times in a row: Arsenal, Manchester United and Liverpool.
Their success in the 1920s was achieved under the management of the legendary Herbert Chapman, who went on to win two further league titles at Arsenal in the early 1930s using a pioneering WM formation (a system which is creeping back into existence under Pep Guardiola, who else?).
Another legendary manager, Bill Shankly, managed Huddersfield’s first team for three years before joining Liverpool in December 1959, but it’s safe to say that the Scot had a much bigger impact on the banks of the Mersey than he did in West Yorkshire.
The Wagner Revolution
Huddersfield now have another man at the helm who’s causing a stir with his managerial prowess: Wagner.
His reign is already being dubbed the Wagner Revolution, such is the nature of the complete overhaul the German is overseeing at the club.
Double training sessions, stronger floodlights, hotel stays prior to matchdays, and more rigorous opposition analysis—and that’s before you get to the team’s new-found style on the pitch.
Wagner has referred to this style as “full-throttle football,” and it’s here that the feedback-ridden echoes of Klopp’s heavy-metal football begin to appear.
“There is not only one way to be successful in football but this was our way at Dortmund—and my way,” Wagner told the Guardian in December.
“I am totally convinced about this way of playing. I like speed, I like passion, I like this style of football.
“We have our way at Huddersfield, or we are finding our way at least, and this is what I prefer.”
Dortmund Doppelgangers
It’s no coincidence that the two managers share a football identity.
Wagner and Klopp’s friendship was born during their playing days at Mainz, where their shared ability to celebrate a win, or even a draw, created a bond between them.
“When I was in Munich I remember playing against 1860 and it was a draw and it was one of my best games for Mainz,” Klopp said this summer.
“Afterwards we went to the Oktoberfest, so it was a good night!”
Wagner was also the best man at Klopp’s wedding, and Klopp is godfather to one of Wagner’s children, but their friendship returned to football when Klopp asked Wagner to manage Dortmund’s reserves, after persuading him to complete his UEFA pro license.
The Dortmund influences can be seen in the way the managers set their teams up but, perhaps surprisingly, it’s Wagner’s Huddersfield who more closely resemble the Dortmund shape.
From Westfalen to West Yorkshire
The 4-2-3-1 used regularly by Klopp at BVB is now a familiar sight at the John Smith’s Stadium.
Jonathan Hogg holds in midfield while another player, usually Manchester City loanee Aaron Mooy, acts as a playmaker—they’re Yorkshire’s answer to Sven Bender and Ilkay Gundogan, or at least that’s what Terriers fans will hope they’ll be.
We spoke to Doug Thomson, who covers the club for the Huddersfield Examiner and can vouch for the Wagner revolution, who said “Town are playing a different style of football.”
“Full-throttle pressing like Liverpool, and a 4-2-3-1 formation with emphasis on possession and passing,” Thomson explained.
“The full-backs are noticeably high, and the whole side is very fit, which is vital when this approach is used.”
Doug also spoke of the other side to Wagner’s work, and the changes he’s making to ensure the players are fully prepared for his style of football.
“The training is intense, and the preparation and recovery are all well planned,” he continued. “Town have also brought in a new fitness specialist, who seems to be helping!
“They’re far more solid defensively than in the past and goals are being scored by a variety of players. It’s entertaining to watch and at the moment bringing very good results.
“There have been major changes at the club, who have used the Wagner brand to really engage supporters via ticket promotions.”
Mutual Benefit
The similarities in style could help Liverpool when it comes to looking for somewhere to send players to in order to get the first-team experience they may not get at Anfield.
Academy goalkeeper Danny Ward has already joined the Terriers on loan for the 2016/17 season, and there could be more similar deals in January.
But Huddersfield’s effective, entertaining brand of football is already attracting other clubs to Wagner—if it carries on you wouldn’t bet against him joining Klopp in the Premier League before long.
It would be fitting if this rise to the top division was completed with Huddersfield, returning one of English football’s great teams of the past to the top of the pile.
Which, when put like this, sounds familiar to the job facing his mate Jurgen in Liverpool.Note: Much of this article is based on empirical research and scattered Blue posts, so there might be errors and inaccuracies.
The Battle.net Leagues are SC2's replacement to SC1's ladders and are Blizzard's official player ranking system. There are currently seven Leagues, each divided into numerous divisions as well as a Practice League for rookies.
League Descriptions [ edit ]
Overview [ edit ]
Current size data from June 2017, total of US, EU, and KR servers. Icon Name WoL Target[1] HotS Target[2] LotV Target[3] Current Size (not necessarily active players)[4] Grandmaster 1000 players 1000 players 1000 Players 595 players Master 2% 2% 4% 5.1% Diamond 18% 18% 23% 24.8% Platinum 20% 20% 23% 21.9% Gold 20% 32% 23% 20.8% Silver 20% 20% 23% 20.6% Bronze 20% 8% 4% 6.4%
Ranked from the lowest to the highest, the Leagues are: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Master and Grandmaster. The Copper league, which was formerly below Bronze, was removed in favor of Diamond in beta patch 13. The Master League was added with patch 1.2, and the Grandmaster League was added in 1.3.
Players are placed in a league after having completed 5 placement matches. After that, a player may get moved to another league, depending on performance. Though the time and frequency of these movements are kept explicitly hidden. Regardless of a player's performance, however, placement matches currently do not place players in the highest league, Grandmaster. With even a perfect placement record, a player must work their way through the initial placement division(s) before being placed in Grandmaster.
Divisions [ edit ]
There are numerous divisions within each League, with each division being composed of up to 100 players. The name of each division is made up of a word from Starcraft terminology, and a letter from the ICAO phonetic alphabet, such as Gold League/ Division Zeratul Juliet.[5] The process of matchmaking is based solely on MMR and not on a player's division or league. This means players will often face opponents from other divisions, and may face opponents from different leagues. Players do not usually move from one division to another within the same league, though it is technically possible for a player to manually leave their division, and happen to be placed back into the same division.
Prior to Season 9, leagues below Master were subdivided into narrow skill ranges called division tiers.[6] The purpose of these tiers was to normalize displayed point ranges across a league via modifying point totals with fixed offsets. The lower the skill level of a tier, the larger the hidden point offset. Season 9 removed[7] division tiers, thereby widening the player pool for any given division in a league. As a result, points after Season 9 can be compared across divisions (but still not across leagues). Aggregators such as RankedFTW.com can be used to compare points within a league over an entire region.
For example, a player in Silver Tier 1 would be closer to a promotion into Gold than a player in Silver Tier 2 or Tier 3. Player's portraits are bordered by a frame which has a color that corresponds to their league. Players are rated based on their standing within their individual division.
Grandmaster League [ edit ]
As Grandmaster League is twice the size of all other divisions.
Grandmaster league was added in patch 1.3 for 1v1 only.[8] This league represents the Top 200 players in each region. With the release of Legacy of the Void a Grandmaster League for Archon Mode was added. Grandmaster League opens one week after the start of a new season. Besides maintaining a high enough MMR, Grandmaster players need to play at least 30 games every 3 weeks to retain their spot. Additionally, every day at 5:00 p.m. local time, the bottom 5% of Grandmaster League is being automatically demoted to Masters League (or Contender League) and the top 5% of Contender League is being promoted to Grandmaster League at 8:00 p.m. local time. [9]
Practice League [ edit ]
A Novice version of "Blistering Sands" is used in the Practice League.
The Practice League no longer exists in the game, but was available early on in Wings of Liberty. The Practice League was separate from the rest of the ladder, which allowed new players to practice multiplayer matches prior to their placement matches. Practice league was completely optional. Players could conduct up to 50 matches in Practice league, which used a special "novice version" of the ladder maps. The novice versions differed from the standard version as they included additional destructible rocks in rushing paths to slow the game down. This provided early game protection for newer players, which afforded them time to explore and learn both the interface and game. Additionally, the game speed in Practice League was "Normal" instead of "Faster". After 50 matches, regardless of whether a player won or lost, players progressed to their placement matches for the competitive leagues.
"The other thing we're introducing is a casual league. It will work just like the regular league, except it doesn't do a bunch of ladder stats, so you don't have to worry about your rank and where you are. It'll be at a slower game speed setting, so it will be what you're used to from the campaign, and it will be on a bunch of maps that are anti-rush -- that are designed specifically to prevent rushing. Now, I can't promise you that you won't die at minute six -- you could be minding your own business and here comes a fleet of Banshees and, "Aaauugh! I'm dead!" -- but you won't die in minute two. I can promise you that. You'll at least have a chance to get your feet wet and experience some of the tech tree before you get rolled." (Quote by Dustin Browder - lead game designer)
Ladder Points [ edit ]
Players are ranked within their division based on their Points. The function of points is to determine a player's rank within their division. After having completed their placement matches, players start out with 0 points. The number of ladder points is only weakly correlated to skill. Especially if players have unspent bonus pool, ladder points tend to measure activity level much more strongly than performance.
Promotion Levels from Season 4 [ edit ]
On November 15, 2011, Blizzard released a chart for season 4 explaining the point cutoffs required to almost be guaranteed a promotion.[10] This chart is a rough estimation of the number of points necessary to go from the bottom end of one league to the bottom of the next-highest league. The charts also contain information for team formats and for all regions. Note that this chart reflects the Wings of Liberty ladder, and no such chart has been published for Heart of the Swarm, where the league populations, bonus pool accrual rate, and season length are different.
2011 Blizzard Wings of Liberty Chart (Points including Bonus Pool, assumes an 8-week season) North America 1v1 2v2 Random 2v2 Arranged 3v3 Random 3v3 Arranged 4v4 Random 4v4 Arranged Bronze to Silver 1200 1100 1000 1000 900 1000 900 Silver to Gold 800 800 700 700 700 700 700 Gold to Platinum 800 700 700 700 700 700 600 Platinum to Diamond 800 800 700 700 700 700 700 Diamond to Master 900 900 800 800 800 800 700 Master to near Grandmaster 1400
Earning and Losing Points [ edit ]
You earn or lose points by winning or losing matches, respectively. To simplify how it works in practice[11]:
y = (+/-)12 + x + z
where
"y" : the total number of points
"x" : the relative expected skill level between one player's points and the other's MMR (can be negative, calculated independently per player)
"z" : the points you get from your bonus pool
=> "x" is a value in the interval of [-12,12], positive numbers are when your opponent is favored
if the game says you are even, "x" is part of {-2,-1,0,1,2}
if it says your opponent is slightly favored, then "x" is part of {3,4,5,6,7}
if it says your opponent is favored, then "x" is part of {8,9,10,11,12}
(of course, if you are the slightly/favored player, then "x" is negative, which means you will lose more or win less than 12 points)
"z" will be greater than zero when your bonus pool is > 0. In which case z = 12 + x, permitted you have enough points in your bonus pool.
As of Patch 2.0.4, Players no longer lose points immediately. When a game is lost, points are subtracted from the bonus pool of the player.
After a player is promoted or demoted into a different league, points are always reset to 73 + spent bonus pool.[12] Because of this, bonus points earned are never lost when changing leagues.
Bonus Pool [ edit ]
The Bonus Pool is the sum of all "bonus points" a player can get, which are added to the rating points a player earns after a victory or, in the case of a defeat, points are deducted from the bonus pool rather than the player's ladder points. The Bonus Pool serves two purposes: to encourage players to play games so their points are always trending upward, and as a global decay mechanism since all players have equal access to the same amount of Bonus Pool.
Players receive Bonus Pool points at a set rate per league. Before Season 3, all players received points at the Master league (original) rate. Season 3 introduced a separate accrual rate for leagues below Master. A player joining StarCraft freshly after the start of a season instantly receives the Bonus Pool as if he started at day 1 of the Season. (Example: Master League Player 1 joins on week 3 after the beginning of the Season he will receive a Bonus Pool of (180*3) 540 Points instantly after finishing his Placement Match.)
Bonus Pool Accrual Rate League Time per 1 Bonus Pool Bonus Pool per Week Grandmaster 56 minutes 180 Master 56 minutes 180 Diamond 96 minutes, 3 seconds 104.4 Platinum 96 minutes, 3 seconds 104.4 Gold 96 minutes, 3 seconds 104.4 Silver 96 minutes, 3 seconds 104.4 Bronze 96 minutes, 3 seconds 104.4
Arranged 2v2 teams receive Bonus Pool at 66% the rate of 1v1. Arranged 3v3 and 4v4 teams receive Bonus Pool at 33% the 1v1 rate. This change was made in Patch 1.3 to make it easier to spend Bonus Pool on arranged teams, because of the logistics of having to play with the same teammates every time. Random 2v2/3v3/4v4 uses the standard 1v1 Bonus Pool accrual rate because those game modes can be played whenever the individual player decides to queue.[13]
Bonus pool accrual rates have been tuned for team matchmaking modes to make them more competitive:[14]
1v1: no change
Random Team: 50% reduction
Arranged Team: 75% reduction
Archon Mode: 75% reduction
Matchmaking Rating [ edit ]
Performance is measured via MMR rating, very much like the WoW Arena Matchmaking System. This rating decides which opponents a player will meet, and tries to quantify their skill level. The aim of the MMR is to rank players in such a way that they have a roughly 50% win ratio when paired against those of similar MMR. When a player's MMR climbs above a certain value, they will be promoted into the next league.
Each play-season the visible points will be reset, while the skill rating, MMR, stays intact.[15]. Previous Patch 3.4 the MMR was hidden, making difficult for some players understand their reasons of promotion or demotion.
There also is a value "sigma" that measures how uncertain the system is of a player's MMR. This is usually high if a player has not played many games recently, or if they are on a winning or losing streak. Sigma is used to calculate how wide a player's search range should be, and by extension how much their MMR will change as a result of playing rating-distant opponents (i.e. for Bayesian inference).
For more information on Blizzard's MMR system, see:
League MMR Ranges [ edit ]
In Patch 3.4, as part of the Ladder Revamp, Blizzard made numerous changes to the ladder system. MMR is now visible for players, each ladder league below Grandmaster is split into three tiers, and the post-game screen now shows specific information about a player's current skill rating, how close they are to the next tier, and the upper and lower limits of their current ladder tier.
The MMR boundaries are based on a prior distribution from the previous season, and during each season roll, the values are recalculated for the upcoming season.
League MMR Span, LotV 1v1 Ladder, 2019 Season 1.[16] League MMR Floor EU NA KR Master 1 4938 - 5167 4983 - 5215 5287 - 5531 2 4709 4752 5044 3 4480 4520 4800 Diamond 1 4133 4173 4427 2 3787 3827 4053 3 3440 3480 3680 Platinum 1 3293 3333 3533 2 3147 3187 3387 3 3000 3040 3240 Gold 1 2880 2920 3107 2 2760 2800 2973 3 2640 2680 2840 Silver 1 2467 2480 2653 2 2293 2280 2467 3 2120 2080 2280 Bronze 1 1891 1848 2036 2 1662 1617 1793 3 1433 1385 1549
Decay and Persistence [ edit ]
In Heart of the Swarm, if a player did not play any matches for an extended period of time, their MMR would decay, or automatically decrease. The details of the system are unknown, but it appears to be a linear decay,[17] and Blizzard has confirmed that decay begins after 2 weeks of inactivity, and decay stops after 4 weeks of inactivity.[18] MMR persists from one season to the next for each game type, as long as a Seasonal Placement Match was played for that season. If a Seasonal Placement Match was not played last season, then MMR and uncertainty are both reset to their default values and the system effectively "forgets" about that player. A special note about this, though: Random Team MMR is linked with 1v1 MMR, which means that if no 1v1 games were played last season, but Random Team games were played, a player's 1v1 MMR would not be reset at the start of the next season.
MMR decay was removed in April 2015.[19]
2v2 Mechanics [ edit ]
Every arranged pair of 2v2 players is given a single rating. So players A+B's team will have a ranking completely unrelated to players A+C's team. In 2v2 random match-ups, an average rating of the two players will be compared to their opponents rating. This rule presumably applies for 3v3 and 4v4 as well.
Seasons [ edit ]
Starcraft II ladder is divided into several seasons per year, and the final results are generally recorded at the end of a season.
See also [ edit ]
Sources [ edit ]Slimy right wing rat Milo Yiannopoulos, who suffered a catastrophic fall from grace this year, reportedly only sold 18,268 copies of his book in the U.S, and a pitiful 152 in the UK since early July. Of course though, he’s branded the official figures “fake news”.
Milo’s PR vultures had been claiming that over 100,000 copies of his memoir Dangerous had sold through just Amazon on the day of its release. Nielsen Bookscan, a platform that monitors book sales across a range of outlets, said its unlikely to be higher than the low numbers they put out.
The former Breitbart tech editor has since put out a statement, in which he claims the figures he released included copies sent to wholesalers – this isn’t usual practice when counting up the numbers, of course.
“By now, you may have heard reports claiming we only sold 18,000 copies of Dangerous and that our 100,000 copies claim is exaggerated. I’m happy to report that this is fake news,” he commented.
“It’s true that the major booksellers only managed to ship out 18,000 copies to retail customers by the list cutoff. But that’s because they didn’t order enough ahead of time, and have been scrambling to play catchup ever since.
“The real news is that we’ve received wholesale orders and direct orders of such magnitude that our entire stock of 105,000 books is already accounted for.”
Dangerous did actually get to the top of Amazon’s nonfiction charts on its first release day, but dropped to number 4, then to 52. On Apple Bookstore, it’s hovering around the 100 mark.
Back in June, Buzzfeed got a hold of the troll’s draft from January 2017. Though he called it a “sketch” that’s “been substantially rewritten since then”, it paints a pretty pathetic picture of the former journalist. Dangerous is filled with self-plagiarism, preening paragraphs about his beauty regime, absolutely no behind-the-scenes gossip from Breitbart or actually solid background on the author, and a lot of repeated, petty name-calling. It’s sectioned into chapters like “Why Black Lives Matter Hates Me”, “Why Feminists Hate Me” and “Why Other Gay People Hate Me”. On the whole, hilariously pathetic.
British book publishers initially rejected the memoir, with one publisher telling the Guardian it was a “toxic book”. Another basically called him a nobody in the UK. It was the U.S Threshold – an imprint of Simon & Schuster, that took on the book, much to widespread distaste. After he made some questionable, gross comments about child abuse – it seemed this was the final straw after he’d spent years spewing misogynist, racist bile – he was dumped by Breitbart and the publisher, losing his £193,000 deal.
He’s now suing Simon and Schuster over the dropped deal. Milo of course went on to self publish the book – and lo, it’s failed miserably.A loophole in the law has led to a state agency in Wisconsin urging would-be voters to register to vote for the November election without proving they are in fact Wisconsin residents, Media Trackers has learned. State law says that anyone who registers to vote 20 days or more before an election does not have to prove they are a resident in order to vote at a Wisconsin polling place. Wisconsin is a battleground state as both parties find the road to the White House and control of the U.S. Senate running directly through it.
On its Twitter account, the Government Accountability Board, a so-called non-partisan election watchdog run by unelected bureaucrats tasked with running elections in the Badger state, has repeatedly tweeted out links to the state’s official voter registration form while helpfully noting that registrants do not need to prove they actually live in Wisconsin. “Open registration ends on 10/17 for the 11/6 election. No proof of residence is required,” one tweet reads.
While state law does allow an individual to register to vote in some cases without proving residency, the wisdom of emphasizing that quirk is open to question. During the attempted recall of Governor Scott Walker state law did not prohibit individuals from bribing people to sign recall petitions, but that was not something the Government Accountability Board touted. One serious lapse in judgment made by the Board during the recall was to say they would consider as legitimate the obviously false signature of “Mickey Mouse” on a petition to recall Walker. Conservative new media coverage of the absurdity forced them to change their policy.
Out of state residents voting in Wisconsin elections has been a problem before. In April 2011 three Service Employees International Union political organizers registered to vote from a hotel room at a hotel just north of Milwaukee. The trio used out-of-state drivers licenses and room receipts to qualify as voters. Currently the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s office is conducting a criminal investigation into the matter.
Lawmakers concerned about election integrity have yet to pass comprehensive election reforms that would close various loopholes and eliminate certain bad practices. The voter ID law they did pass, however, has been held up in Madison courts by organizations led by individuals tied to groups that helped deliver an Obama victory in Wisconsin in 2008. Carolyn Castor of the Wisconsin League of Women Voters has led the fight against the voter ID law despite the fact that she was an ACORN community organizer in 2008 with several of her former staff convicted of election fraud after the election.
Polls show the battle between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney particularly tight in Wisconsin. The U.S. Senate race between Democrat Tammy Baldwin and Republican Tommy Thompson is also tight. Thanks to rancorous recall elections generally instigated by labor unions and Democrats, the public’s confidence in the political system is not particularly strong though overwhelming numbers delivered an historic victory to Governor Walker in June.
For a state board to emphasize election loopholes that speak to a system lacking integrity and basic protections undermines public confidence in the outcome of November’s election. The Government Accountability Board should not be pointing out loopholes in the system; it should be working to strengthen the public’s confidence in elections by protecting the integrity of the process.“Rather than causing a big disruption in N.Y.C., I will be working out of my home in Bedminster, N.J. this weekend. Also saves country money!” President Donald Trump tweeted. | Getty Trump to stay in N.J. to avoid causing 'big disruption' in NYC
President Donald Trump tweeted Friday morning that he will be working from his golf club in New Jersey instead of New York City this weekend.
“Rather than causing a big disruption in N.Y.C., I will be working out of my home in Bedminster, N.J. this weekend. Also saves country money!,” Trump tweeted.
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The president met with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull Thursday at Manhattan’s Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum. The event marks the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Coral Sea, when American and Australian forces were victorious against Japan.
Trump is currently at Trump National Golf Course in Bedminster, which is about an hour from New York City.
Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s go-to vacation spot, typically closes for the season after Mother's Day in mid-May. Trump has been criticized for traveling away from Washington at a higher rate than his predecessors at taxpayer expense.
CLARIFICATION: This story has been updated to reflect that Mar-a-Lago doesn't typically close until mid-May.Payday loans are a poverty trap, a way to get the poor and desperate locked into a cycle of debt that traps them under an ever-increasing pile of high interest loans that they can't pay back. Because of their nefarious nature, New York and 14 other states have banned such loans. But under the cover of providing more financial services to poor neighborhoods, breakaway Democrats are pushing state legislation that consumer advocates fear could act as a backdoor to introduce the usurious loans here.
Two bills sponsored by state Sen. Diane Savino are currently before the state Senate's banking committee. One, known as the Community Financial Services Access and Modernization Act, would make it easier for check cashing companies to obtain licenses that would allow them to open storefronts around the state. The other, Senate bill 6121, would allow check cashing companies to provide "conduit services," which would let them partner with state and national banks in order to offer loans.
The modernization bill would streamline the ability of check cashing companies to obtain licenses to operate in the state and then open additional branches around the New York. It would also raise the ceiling on the size of a check such a business could cash, from $15,000 to $30,000, and let the businesses cash checks for workers compensation, pension payments, profit-sharing, and settlements—including lawsuit and settlement advance payments—without a ceiling.
A |
of distortions seasoned with the classic anti-Semitic canards that all too often appear in anti-Israel writings. Unfortunately for Friedman, John Adams was right when he said facts are stubborn things.
Among Friedman’s most disturbing claims is that the standing ovation for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Congress last May was “bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.” Not only is the statement’s anti-Semitic allusion grossly offensive, but the assertion is false. The suggestion that Americans and their elected representatives do not support Israel for genuine reasons of sympathy and affinity is plainly wrong; a 2011 Gallup poll showed that American support for Israel was on the rise, at a near record high of 63%, and that Americans were nearly four times as likely to side with the Israelis as with the Palestinians.
The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (Farrar & Straus, Sept. 2007). The authors accuse the “Israel lobby” of distorting US foreign policy to serve Israel’s aims at the expense of U.S. interests. Fraught with The statement about being “bought and paid for by the Israel lobby” echoes the widely criticized book by Professors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, entitled(Farrar & Straus, Sept. 2007). The authors accuse the “Israel lobby” of distorting US foreign policy to serve Israel’s aims at the expense of U.S. interests. Fraught with shoddy scholarship, the book updates the classic slander that Jews are a fifth column with, at best, dual loyalties and, at worst, a secret unpatriotic agenda. Friedman’s Op-Ed clearly suggests the same.
Friedman’s reference also, troublingly, brings to mind other anti-Semitic tropes, including the all-powerful Jew pulling strings behind the scenes, a libel spelled out most notoriously in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. “Bought and paid for” evokes the money-grubbing Jewish stereotype brought to life by such literary villains as Shylock and Fagin.
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While saying he’d “never claim to speak for American Jews,” Friedman goes on to do just that and falsely so.
He suggests that only a “minority” of secular American Jews still care about Israel — the majority, ostensibly, having been driven away by Israel’s innumerable alleged transgressions. But a recent Luntz poll of American Jews commissioned by CAMERA, demonstrates just the opposite. There is continuing, deep support for Israel among American Jews, with strong belief in the Netanyahu government’s commitment to peace efforts and apprehension about a Palestinian “culture of hatred.”
To bolster his condemnation of Israel and its supporters, Friedman tosses in whatever incendiary insults and charges come to mind with total disregard for fact or context. He thus falsely characterizes Newt Gingrich’s interview with the Jewish Channel as “suggesting the Palestinians are an ‘invented’ people and not a real nation entitled to a state.” While Gingrich did, indeed, say, “I think we’ve had an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs” – a statement that can and has been much debated, nowhere in the interview did Gingrich say that the Palestinians are not entitled to a state. In fact, in subsequent remarks, Gingrich stated that he is in favor of a negotiated two-state solution, including necessarily a Palestinian state. Just because Friedman assumes that Gingrich meant something he didn’t actually say does not mean the Times columnist can create facts. Friedman, of course, has a long history of erroneous predictions, misguided analysis and wrong assumptions (for example, see Vanity Fair and The Washington Post).
Another inflammatory charge Friedman interjects is the accusation that the Israeli Egged bus company offered gender-segregated bus lines to the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, where women would be forced to the back of the bus. The pundit duly quotes the Web site of the far-left New Israel Fund (notorious for funding many of the NGO’s that contributed to the discredited, anti-Israel Goldstone Report), repeating their claim that “women are required to enter through the bus back doors and sit in the back of the bus.” But this is a clear distortion by an organization with an agenda.
While it is true that ultra-Orthodox Jews have requested this service, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that mandated gender separation is illegal. The bus lines in question are limited to routes between ultra-Orthodox communities where users, the Supreme Court ruled, are permitted to segregate themselves voluntarily. No one, however, can be coerced to sit in the back of the bus, according to Israeli law. Friedman also omits the fact that the same practice has been in place for years on buses in ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods in New York.
It must be noted that women’s rights are far more constrained in every country surrounding Israel than in the Jewish state and that citizens of those countries have little if any access to an independent judiciary to adjudicate their rights. There can simply be no comparison between the rights enjoyed by women in Israel and those denied to women in Arab countries, where so-called “honor killings” are still common and largely unpunished. I t is telling that Friedman ignores this obvious comparison.
It is likewise telling that Friedman chooses to end his piece with a quote from radical journalist Gideon Levy whom he characterizes as a “powerful liberal voice.” In truth, Levy is considered a marginal figure in Israel. He is dismissed by the vast majority of Israelis who are familiar with his penchant for distorting the truth to suit his fringe anti-Israel agenda.
Holding Israel to a discriminatory, double standard is what bigots do. For all Friedman’s claims over the years of (qualified) affection for Israel, columns such as this one reveal a troubling disregard for facts and embrace of irrational criticism he applies to no other nation. As an opinion writer, he is, of course, entitled to his own opinion, however extreme and offensive to his readers. But in the oft-quoted words of Daniel Patrick Moynihan, he is not entitled to his own facts.Rare’s Sea of Thieves has been delayed to early 2018 but in the meantime, the developers are working hard to polish the game and foster a cozy community of fans in preparation for the launch.
In fact, speaking with The Official Xbox Magazine (September 2017, issue #154), Executive Producer Joe Neate said that Rare’s ambition for Sea of Thieves is to create nothing less than the most fun and welcoming multiplayer game ever made.
Related Sea of Thieves Will Let You Invite 3 Friends to Play for Free Starting Tomorrow
This type of game needs a positive, engaged, welcoming community that is knowledgeable. They’re gonna help new players. They’re gonna be making tutorial videos. They’re going to bring people into their crew. And so we’ve built this massive, positive, engaged community, and it blows my mind. The game’s not out yet and we’ve already got so many super fans we could have a Sea of Thieves festival! It’s the most fun and welcoming multiplayer game ever. That’s our ambition. Our community on the forums, they have their own set of rules, kind of like a pirate’s code. And one of those is that you’re not allowed to swear on the forums, which is kind of funny because I’ve been modded twice by our community! We’ve got a bunch of people we call the ‘deckhands’, who are people we’ve appointed to moderate the community, and they love catching me swearing, because I just get passionate about things. I love that they’re doing that. So I’m going to work with the community to create a pirate’s code for the game, because we want people to be respectful in Sea of Thieves. We want to set our stand early, but work with our community to set the right sort of guidelines, the right sort of rules, and work with them to enforce it. I’d love it if this was someone’s first multiplayer game – you know, they’ve never really wanted to get into it before, they’ve just been put off by the fact that it’s really competitive or it could be toxic. We could make something that’s far more welcoming but still amazing fun. The Insider Program is basically our way of building that positive community, and learning how to manage and communicate with a community. We send them weekly Insider emails, we give them early access to the videos we create, we engage a ton on the forums with them.
Sea of Thieves is due to be available on Windows 10 PC and Xbox One with cross-buy and cross-play (it will be part of the Xbox Play Anywhere program). Meanwhile, check out the latest progress report from last week; we’ve also embedded the newly published developer diary on the recent improvements made to gunplay.When Russia’s enemies impose the Cold War logic on international diplomacy and threaten with the Third World War it is important to remember that such conflict would be the last in human history, State Duma Chairman Sergey Naryshkin says.
Russia builds its defenses to prevent wars
“World War III would be the last for the humanity. And strengthening of Russia’s defense potential, including the budgetary decisions passed by the State Duma is done only for one purpose, which is to prevent the war,” Naryshkin stated in a major interview with Izvestia daily, published on Thursday in connection with the anniversary of Russia’s joining WWI on Serbia’s side.
At the same time, the Duma chief promised that Russia would always defend the interests of its allies and “close people,” but not by military means. “We will do this through pressing for strict observation of the international law by others, not by violating it. We want peoples to decide their own destiny on their own land,” he said.
READ MORE: ‘Budget optimization will not affect Russian defense order’ - Putin
Exceptionalism as neo-colonial ideology
The top Russian MP also blasted the attempts to revive the neo-colonial policy in the modern world saying that it has appeared due to the weak reaction to crimes against peace and humanity and due to toleration of fascist and racist ideologies.
“Many military conflicts started with the silent connivance to the ideas of one people’s superiority over others. In this sense the modern ideologies of exceptionalism are extremely dangerous,” Naryshkin stated.
He explained that the modern limitations imposed on the sovereignty on NATO and EU countries could be perceived as colonial policy and the deal suggested by European Union to Ukraine – to bear obligations without having any rights – can only be described as a colonial status.
Naryshkin also told the newspaper that Russia has a lot of allies, even in countries where governments were populated by open Russophobes.
“We know that real public sentiments are different there, if all EU countries had the opportunity do make independent decisions on anti-Russian sanctions we would see a very different picture,” he said.
He added that the United States gained a lot of benefits from the current conflict in Europe not because of “mythical” isolation of Russia, but rather due to the fact that EU nations get weaker and lose their international reputation.
READ MORE: Europe should overcome US pressure, resume cooperation with Russia - Duma chief
No reversal on Crimea ascension
In the same interview the speaker completely ruled out the possibility of change in Russia’s position over Crimea.
“The self-determination of Crimea is the will of the people of Crimea and Sevastopol that has been supported by all the Russian people. How can we reverse this? Maybe our Western opponents compare Russia to themselves and for them there is little meaning in the will of the people, their opinions and historical memory.”
Earlier this year Naryshkin already expressed the opinion that European nations should stop following the plans imposed on the by the United States and start executing own plans for their own benefits. He also positively assessed the idea of a future merger between the Russian Federation and the European Union, proposed by Czech President Milos Zeman.
“Zeman didn’t exclude the possibility of EU nations joining the Russian Federation. Our country has repeatedly admitted the possibility of a merger between two regional unions – the Eurasian Economic Union and European Union,” Naryshkin stated. He added that in his view the plan wasn’t a fantasy because Russia “has always been and will always remain in the common family of European people.”
READ MORE: Duma chief urges talks on Russia-EU unionFlip phones may be somewhat on the outs these days (at least among those demanding the latest and greatest), but they may well be the key to future 3D cellphones -- at least if this Motorola patent application is any indication. The basic idea is actually a fairly simple one: you'd see a regular 2D image on the screen when the cover is open, but when it's closed you'd be able to look through the transparent lid and see the images with a "three dimensional appearance." As you can probably figure out, that screen would be a touchscreen that takes the place of a keypad, and another illustration also shows that the same idea could be applied to a slider phone. Of course, what the illustrations don't show is how effective that three dimensional appearance would actually be, although it seems like it could give Motoblur a whole new meaning.Up to 30,000 people are said to have died in the Karabakh conflict
In a cemetery for Armenian military heroes, high above the capital on a snow-covered hilltop, Gagik stands in silence after laying fresh flowers on his nephew's grave.
The 64-year-old pensioner says he has eight relatives buried here. The graveyard has become a symbol of the Armenian war with neighbouring Azerbaijan for the disputed mountain region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
"Of course, it's never good that people die, but people have to die to protect their nation," Gagik insists.
"We were forced to fight for this land, and land which has been won with blood should never be returned."
'Freedom of Karabakh'
Nearby, 47-year-old Tamara is lovingly polishing her husband's gravestone, with its poignant engraved portrait of a man wearing military uniform and combat medals.
She, too, refuses to contemplate any compromise with Azerbaijan to end the long-running conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh.
"I feel proud when I come here; I feel free in this cemetery, because here I can feel the freedom of Karabakh," she says.
The war in Nagorno-Karabakh ended in 1994 when Armenian fighters won control, although the region is still internationally recognised as being part of Azerbaijan.
No peace deal has yet been signed, and the two former Soviet republics are officially still at war. Like the ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, the Armenian authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh are seeking recognition as an independent state.
'Karabakh clan'
The conflict has been one of the most fiercely debated issues in the campaign for the presidential elections. There have been angry exchanges and accusations of betrayal over suggestions that Armenia should offer more concessions to Azerbaijan to reach a peace agreement.
If the Soviet Union had not given Karabakh to Azerbaijan by cutting it from Armenia, from the motherland, then the conflict would not exist
Serge Sarkisian
Armenian Prime Minister
The government-backed candidate in the presidential race, current Prime Minister Serge Sarkisian was born in the disputed region, and served as a military commander during the war.
Mr Sarkisian argues that if Kosovo is internationally recognised as independent but not Nagorno-Karabakh, this could be considered as double standards - despite the fact that Armenia itself has not recognised the territory as an independent state.
Although the current Armenian government is led by men from Nagorno-Karabakh, Mr Sarkisian rejects accusations that what the opposition calls the "Karabakh clan" has failed to reach a peace agreement because of its hardline approach.
Political will should be shown to settle this conflict as soon as possible. The current authorities haven't had such political will
Levon Ter-Petrosian
Presidential contender
"We don't want problems to remain which will be the basis for the future resumption of the conflict," he told the BBC, stressing that he favours a peaceful solution.
"If the Soviet Union had not given Karabakh to Azerbaijan by cutting it from Armenia, from the motherland, then the conflict would not exist, so we want to resolve it in a way that is really final," he said.
'Comeback kid'
While Mr Sarkisian was fighting the war in Nagorno-Karabakh, Levon Ter-Petrosian was the president of Armenia. But he was forced to step down in 1998 after advocating concessions to end the conflict.
Many residents of Akhurik say the village is dying
After almost a decade of silence, Mr Ter-Petrosian has made a dramatic comeback as an outspoken opposition leader, and he accuses the government of prolonging the negotiations to maintain the status quo in the disputed region.
"Political will should be shown to settle this conflict as soon as possible. The current authorities haven't had such political will, and they will not if Serge Sarkisian is elected as president," Mr Ter-Petrosian says.
"Any political solution has to be based on a compromise," he argues.
The clash of personalities between these two powerful characters - the former president and his former ally - brought the Armenian presidential campaign to life.
Baku's stance
But in Azerbaijan, the government is more concerned about how the next Armenian president will deal with the Nagorno-Karabakh peace negotiations.
The authorities in Baku insist that the region is theirs and must not be allowed to break away.
"Whoever is elected, the main point is that he should adopt a policy on conflict resolution consistent with the principles and norms of international law, refrain from the policy of occupation, and leave Azerbaijani territories," Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry spokesman Khazar Ibrahim told the BBC.
Azerbaijan and its ally, Turkey, both closed their borders with Armenia because of the war. The country's economy - already struggling to recover from post-Soviet collapse - has suffered as a result.
Barbed wire
There is a further unresolved problem with Turkey - the mass killings of Armenians by the Ottoman Turks during World War I, which Armenia wants to be internationally recognised as genocide.
Armenia's border with Turkey remains shut, damaging trade
In the village of Akhurik, a short walk from the Turkish border but a long day's drive from Nagorno-Karabakh, a group of men stand around chatting and smoking cigarettes.
The road through the village used to be a trading route, but it now stops short at a barbed wire fence with a military checkpoint blocking the way into Turkey.
"There is no life here - the place has died," says Hovik, one of the men passing the empty hours on the icy pavement.
Border villages like Akhurik have been marooned in economic isolation by political disputes. Hovik and his friends used to do business with the Turks, but they still insist that Armenian control over Nagorno-Karabakh is more important than their own hardship.
"Even if it meant that this border would re-open," he says, "there should be no compromises over Nagorno-Karabakh."We will have 165 meetings in 43 countries for our international meetup day on February 6, 2016 at 8PM local time. Hosts have been instructed to wait at the meeting point from 8:00-8:20pm before moving on to the final location. If you arrive at the meeting point at 8:21pm, you will miss the meetup. Arriving on time within the window is absolutely paramount.
To identify your fellow tribesmen, ask the following question to a man you suspect is there for the meetup: “Do you know where I can find a pet shop?” If you are asked this question, answer in the affirmative: “Yes, it’s right here.” You can then introduce yourself and get details about where to proceed at 8:20. If you ask someone for the pet shop and they appear confused or actually try to direct you to a real pet shop, they’re not there for the meetup.
Here is the final list of all meeting points:
United States
Alabama
Birmingham – In front of Ohenry’s coffee shop, downtown Homewood (not the Brookwood Mall Ohenry’s)
Alaska
Anchorage – Elderberry Park, near the Oscar Anderson House, a museum. Meet by the chairs and table. Address: 1297 West Fifth Avenue, Anchorage, Alaska 99501.
Arizona
Phoenix – Meet in front of main entrance of tallest building of Phoenix Plaza (Qwest Tower).
Tucson – Arizona Historical Society (949 E 2nd St, Tucson, AZ 85719). Meet at statue near corner of N Park Ave and E 2nd St. Image.
Arkansas
Little Rock – First Security Amphitheater, 400 President Clinton Ave, Little Rock, AR 72201. Image.
California
Long Beach – Parking lot of Glory Days Sports Bar, Carson Blvd and Woodruff Ave.
Los Angeles – L.A. Live in front of Starbucks entrance. Address: 800 W Olympic Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90015
Newport Beach – The outdoor fountain directly in front of Macy’s department store at Fashion Island. Image.
Orange County – The fountain in front of the Ferris wheel at the Irvine Spectrum Mall.
Palm Springs – Fountain at Mercado Plaza (Palm Canyon Drive)
Redwood City – Parking lot of IHOP. Address: 491 Veterans Blvd, Redwood City, CA 94063
Roseville – Royer Park (the large park on Douglas Blvd), next to the gatling gun statue. Image.
San Diego – Corner of 16th & Broadway, in parking lot of the Goodwill
San Diego (North) – The Village at Pacific Highlands Ranch. Meet in front of The Baked Bear Shop.
San Francisco – Balboa Park Bart station, by the arched exit. Image.
San Leandro – Northwest corner of the intersection of E. 14th St. and Estudillo Av. Meet at the public fountain.
Santa Barbara – Steps of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, located on the corner of State Street and Anapamu Street in downtown Santa Barbara
Sherman Oaks – Sherman Oaks Galleria, between the fountain and Cheesecake Factory entrance. Image. Address: 15301 Ventura Blvd.
Colorado
Boulder – North Boulder Park, beside the shelter. Image.
Denver – In front of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, by the bike rack. Image.
Connecticut
New Haven – World War I Memorial, beside flagpole
Stamford – In the little square on the corner of Franklin St and Broad St. Image.
Florida
Orlando – The Red Chinese Tang pavilion at Lake Eola, beside red pagoda.
Tampa – Curtis Hixon Park, between fountains and grass. Image.
West Palm Beach – Clematis Street Fountains, on the side of North Clematis street
Georgia
Athens – The Arch at the University of Georgia
Atlanta – Piedmont Park, corner of 10th street and Charles Allen Dr by the sign. Image.
Hawaii
Honolulu – Pearl Ridge Downtown, underneath globe sign. Image. Address: 98 – 1005 Moanalua Rd, Aiea, HI 96701
Idaho
Boise – Idaho State Capital Building, 700 W Jefferson St, Boise, ID 83702. Met by the statue of Abraham Lincoln.
Illinois
Chicago – Rogers Park, beside the flagpole. Image. Google Map.
Chicago (Homewood) – Parking lot of Balagio’s. Address: 17501 Dixie Hwy, Hazel Crest, IL 60430.
Iowa
Cedar Rapids – In Sokol Park beside the gazebo. 16th Ave SW
Des Moines – Parking lot of the VA Hospital beside pictured tree. Image. Address: 3600 30th St. Des Moines, IA. 50310
Louisiana
New Orleans – Magazine Street and Lawrence Square, besides the big tree, across the street from 4318 Magazine Street. Image.
Maine
Bangor – Bangor Public Library, in front of main entrance below the stairs (145 Harlow St)
Maryland
Annapolis – Downtown/Historic Annapolis Harbor, Main Street, by the Kunte Kinte memorial statue. Image.
Baltimore – In front of Cross Street Market entrance in Federal Hill
Massachusetts
Boston (North End) – Paul Revere Statue in Paul Revere Mall
Michigan
Ann-Arbor – Nickel’s Arcade in downtown Ann Arbor. Meet at the center column near the entrance off State Street.
Lansing – Lansing River Trail, top of the fish ladder steps. Image.
Macomb County/Clinton Township – The Mall at Partridge Creek. Meet in front of the fountain between Brio Tuscan Grille and P.F. Chang’s. Address: 17420 Hall Rd, Charter Twp of Clinton, MI 48038
Rochester Hills – Elizabeth Park, beside center bush. Image.
Minnesota
Duluth – Leif Erickson Park by the stage. Address: 12th Ave E & London Road, Duluth, MN 55802
Missouri
Kansas City – North side of the World War 1 Museum, on sidewalk directly above monument. Image.
Nevada
Las Vegas – Beside Vegas Vic neon sign on the old strip.
New Hampshire
Portsmouth – In front of main entrance of The North Church. 2 Congress St, Portsmouth, NH 03801
New Jersey
Atlantic City – On the Boardwalk in front of main Taj Mahal entrance
Hoboken – In front of Mulligans Pub underneath the canopy. Address: 159 1st St.
New Mexico
Albuquerque – East side of University Of New Mexico Bookstore. Address: 2301 Central Ave NE, Albuquerque, NM 87106. Image.
New York
New York – St. Catherine’s Park, next to the spiral kids slide. 1245 1st Ave between 67th and 68th st
New York – Washington Square Park under the arch
Rochester – Eastman School of Music, Kilbourn Hall (26 Gibbs St, Rochester, NY 14604), Meet at intersection at Gibbs and Main, where the concert hall entrance is. Image.
Syracuse – Columbus Circle, next to the statue. Address: East Onondaga Street, Syracuse, NY 13202
North Carolina
Charlotte – Romare Bearden Park. Meet by the benches behind the gazebo-like structure on the corner of W Martin Luther King and Church St. Image.
Wilmington – Riverfront Park, across the river from USS North Carolina, beside map kiosk. Image.
Ohio
Cincinnati – I-75 and Sharon road has a large parking lot with a grass field next to a Speedway Gas Station. Meet on the grass.
Oklahoma
Oklahoma City – In front of Harkins Theater at 150 E Reno Ave, Oklahoma City, OK 73104. Image.
Pennsylvania
Harrisburg – Steps of Capitol on the west side. Image.
Philadelphia – Washington Square Park, between 5th and 6th St right off Walnut Street (it is the size of a city block). Meet specifically by the memorial to the Revolutionary War Soldiers eternal flame.
South Carolina
Anderson – The Carolina Wren Park located downtown at 111 E. Whitner St. 29621 in the Pavilion. Meet beside the fountain.
Camden – King Haigler Tower, main entrance. Image. Address: 950 Broad Street, Camden SC 29020
Tennessee
Chattanooga – In front of Dollar General. Image. Address: 5952 E. Brainerd Road
Mount Juliet – Parking lot in front of entrance to Big Star Cigar Lounge. Address: 3384 N Mt. Juliet Road, Suite 1100, Mount Juliet, TN 37122
Nashsville (North) – In front of Baileys in Rivergate Plaza Shopping Mall
Texas
Austin – Palm Park by the stone structure. Image. Address: 711 East 3rd Street, Austin, TX 78701
Dallas – Meet at the old school phone booth In front of British Beverage Company (BBC). Address:
2800 Routh St, Dallas, TX 75201″
2800 Routh St, Dallas, TX 75201″ Denton – Denton Square, beside the little arch. Image. Address: 110 W Hickory St, Denton, TX 76201.
El Paso – 301 W Missouri Ave, El Paso, TX 79901. Meet on corner next to statue of man. Image.
Houston – Near the arch of the Sam Houston Monument, adjacent to Houston Museum of Natural Science (5555 Hermann Park Dr, Houston, TX 77030)
Nederland – By the gazebo in Doornbos Park AKA “Duck Park”. Address: S 24th 1/2 St, Nederland, TX 77627
San Antonio – In front of main door of the Alamo
Utah
Provo – Provo City Center Temple on the corner of University Avenue and Center Street. Meet at circle pathway in front of main entrance.
Salt Lake City – Salt Lake City Library, at the top of the amphitheater. Address: 210 E 400 S. Image.
Virginia
Charlottesville – Lee Park, beside the statue of Lee
Virginia Beach – Mt. Trashmore, at bottom of stairs. Image. Address: 310 Edwin Dr, Virginia Beach, VA 23462
Washington
Everett – Clark Park, next to the gazebo. Address: 2400 Lombard Avenue, Everett, WA 98201.
Seattle – In front of main entrance of Seattle Public Library. 1000 4th Ave, Seattle, WA 98104.
Seattle (North) – Statue of Lenin. Address: Corner of Fremont PI N and N 36th St. Image.
Washington DC
Dupont Circle, on the north side by the Starbucks. Image.
Wisconsin
Kenosha – In front of Brat Stop. Address: 12304 75th St. Kenosha, WI 53142.
La Crosse – The large water fountain at Riverside Park.
Rest Of The World
Australia
Brisbane – In the middle of King George Square in front of City Hall. Image.
Melbourne – In the middle of Federation Square. Image.
Perth – Ocean Beach Hotel on sidewalk. Image.
Sydney – Picnic benches in front of Coogee Pavilion on Coogee Beach
Sydney – Fountain in Hyde Park
Sydney (South) – Brighton Le Sands beach, close to the stairs leading to the local shops. Image.
Austria
Graz – In the dead center of Tummelplatz square
Wien – Museumsquartier, Treppe von Mumok (Stairs of Mumok). Museumsplatz 1, Wien 1010. Meet at bottom of steps.
Bahamas
Nassau – In front of main entrance to Fort Montagu
Belgium
Brussels – Place Royale, 1000 Brussels. Meet beside the statue. Image.
Bulgaria
Sofia – Statue of Saint Sofia. Map
Cambodia
Phnom Penh – The royal palace in front of main entrance. Meet at the bottom of the steps.
Canada
Calgary – The CORE Shopping Center, in front of Starbucks
Edmonton – Churchill Square, to the left of “Tix On The Square”. Image.
Montreal – Palais des Congrès, 1001 Place Jean-Paul-Riopelle, in between the pink trees (indoors). Image.
Ottawa – Right inside the front doors of the Arts Court Building (a former county courthouse). Address: Arts Court, 2 Daly Ave. Streetview
Surrey – City Central Mall, north entrance, in front of Blenz Coffee. Image.
Toronto – Edward VII Statue in the center of Queens Park
Vancouver – Vancouver Central Library, south side on Robson Street at library steps. Image. Address: 350 W. Georgia St.
Victoria – BC Legislature War Memorial. Image.
Windsor – The Burt Weeks Memorial Gardens, on mini-pier. Image. Homepage.
Winnipeg – The fireplace at St. Vital Mall right beside the entrance to Chapters
Chile
Santiago – Plaza Italia, next to the statue
China
Shanghai – People’s Square Exit 1, street-side, left corner. Image.
Colombia
Bogota – In the center of Parque de Usaquen
Czech Republic
Prague – Republic Square.
Finland
Helsinki – Kolmen sepän patsas (Three Smiths statue) in Helsinki next to Stockmann department store. Google Map.
France
Nantes – Crossing of Rue du Chateau and Rue Mathelin Rodier. In front of the main entrance of the castle is a little square with a statue of Anne de Bretagne. Meet beside the statue. Image.
Paris – Place de la République, beside the lion statue. Image.
Germany
Aachen – In the center point of Katschhof
Berlin – In front of main entrance to Cafe Lichtburg. Behmstrasse, 13357 Berlin. Map.
Frankfurt am Main – Bank entrance of Frankfurt Dome / Frankfurter Dom, in front of the souvenir shop with the red sign. Image
Hamburg – Hamburg Rathaus, in front of the main entrance
Munchen – München Olympiazentrum, BMW Welt, main entrance. Image 1. Image 2.
Nurnberg – Willy-Brandt-Denkmal (monument) at the Willy-Brandt-Platz, next to statue. Image.
Würzburg – Warriors Memorial near the Wurzburg Residence. Image.
Hong Kong
In front of Joe Banana’s Bar in Wan Chai on Hong Kong Island (Jaffe Road and Laurd Road).
Iceland
Reykjavik – Leif Ericsson statue in Hallgrímstorg Church
India
Mumbai – D-mart in Powai, beside the tree by the main entrance. Image. Google Map.
Iran
Tehran – Niavaran Park, Tehran. Meet at the eastern side of the main fountain in front of the ice cream shop.
Ireland
Naas – In front of main entrance of Naas Courthouse
Israel
Tel Aviv – In front of the main entrance to Sarona Market
Italy
Bari – Parco 2 Giugno, in front of main entrance on Viale Einaudi. Image.
Reggio calabria – Museo Nazionale, in front of main entrance. Image.
Rome – At the Spanish Steps, in front of the Montcler store, at the corner of Via Condotti. Image.
Japan
Osaka – Next to the KFC beside HEP 5 shopping mall. Address: 6-15 Kakudacho, Kita Ward, Osaka, Osaka Prefecture 530-0017, Japan. Image.
Tokyo – Ebisu Garden Place Glass Square, beside glass structure
Mexico
Mexico City – Beside Kiosko de Coyoacan. Image.
Morocco
Settat – Horse Fountain. Image. Google Map.
Nepal
Kathmandu – Patan Durbar Square, between the two tall columns. Image.
Netherlands
Amsterdam – The center of ”Spui”, a square, meeting in front of the ”Maagdenhuis”. Image.
Utrecht – Center of Neude Square
New Zealand
Auckland – Aotea Square on Queen Street, next to the industrial statue
Dunedin – In front of of Dunedin Town Hall at archway below the steps. Image.
Wellington – Glover Park, in front of “The Rogue & The Vagabond” under the minarets art sculpture.
Philippines
Manila – Greenbelt mall beside the R-letter pedestal at the entrance near the Hermes store. Image 1, Image 2.
Poland
Gdansk – At Fontanna Neptuna
Katowice – Spodek (Saucer) in Katowice. Address: ul. Korfantego 35
Warsaw – In front of Starbucks across from the Mariott Hotel. Image.
Wroclaw – In the middle of Plac Solny (“Salt Square”/Flower Market), beside the Iglica (needle) statue. Stare Miasto 50-061/50-062, Wroclaw.
Portugal
Lisbon – Restauradores – Monument to the Restorers, in front of the obelisk, near Hard Rock Cafe Lisboa. Image.
Romania
Bucharest – Piata Universitatii – Fantana. Image.
Russia
Novosibirsk – Next to the statue of Vladimir Lenin on Lenin Square
Serbia
Belgrade – Trg Republike, in front of horse statue
Singapore
Singapore – Fort Canning Park, Dhoby Ghaut, underneath big arch. Image.
Slovenia
Ljubljana – “The Illyrian Provinces Monument” (Ilirski steber) at the “French Revolution Square” (Trg Francoske revolucije)
South Korea
Seoul – In front of Bosingak Belfry. Jonggak station, subway line 1, exit 4.
Spain
Barcelona – Underneath Arc de Triomf monument
Granada – In front of Granada Cathedral
Sweden
Stockholm – Medborgarplatsen, in front of first glass structure. Image.
Switzerland
Basel – Baarfuesserplatz Tram Stop, by the tall pole. Image.
Taiwan
Taipei – On Tap Pub, in front of main entrance. Address: No. 21, Alley 11, Lane 216, Section 4, Zhongxiao E Rd, Da’an District, Taipei City, 106
Thailand
Bangkok – In front of Starbucks Terminal 21
United Arab Emirates
Dubai – Dubai Mall, in front of Tim Horton. Image.
United Kingdom
Cardiff – Beside female statue in front of Hilton Cardiff on Friary Road. Image.
Edinburgh – Covenanter’s Memorial in Grassmarket
Glasgow – George Square. Meet by the tall obelisk statue.
Leeds – The center of Millenium Square
London – Royal Airforce Bomber Command Memorial, Green Park (Hyde Park Corner side)
London – In front of Royal Exchange beside horseman statue (outside “Bank” tube station)
Manchester – In front of the main entrance to Sinclair’s Oyster Pub
Newcastle – Beside Grey’s monument
Shrewsbury – Frankwell car park, bottom of the pedestrian walkway. Image.
I will be attending one of the above meetups. If you have questions about the protocol or meeting locations, ask them below. I will put up a more detailed FAQ next week.An ultra-light unmanned aircraft, powered by solar energy and designed for military surveillance, has landed after setting a record - two weeks - for the longest unmanned flight.
British-based defence technology firm QinetiQ said its 22.5-metre-long (74-foot) Zephyr, weighing just |
Board of the institution in question.”The great antifascist scholar Ludwig von Mises warned that government schools are an inevitable source of ethnic conflict, because dominant nationalities can use them to indoctrinate children from other cultures, pulling them away from their parents and communities. In Canada, this was explicitly the aim of the Indian residential schools, which sought to "kill the Indian in the child."
The Canadian government began the schooling of aboriginal children in earnest by setting up the residential-school program in 1883. The goal was to take kids away from their disobedient, barbarian parents and make them into submissive, civilized British subjects.
By the time the last of the Indian residential schools closed its doors in 1996, they were infamous for rock-bottom standards of education and sky-high rates of physical and sexual assault against children.
But the source of the brutality in residential schools was essentially the same as that of other public schools in multicultural states. Mises, an Austrian Jew, was probably thinking about the ethnic strife in his homeland when he wrote,
In those extensive areas in which peoples speaking different languages live together side by side … [t]he school can alienate children from the nationality to which their parents belong.… Whoever controls the schools has the power to injure other nationalities and to benefit his own. (Liberalism, p. 114)
In Canada, the cultural gulf between the ruling English, French, and Scottish cultures and the dozens of subjugated aboriginal cultures was exceptionally wide. Many Europeans believed it was their own destiny to dominate this wild land, and the natives' destiny to disappear or assimilate. But the natives were not going away quietly.
In 1886, one year after armed Métis and Cree uprisings in the western prairies, Indian-school inspector John McRae remarked, "It is unlikely that any Tribe or tribes would give trouble of a serious nature to the Government whose members had children completely under Government control."
Come for the Food. Stay for the Shackles.
The state hired clergymen to run the schools (partly because they were cheap to hire), and as a result many former students identify their awful experiences with missionary Christianity rather than with coercive government. Certainly, many supposedly Christian teachers in the residential schools have foul crimes to answer for.
But the state appointed the principals; it built the schools; it paid for the system. Most importantly, the state corralled the children through the school doors.
The government schools were compulsory for all Indians under age 16. State agents enforced this rule only sporadically at first, but the government had other methods of persuasion.
Most aboriginal people in Canada were by the late 1800s subject to massive state regulation. The state confined them to reserves and forbade them to sell any produce to non-Indians without written permission from a government "Indian agent." Aboriginal people also could not (and in most cases still cannot) privately own any real estate on the reserves.
There is no liberty without economic liberty. Some aboriginal parents wanted their children to get a Western education. But because they were economically trapped in reserve life, such parents couldn't travel around, much less shop around for good options. They were stuck with the monopoly provider, the residential schools.
In other cases, families were simply starving because of the socialistic control of their lives. They figured that at school their children would at least be well fed.
Still other parents kept their kids out of the government officials' hands however they could. One girl remembers that her father "sent me to hide in the woods. He told the Indian agent I wasn't home, which was true. I was hiding in a hollow stump."
The schools themselves were often located many miles from any child's reserve, partly to save costs by operating at central locations and partly to make running away difficult. Several children died trying to make it back home through the wilderness.
When the teachers caught a runaway, they might horsewhip him in front of the other students as an example. Or the teachers might lock him in solitary confinement for days, or simply chain him to his bed at night.
One father who travelled to visit his daughter at school saw a girl with her legs shackled together to keep her from getting up enough speed to escape.
Reeducation
In his introduction to Separating School and State, Misesian scholar Richard Ebeling wrote of public schools in general that
The parent has been viewed — and still is viewed — as a backward and harmful influence in the formative years of the child's upbringing, an influence that must be corrected for.… The public school, therefore, is a "reeducation camp." (p. xiv)
In the residential schools, reeducation was taken to its logical extreme. The teachers believed that every aspect of an aboriginal child's upbringing was a threat to his chances of becoming a loyal British subject.
Most of the cultures these kids were being snatched from were largely anarchic, voluntary societies. There was warfare, but no conscription. There was trade, but no taxation. There were leaders, but no rulers.
There were elders to give advice, but there were no kings or presidents to give commands. Each man and woman decided for himself what to do each day.
Traditionally, the whole point of a child's education in such a culture was to prepare him to make smart decisions on his own to help his family survive and grow. For Cree hunters of the boreal forests, for example, the most challenging moments in a man's economic life came when he was stalking an animal in the bush, with no one around for miles to tell him where to go or what to do next.
So these cultures' methods of education prepared kids to be radically independent. Parents almost never used corporal punishment. They taught children to handle their own emotions and make their own decisions.
No wonder the government teachers thought these people were unruly savages. They had never learned to obey.
The famous Indian Affairs bureaucrat and poet Duncan Campbell Scott worried that "without education and with neglect the Indians would produce an undesirable and often dangerous element in society."
To neutralize this dangerous element, the residential-school teachers set out to destroy every symbol of a child's membership in his home culture. Teachers cut off the children's long, braided hair and confiscated their furs and beads. They dressed all their pupils in school uniforms instead.
The following before-and-after pictures of the Cree pupil "Thomas Moore" (ca. 1897) show the intended transition from threatening savage to obedient student.
Yes, in the "before" picture, he is carrying a revolver.
The teachers also took away the names that parents had given their children, and called them by new names, ones the teachers could pronounce. (In some schools, they simply used numbers instead.) And teachers used the strap or worse on any child who spoke a word in his native tongue — often the only language he knew.
Indeed, the school staff used corporal punishment for almost every conceivable offense. One Indian agent remarked in 1896 that the teachers' violent methods "would not be tolerated in a white school for a single day in any part of Canada."
But the children of savages needed to learn what it meant to obey under threat of force. They now entered a world of total control: the teachers told them, as one former pupil said,
when to go to the bathroom, when to eat, when to do this and that, when to pray. We were even told when to yawn and cough. Children can't help themselves when they cough, but we were told, "Stop your barking!"
These schools were meant to irrevocably separate each child from his family's culture. One student, Charlie Bigknife,
recalled being told, after his hair had been sheared off at the File Hills school in Saskatchewan, "Now you are no longer an Indian."
On top of all this, teachers — and older students who had already been warped by the schools — sexually abused many, many boys and girls. The victims' shame and confusion only compounded the psychological attack on their identities.
"This Must Never Happen Again"
Students devised elaborate means of resistance. They used sign languages to communicate with each other, staged raids on the kitchens to steal the teachers' superior food, banded together to protect themselves from abuse, tried repeatedly to escape, and sometimes even set fire to the schools.
But in the end, the residential schools were often successful in crippling their pupils' ability to function in their parents' cultures. Forbidden to speak their home languages for ten months at a time, children often found when they came home for the summer that they couldn't understand their parents or elders, nor could they explain what had happened at school. The children also hadn't learned any of the skills they needed to succeed economically or socially or even emotionally in their parents' communities.
In Canada, this is how the West was won.
For many children, the schools also failed to give them the skills that could have helped them function in the mainstream Canadian economy (even if all the regulations on Indian life had been repealed). Unsurprisingly, as a monopoly provider to an incarcerated population, the school system maintained very, very low standards of education. The abuse, the isolation, and the lack of real education left many graduates unable to be healthy members of any society.
It is fashionable now in Canada to say that the main cause of this nightmare was the racist European belief in Indian inferiority. That is a comforting thought; explicit racism has been in retreat for much of the last century.
But the real danger remains. So long as I have the power to take your children away from you for ten months of the year, teaching them what I believe and treating them how I see fit, you and your way of life can never be safe. If you have that power over my children instead, then I and my traditions can never be safe.
As Mises taught us,
In all areas of mixed nationality, the school is a political prize of the highest importance. It cannot be deprived of its political character as long as it remains a public and compulsory institution. (Liberalism, p. 115)
The Canadian government's recent Truth and Reconciliation Commission report on these horrific schools concludes, "This must never happen again."
The best way to ensure it does not is to heed the words of Mises:WASHINGTON-- In a television interview with WCPO Cincinnati, Republican vice presidential candidate Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) directly contradicted an Associated Press report that said he had sought stimulus funds for his congressional district, while at the same time publicly decrying the bill as a "wasteful spending spree."
"No, I never asked for stimulus," Ryan said when questioned on reports that he had sought funds.
Ryan's statement directly counters the evidence of four letters obtained by the AP which the congressman wrote to Energy Secretary Steven Chu, praising energy programs supported by the stimulus and requesting funds for initiatives in his district.
Ryan's private praise for Department of Energy programs and his written requests for stimulus funds contradict not only his public criticism of the 2009 stimulus bill, but also many of the budget priorities he has laid out, including cuts to investments in green technologies.
The Boston Globe reported that in 2010, after writing several letters to federal departments requesting stimulus funds for his district, Ryan told a caller on Boston talk radio show WBZ Nightside with Dan Rea that he would never vote against the stimulus bill and "then write to the government to ask them to send us money."
Ryan went on to state that he "did not request any stimulus money."
Raising further questions about the vice presidential candidate's claim today that he never sought stimulus money, Ryan spokesman Brendan Buck referred AP to previous explanations by the congressman's office that by requesting funds Ryan was simply "providing a legitimate constituent service."
"If Congressman Ryan is asked to help a Wisconsin entity applying for existing federal grant funds, he does not believe flawed policy should get in the way of doing his job," Ryan's office said when first asked about the funding requests by the Wall Street Journal in 2010.
UPDATE: 11:59 p.m. --
Ryan responded Thursday night with a statement that said the letters "should have been handled differently."
"After having these letters called to my attention I checked into them, and they were treated as constituent service requests in the same way matters involving Social Security or Veterans Affairs are handled," Ryan said in the statement.CLOSE Colorado State senior quarterback Nick Stevens admitted a 59-52 overtime loss was the toughest loss of his Rams career. Kevin Lytle
CSU coach Mike Bobo and his players lower their heads while the band plays the school's fight song early Sunday morning following an overtime loss to Boise State. (Photo: Timothy Hurst/Staff Photographer)
Rashaad Boddie’s fumble in overtime will be remembered as the play that cost CSU’s football team a win late Saturday night over Boise State.
A program-changing win, at that.
But, as coach Mike Bobo said afterward, there were dozens of plays — “50 plays, maybe” that could have changed the outcome.
And the Rams, for the second week in a row, couldn’t make the one they needed to win, losing 59-52 in overtime in a game that didn’t end until 12:55 a.m. Sunday morning.
Boddie, a redshirt freshman filling in for an injured Dalyn Dawkins, had the ball ripped out of his hands by linebacker Leighton Vander Esch while gaining a first down at the Boise State 3-yard line. Cornerback Tyler Horton recovered, giving Boise State (8-2, 6-0 Mountain West) the most unlikely of victories.
Colorado State University scored touchdowns on its first five possessions, led 28-3 early in the second quarter, 35-17 at halftime and 52-38 with 3:02 remaining.
And still, the Rams (6-4, 4-3 Mountain West) couldn’t win.
They allowed two touchdowns in 44 seconds in the final minutes, thanks to a perfectly executed onside kick between the two scores that receiver Cedrick Wilson recovered while running down the sideline.
Live Recap: CSU football collapses, loses in overtime to Boise State
The second of those touchdowns, a 6-yard pass from Brett Rypien to tight end Jake Roh, tied the game with 57 seconds left. The Broncos then got the ball first in overtime, scoring a touchdown on a 4-yard run by Alexander Mattison.
CSU was trying to answer when Boddie coughed up the ball after picking up the 2 yards he needed for what would have been a first down inside the Boise State 3.
Instead, it was the final play of another gut-wrenching loss for the Rams, who led most of the game a week earlier before losing 16-13 to Border War rival Wyoming.
That loss basically eliminated the Rams from contention for the Mountain West’s Mountain Division title. This one ripped their hearts out.
“This week and last week definitely hurt a lot,” senior center Jake Bennett said. “I mean, we’ve got a two-score lead and a chance to really close it out there, and we let it happen. And then we get into overtime, offensively, we’ve got a chance to tie it up, and we let it slip away again.”
It was the third straight loss for the Rams, who had won four in a row before that in league play to get to 6-2 overall.
Maybe that’s why Bobo said he felt like his players were “hoping to win” instead of “believing and trying to hold on.”
A CSU team that found ways to win close games earlier this year at home against Nevada and on the road at New Mexico is finding ways to lose them now.
From The Game: Larry Eustachy sings "Sweet Caroline" with students
Quarterback Nick Stevens threw for 309 yards and two touchdowns, overtaking Garrett Grayson as the school’s all-time leader in touchdown passes with 65, while leading an offense that put up 570 yards and 52 points – 28 more than any other Boise State opponent has scored in regulation this season.
Dawkins ran for 161 yards and two touchdowns on 32 carries before suffering an unspecified injury, and star receiver Michael Gallup had 102 receiving yards and one touchdown on 11 catches.
That should have been enough. More than enough, even.
But it wasn’t.
Rypien threw for 331 yards and four touchdowns for Boise State and Mattison ran for 242 yards and three TDs on 23 carries. Roh caught two touchdown passes for the Broncos, who hold a one-game lead and tie-breaker edge over Wyoming in the race for the Mountain Division title with three regular-season games remaining.
Three weeks ago, CSU had the chance to control its destiny like that. Now, the Rams need to beat lowly San Jose State (1-10, 0-6) at home next Saturday simply to have a winning record in league play and match the seven regular-season victories they had in Bobo’s first two seasons as coach.
It wasn’t just Boddie who fumbled away a season that held so much promise. It was the entire team, coaches included, Bobo said.
“You’re going to look back, and there’s a million plays in my head right now that were opportunites for us to finish the game, and we couldn’t finish,” Bobo said. “… We’ve got to be able to make that play, which we didn’t tonight.
“We made a lot of them, we just didn’t make enough.”
The Rams won a lot of games this season, too. But they haven’t won enough.
Follow reporter Kelly Lyell at twitter.com/KellyLyell and facebook.com/KellyLyell.news and listen to him talk CSU sports at 11:35 a.m. Thursdays on KFKA radio (AM 1310).'This artist flagged risks across the board': Eminem is banned from performing in Hyde Park due to 'offensive' lyrics
E minem has been banned from performing at a summer festival because of his ‘offensive’ and ‘unsuitable’ lyrics.
Bosses at Royal Parks, who run Hyde Park, are said to have rejected the 41-year-old rapper due to the content of his songs, which have been slammed as both misogynistic and homophobic.
The Mirror reports that London Mayor Boris Johnson was even asked to veto the decision but his office said they did not know who the singer was.
Controversial: Eminem (seen performing at the 2014 MTV Movie Awards, Los Angeles) has reportedly been banned from performing in Hyde Park due to his 'offensive' lyrics
The correspondence in a series of emails and letters was revealed following a Freedom of Information request by the Mirror.
Promoters AEG are believed to have arranged for the star to perform at the British Summer Time festival this month.
But Royal Parks complained that his performance could upset other park users.
In demand: The singer has revealed that he will perform at sold-out Wembley concerts instead of Hyde Park
Royal Parks CEO Linda Lennon wrote in an email: ‘This artist flagged risks across the board. In particular in respect of our public reputation.’
She added that there was a risk of the offensive lyrics being heard in surrounding residential areas.
Boris Johnson’s chief of staff Sir Edward Lister said: ‘Until receipt of both emails I had no knowledge of Eminem and his style of music and still do not.’
'Risk': Organisers of the Hyde Park summer festival reportedly believed that the rapper's lyrics could cause offense
AEG’s Jim King had argued that he was not aware of the performer being banned from performing in any other location.
He also said that he doubted how far any offensive lyrics would be heard outside of the park.
He admitted that while there would be some ‘industrial language...only a very small amount of his repertoire has been deemed by some commentators to be controversial. Claims of homophobia are consistently denied.’
The July 3 festival will be opened by Arcade Fire and will include Black Sabbath, the Libertines, Tom Jones, and McBusted. Arcade Fire opens the festival on July 3.
But Eminem will instead play sold-out concerts at Wembley Stadium on July 11 and 12.Dead Island: Riptide isn’t just one of the most tastefully marketed games of 2013, it’s also the semi-sequel to one of the best-selling games of the last couple of years. Yes, Dead Island was an absolute smash hit, because everyone wants an open-world zombie survival game. Or wanted, at least. Hmm.
Here’s wot I think.
Dead Island: Riptide is some more Dead Island. How much more? About the same again. It gives you another character (and the characters from the original), and plays out the whole silly drama again on the next-door island. After the obligatory linear tutorial bit, which is set on a sinking ship this time, you head off into a tropical paradise full of reanimated rotting cadavers. Videogames!
I had a lot of fun with the original Dead Island, even though the entire thing was clearly ridiculous, and did little to shore up its own credibility. There are plenty of commendable notions in there, giving us the kind of game that we’ve come to demand over the years: a great big open-world structure, broken up into various levels, upgradeable equipment, lots of melee-heavy work, exploration, gathering of all kinds of junk to survive, and a mix of linear mission stuff with the general open-ended questing of the rest of the game. While there are issues with all aspects of that, as a loose skeleton for a game, it’s a broad and handsome one. Techland’s Chrome engine handles it all with some fancy visuals, too.
The issues with the original game came along two lines: firstly there were the bugs. It was riddled with broken things, some of which were patched up later, but many of which were left hanging out, like the intestines of an unfortunate tourist. Then there was the mad lack of logic with regards to anything in the game systems. If you paid thousands of dollars to fix a baseball bat, you’ll recall the sort of thing I mean.
Riptide seems to address the first of these issues fairly well. Aside from a couple of odd glitches, I found the game to be in a fairly polished state. I imagine this is because it was so heavily scaffolded by work on the original game that they had little trouble in putting a few extra lines of code in there to fix the creaky bits. So that’s reassuring.
As for the logic of the rest of the game, well, it remains in the realm of design that does not seem to give a damn about consistency. And okay, I get it, this game is really an excuse to indulge your desire to explore an island and club undead things to death – preferably with a bunch of friends – and this provides that (I want to stress that I REALLY like the overall island design, and exploring it on foot, in a car, or on a boat, is a pleasure). But there’s still the nagging feeling that the designers probably could have got around that thing were you need a blueprint to “upgrade” a baseball bat by putting nails through it. Or that thing were an NPC wants to sell you an energy drink for $3534. Or, indeed, the reality-warping discomfort of you selling them a stick you found in the same room for $100. It’s all artifice, I know. We don’t have walking magic shop people in the real world, we don’t have zombie invasions in the real world… but there must have been a better way to do this.
Then there’s the lack of flair in character design, quest design and, well, pretty much everything outside the environmental work. The game just doesn’t have enough life or colour to keep you interested in its setting. Even the capacity of the new guy to kick baddies as if he had a third leg made of pneumatic donkey doesn’t do it for me.
It’s better with other people in the game, yes. It goes from being a grim solitary skull-thumper to something entirely more manic, something with possibilities for working together against groups of zombies in a way that I can’t recollect in other games. But it still didn’t keep me bobbing up over the threshold of the truly interested.
The fundamental, bone-breaking problem I have with Riptide, then, is that while it’s arguably more polished than its progenitor, it does nothing to fix the shambling design issues that gnawed at our ankles the first time round. I’ve outlined some of those, but there’s also the issue of the poor writing, and the general lack of imagination. Technically it’s very close to be one of the great. Conceptually it’s very close to being one of the greats. The design really only falls a few yards outside the great Venn Diagram circle of greatness. But that’s far enough. The net result of all this is a game that cannot win on any front. Even the combat makes me wonder about how much better it could have been. Does it really make sense to take that long to get up? Should upgraded cleavers really better than shotguns? Hmm.
Dead Island: Riptide carries a mysterious virus that it is tough to cure: boringness. It’s a virus that it and its predecessor will no doubt transmit to other games, thanks to being so successful. Game designers will assume that This Is What They Want, and make more of its like. But I’ve killed a lot of zombies in my time, and this was no highlight in the struggle against the digital dead. I could say this in more flowery ways, and I could spend more time glossing over the bones of it, but in all honesty I feel like there’s so much else humankind needs to play. There’s so much else you could spend your money on. Yes, zombie slaughter is quite funny, and better with friends, but this game is not enough. Perhaps it never was.
And a score? I give this expandalone One Flimsy Hacksaw Blade Out A Decomposing Human Nostril. And not a micro-percentage point more.Fei-Fei Li, chief scientist of artificial intelligence and machine learning at Google Cloud, came on stage at Google’s Next Cloud conference today to talk about the current and next-generation applications of AI that Google’s working on. These technologies will make a difference in self-driving cars and healthcare, sure, but also Snapchat’s filters and Google Photos’ search capabilities. But the big highlight came when she announced a new way to allow software to parse video.
This new “Video Intelligence API” was demoed onstage, and it offered the kind of “whoa” moment you expect from a Google keynote. By playing a short commercial, the API was able to identify the dachshund in the video, when it appeared in the video, and then understand that the whole thing was a commercial. In another demo, we saw a simple search for “beach” and was able to find videos which had scenes from beaches in them, complete with timestamps. That’s similar to how Google Photos lets you search for “sunset” and pull up your best late-day snapshots.
Before now, computers couldn’t really understand the content of a video directly without manual tagging. “We are beginning to shine light on the dark matter of the digital universe,” Li said. At least in Google’s demo, it was genuinely impressive. And Google is making the API available to developers, just as it has with its other machine learning APIs.
The demo came near the end of a long keynote about Google’s attempt to convince everybody that it’s a serious player in the cloud services game. To signal its investment in this business, Google brought out the big guns: SVP of Google Cloud Diane Greene spoke, of course, alongside CEO Sundar Pichai and Alphabet’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt.
“We’re beginning to shine light on the dark matter of the digital universe.”
The keynote today wasn’t exactly a barn burner. It’s apparently impossible for anybody to talk about cloud services and machine learning without resorting to vague platitudes. Even if this isn’t an event meant for consumers, it was remarkably light on specifics about Google’s services. Verizon, HSBC, eBay, Home Depot, Disney, Colgate-Palmolive, and SAP also spoke about their partnerships with Google — alternately in glittering generalities and arcane enterprise software acronyms.
The big question is whether Google’s splashy attempt to make the case that it can play on equal terms with Amazon and Microsoft will move the needle at all. As The Wall Street Journal notes, Google is significantly behind those two competitors, even though its technology is competitive. Basically, the companies Google needs to woo are all already engaged in longstanding partnerships with another cloud provider. As Dave Bartoletti, principal analyst at Forrester Research, told the Journal: “They’re not invited to the party enough.”
But if Google can find practical applications for whiz-bang features like the Video API demo it showed today, it might find itself allowed into the next soirée.Facebook Twitter Google+ LinkedIn
I’ve been thinking about how to teach monetary economics from the beginning. Perhaps before people start learning, they need to unlearn things they believe, that just ain’t so. We market monetarists believe that monetary shocks (or “disequilibrium” if you prefer) is the primary cause of business cycles, indeed almost the only cause of big swings in unemployment.
Most people don’t believe this; indeed it’s not even clear that most economists believe this. Instead the average person thinks recessions are caused by big real shocks, or financial shocks, of one sort or another. Asset bubbles bursting, 9/11, stock market crashes, devastating natural disasters, etc.
It’s surprisingly easy to dispose of these real theories. We know that 9/11 didn’t cause the 2001 recession, because the recovery started just 2 months later. The biggest stock market crash in my life was 1987, which was almost identical to 1929, including the subsequent stock price rebound. The biggest natural disaster to hit a rich country in my lifetime was the 2011 Japanese earthquake/tsunami/nuclear meltdown, which killed tens of thousands of people, devastated a sizable area of Japan, and caused their entire nuclear industry (25% of total electrical output) to shutdown for more than a year (causing brownouts.)
The next two graphs show the US unemployment rate from 2 years before the October 1987 crash to 2 years after, and the Japan’s unemployment since January 2009 (the tsunami was March 2011):
What do you see? Nothing!!! I’m tempted to say “real shocks don’t matter.” But that would be incredibly insensitive for 9/11, or the tsunami that killed nearly 30,000 Japanese people. One could argue that nothing mattered more to these two countries, in 2001 and 2011. The stock crash wasn’t as traumatic, but certainly impacted people’s lives and outlook.
But these real shocks don’t matter (very much) for business cycles. The tsunami did cause a temporary dip in industrial output, but nothing severe enough to constitute a recession. However when you turn your attention to the labor market you can really see how little real shocks matter. Real shocks do not cause big jumps in unemployment. Period, end of story. Even I’m surprised by this fact, but it is evidently true. Recessions are caused by unstable NGDP, which is in turn caused by unstable monetary policy (by definition, as stable NGDP growth is my definition of a stable monetary policy–and Ben Bernanke’s too.) But it’s not a tautology that the recessions themselves are caused by monetary policy, indeed it’s surprisingly difficult to explain why NGDP instability causes unemployment to fluctuate so much. Especially when the NGDP shocks are caused by rather obvious changes in monetary policy, rather than “errors of omission.”
Another example is January 2006 to April 2008, when housing construction in the US collapsed, falling by 50%. What happened to unemployment? It rose from 4.7% to 4.9%. The worst clearly non-monetary shock in my lifetime was the nationwide steel strike of 1959, which caused unemployment to rise by 0.8%. But the smallest recession in my lifetime was 1980, where unemployment rose by 2.2%. The steel strike ended quickly and unemployment fell back down to where it was before the strike. (The two 1970s oil shocks are debatable.)
We’ve seen that most people, and even some economists, grossly overestimate the importance of real shocks in the business cycle. On the other hand most people, and some economists, grossly underestimate the importance of monetary shocks. Now that we’ve disabused everyone of the notion that non-monetary shocks cause recessions, it’s time to move on the to real cause (pun intended) of business cycles—monetary policy. In a future post.
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This entry was posted on March 16th, 2013 and is filed under Monetary Theory. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.The other day I received two e-mails over the course of an hour announcing radically different information about pesticides. The first, a press release from the Environmental Working Group, listed the “dirty dozen” fruits and vegetables—that is, those with the highest “pesticide load”—and argued that the ingestion of even trace amounts of pesticides could cause “lasting damage to human health.” The second e-mail, from the Crop Life Foundation, declared that insecticides “play a key role in maintaining the high quality of processed and fresh food.” Without them, it explained, half of all American crops would succumb to pests and disease. Those of us who don’t subscribe to either of these polarized views are left with a simple question: At what point do the risks posed by the chemicals outweigh the benefits of the fruits and vegetables they help protect?
Do pesticides promote “plant health”?
There’s no easy answer, but for the last half-century, scientists and farmers have pursued a compromise through integrated pest management. That program relies on pesticides as one tool to protect crops among many others, including diversification, the encouragement of beneficial insects, and the practice of rotational schemes. This effort to minimize pesticide use represents one of the quieter environmental accomplishments of the last generation. But a recent and seemingly mundane decision over agricultural product labeling may undermine the message that we should be spraying fewer chemicals on our plants.
In January, just before the end of the Bush administration, the Environmental Protection Agency allowed an unprecedented change in the marketing of a popular soy and corn fungicide called Headline. (The active ingredient in Headline, pyraclostrobin, has been widely used in the United States for only the past few years.) Until this year, the German company that manufactures Headline, BASF, had marketed the product under a typical label listing ingredients and applications. The pesticide, said the company, could be used to improve the health of plants by warding off specific diseases. Then, in 2008, BASF asked for permission to issue a much bolder set of claims: A supplemental “Plant Health Label” would assert that Headline could improve crop yields and stress tolerance irrespective of the fungus it’s designed to attack.
(A government-approved label for a commercial pesticide is a binding legal document that dictates what marketing claims the manufacturer can make in print. It tends to include spraying instructions, targeted crops and diseases, and whatever precautionary measures should be taken while using it.)
BASF, along with other pesticide manufacturers, has for a long time asserted certain “plant health benefits” on its product labels. That claim merely reiterates the obvious point that since diseases and pests can weaken plants, pesticides foster healthier plants by protecting against those threats. The new label approved by the EPA, however, will substantially change the meaning of “plant health.” Now it’s a distinct marketing claim and a promise that the pesticide will confer “host plant tolerance to yield-robbing environmental stresses,” including drought, ice, and other conditions precipitated by global warming. The revised label will also suggest that Headline can increase yields, stalk strength, straw resilience, and seed quality—even in the absence of any dangerous fungi. As a result, we can expect to see farmers spraying the chemical more aggressively in the hopes of cashing in on these benefits.
But there’s little scientific evidence to support the broader plant-health claims. A 2004 study in the journal Plant Disease found that otherwise healthy soybeans treated with pyraclostrobin produced weaker seeds than untreated plants. Further studies have shown that the application of pyraclostrobin under nondisease conditions actually reduces crop yields. And increased spraying is likely to promote widespread fungicide resistance. Farmers already treat more than 80 million acres of soy and corn with Headline. Any significant increase in that usage will invite spider mite outbreaks and kill off beneficial as well as dangerous fungi. Nothing could be more contrary to the ethic of integrated pest management.
Farmers are just as skeptical as the rest of us when it comes to product advertising. But they may not realize how little it means for the government to approve a pesticide label. It’s not unreasonable to assume that whatever claims show up there have received the considered approval of the EPA. In fact, the agency is required to test only for toxicity, not efficacy. In other words, government regulators look at how harmful the product might be to human health, but they can ignore the question of whether it does what it’s supposed to do for plants. Because farmers have little insight into this bureaucratic fine point, they’re apt to trust unverified manufacturer claims. Looking at the new “plant health” label approved for Headline, farmers might reasonably assume that the fungicide had been proven to make the landscape bloom in the face of wind, sleet, snow, and drought. In fact, the EPA never even considered the question.
In light of these concerns, 22 of the nation’s leading plant pathologists wrote a letter to the EPA in February registering their strong disapproval with its Headline decision. These angry scientists are not extremists. They make it clear that they support the use of fungicides to rein in disease. But the new label, they contend, undermines their role as advocates for integrated pest management and sabotages state-sponsored programs to help farmers moderate the use of chemical pest control. Furthermore, the pathologists write, the undocumented claims on the new label will lead to massive applications of a potent chemical agent on land where “disease pressure is very low, or non-existent.” Worst of all, it “opens the floodgates for manufacturers of similar products to follow suit.”
Michelle Obama’s White House garden might be free of synthetic chemicals, but the vast majority of agriculture in the United States is not. Given the prevalence of chemical dependency on American farms, it is critical that this last-ditch labeling decision from the Bush administration be changed. The solution is twofold: First, the EPA should reverse course and reject the new Headline label, as well as any other that makes overreaching claims about a pesticide. (The weather is not a pest.) Second, the agency should demand proof of efficacy upfront, rather than waiting for farmers to evaluate it for themselves after the product has already been sprayed. Anything less, and we’re likely to see a major increase in the use of pesticides across the board.
In the meantime, BASF is thrilled to have the new label. In fact, according to |
, it should be. Again, as reported by Rick Sinnott, Eklutna Glacier lost 23 percent of its volume between 1957 and 2009, enough water to fill the lake 2.4 times. Dr. Michael Loso, an APU Associate Professor of Earth Sciences, presented some of his data at an Anchorage Science Pub presentation in December. Unlike in Las Vegas, where water issues have been setting off alarms for decades, Loso suggests that Anchorage merely pay close attention to the status of Eklutna Glacier. Long-term, the cost of water could increase and limits on usage could be put in place similar to the warmer parts of the Lower 48.
The Bureau of Reclamation largely ceased building megadams in the 1960s. Just like in Las Vegas, the math didn’t add up. But while Anchorage is figuring out how to get rid of one of its dams, the Susitna-Watana Hydroelectric Project has again reared its ugly head.
Susitna-Watana is a big deal, big enough to earn a concluding note of concern in the film DamNation. It’s mention elicited booing from the crowd Thursday night. Susitna-Watana would be the second tallest dam in the country if constructed, and at a cost of over $5 billion, it would be unlikely to reduce energy costs for Alaskans. More likely, the project would distract from the very real opportunities available in geothermal and tidal power. Further, the dam would jeopardize huge salmon runs and impact caribou migration. Fortunately, state funding for Susitna-Watana has been drastically reduced in a climate of budget deficits, multiple megaprojects, and lack of political will. The next few years will be critical toward seeing the threat of Susitna-Watana slip away for a third time.
DamNation documented a country that is moving away from expensive and environmentally damaging projects. Alaska, and Anchorage, need to be extremely careful that they do not take a giant step backward while the rest of the country moves forward.Eco-bulb cost to treble: Makers cash in as the ban on old-style bulbs kicks in
The price of energy-saving light bulbs will treble as the final supplies of traditional bulbs dry up, industry experts have warned.
The Government has ordered energy companies to scrap the subsidies that have kept the price of eco-bulbs artificially low for the last few years.
At the same time, manufacturers are increasing wholesale prices to take advantage of the European ban on ‘energy guzzling’ old-style bulbs.
Cash in: With the 100 watt lightbulb axed, manufacturers are set to take advantage and ramp up prices at the same time as subsidies are removed
Retailers also claim bulbs that currently cost only 33p are expected to sell for more than £1 within three months. Some will cost £3 or more.
The move comes as Britain is gearing up to phase out the last incandescent light bulbs in an effort to meet climate change targets.
The EU has already banned shops from buying stocks of 100watt bulbs and stopped them stocking up on any type of frosted incandescent bulbs.
From September it will prevent retailers buying in 60watt bulbs. By 2012 all incandescent bulbs will be banned – forcing shoppers to buy low-energy alternatives for almost all the light fittings in their homes.
Supermarkets and big DIY chains have already stopped selling bulbs above 40watts under a scheme backed by the Government.
James Shortridge, managing director of the independent lighting chain Ryness, said the cost of eco-bulbs would soar in the New Year.
‘Prices will easily rise threefold – if not more,’ he said.
‘Manufacturers put up prices two years ago when the first ban came in and clearly will do the same again. It’s the perfect storm for them.
‘Wholesale prices are already creeping up and when the subsidy ends those big supermarkets will have to increase their prices substantially or run a loss.’
The quality of eco-bulbs has improved in the last two years but critics complain that their light is harsh and flickery.
Medical charities say they can trigger epileptic fits, migraines and skin rashes and have called for an ‘opt out’ for vulnerable people.
Under the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target, big energy suppliers subsidised eco-bulbs. But from March companies will be forced to spend the money on helping consumers improve loft and wall insulation.
Eco-bulbs were at the centre of a health scare in December when a German study showed broken lamps release potentially harmful levels of mercury.
However the UK Health Protection Agency said the bulbs contained too little mercury to be a hazard.MELBOURNE, Fla. — President Donald Trump's rally here on Saturday featured all the classic signatures of his campaign: boasts about his poll numbers and magazine appearances, grandiose promises of quick action, protesters lining the streets, stinging attacks on the media, false statements and a large, roaring and adoring crowd that loved every minute.
It was a raucous campaign appearance — light on specifics and heavy on braggadocio — just four weeks after he was inaugurated and almost four years before he faces reelection.
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Stung by the difficulties of governing, a cascade of negative news coverage and falling poll numbers, the president appeared in a flag-draped airport hangar to show that his supporters still love him and castigate the media for covering his missteps.
He cast the first month of his administration in his terms, praising his pick of Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court and the stock market's climb since he took office. He boasted about his conversations with CEOs and ticked off companies that were bringing jobs to the United States — or keeping ones they previously said would move elsewhere.
He told the crowd of his efforts to lower taxes on corporations, reduce environmental regulations and repeal the Affordable Care Act, though usually without concrete details. He talked generally — as he did in the campaign — about his efforts to support police officers, boost the military and fix the country's "inner cities," like Chicago.
On the short plane trip here from his weekend stay at his Mar-a-Lago resort, Trump said the speech would be about unifying the country. It was instead harsh and pitted the crowd, on his side, against a number of supposed foes — judges, unknown gang members and drug cartels allegedly pouring in from other countries, terrorists, Democrats and, most often, reporters.
"We are going to expose them for what they are," Trump said of the news media, which sat in a pen as his supporters heckled. At one moment, the president said the nation’s news media made up sources and stories and that his supporters should live "free" without the media.
He didn't mention his popularity ratings — at about 45 percent, far lower than his predecessors — and his rocky four weeks in office. The president, angry about the barrage of negative coverage, has told allies he wants more news conferences — like a 77-minute one Thursday — and rallies like Saturday's in Florida.
Air Force One rolled up here around a blazing sunset on a balmy afternoon, with thousands standing against barricades and the Lee Greenwood song "Proud to be an American" coming from the speakers.
Trump's supporters say he is happiest amid the glaring lights and the applause, and when he gets to work as his own spokesman. "I've said for two months he needs to be doing more rallies," said Newt Gingrich, a top surrogate. "He will never be the leader of Washington. He is always going to be opposed by Washington. That requires him to go to the country."
The problem, Trump's critics and even some of his supporters say, is he appears far more interested in campaigning than governing. His administration has been rocked by a number of crises and problems, from a federal investigation into his campaign's engagement with Russian officials to the departure of his national security adviser, Michael Flynn, amid controversy.
He has struggled to fill the federal government to carry out his policy goals, with top political positions empty across the bureaucracy as advisers spar over appointments. He often is unable to focus for long periods of time, aides say, and remains deeply interested in cable TV and calling old friends back in New York.
Top lawmakers say Trump’s changing positions and his frequent tweets on issues have caused problems in getting things done, and officials note he has at times seemed slow to grasp crucial parts of the federal government.
He has spent part of his fifth weekend in office trying to replace Flynn. His allies are flying across the globe to calm rattled foreign leaders.
Aboard the short flight from Mar-a-Lago to Melbourne, Trump dismissed criticism that he should be focused more on governing than campaigning. "Making our country great again is a campaign. For me, it’s a campaign. To make America great again is absolutely a campaign," he said.
People listen as President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the AeroMod International hangar at Orlando Melbourne International Airport on Feb. 18 in Melbourne, Florida. | Getty
The scenes playing out here could have come from Ohio, or Michigan, or Florida, in October during an acrimonious campaign. About 9,000 people, according to the Melbourne Police Department, crowded into the hangar, carrying "Hillary for Prison" signs, waving pompoms and winding almost a mile outside the airport. Classic hits played during the campaign — like "Tiny Dancer" by Elton John and "My Way" by Frank Sinatra — blared from the speakers.
A speaker who introduced Trump said he would be a great president, seemingly forgetting that he had already won. "Drain the swamp!" the crowd yelled. "CNN sucks!" the crowd yelled.
And Trump frequently painted a dire, bleak situation that "only I can fix," as he famously said.
"We don't win on trade, we don't win in any capacity," Trump said. "We're going to start winning again."
He seemed determined to convince the crowd his administration was doing well, while also convincing them that things are terrible and he "inherited a mess," as he frequently says.
He blamed Democrats for not confirming his appointments, not mentioning that hundreds of key appointments haven't been made. He talked about the rising stock market and the number of companies bringing jobs into the country. He crowed about deporting "drug dealers" who are illegal immigrants, not mentioning the fear his administration has caused in cities across the country. Restaurants, for example, shut down Thursday in solidarity against him.
He blamed a judge for the problems with his executive order on immigrants, not mentioning the chaos that even his aides privately admitted happened when he signed it while leaving many agency officials, White House aides and others out of the loop.
"The White House is running so smoothly," he said, contrary to accounts of dysfunction in the West Wing from his own aides, allies and supporters.
Trump promised to cut taxes and repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, giving few specifics. Congressional leaders say such an effort has been damaged by his changing positions and his administration's seeming inability to focus.
He vowed to build a wall along the Mexican border but didn't offer his traditional call-and-response with the crowd that Mexico would pay for it. He talked about the struggles in the economy while also bragging about how it was improving.
His supporters seemed to think his problems in office thus far have all been one conspiracy against him. "He's keeping all his promises," said Ligia Rodriguez, who lives near the rally site. "He's done more in one month than Obama did in eight years."
Her husband, Miguel, stood nearby. He also said Trump was doing a good job in office, and "he's saying what everyone wants to hear, and it's a good message."
"I just think he needs to learn how to get things done," he said. "There's a lot of contention around him."
After he spoke, hordes of supporters gathered in front of the cameras, waving their Trump signs, mocking and simultaneously trying to secure the attention of camera operators they feel ignore them. Across the country, his administration is facing near-daily protests.
In some ways, it appeared as if the 2020 election had already begun.
"It's a movement that's sweeping across the country; it's sweeping across the globe," Trump said.On the first day of classes I, like most teachers, introduce my students to the syllabus and class expectations. I have draconian-seeming rules that students often don’t believe and even many colleagues question.
If students are late, they are absent. I do not account for any reasons; they may be absent three times over the semester. They are responsible for contacting classmates about missed work when they are absent. They are responsible for submitting work on time. This also means they are responsible for knowing what work needs to be submitted and when.
The syllabus indicates assignment due dates, and any changes are posted on Blackboard. If students forget about an assignment, that is indeed unfortunate. I don’t offer makeup opportunities or extra credit. Classroom participation and engagement with the work is their opportunity to impress me, since they can shine there even if they are struggling with written work.
These rules exist for a reason.
In the large debate around a nationwide skills gap that colleges must deal with, attention focuses on reading, writing, math abilities, tech knowledge, and other specialized skills needed for specific industries. Yet, over all, employers report little deficit in basic reading, writing, and math skills; nationwide tests show that students now are doing as well as or better than before in those areas.
Much of that data is provided in Why Good People Can’t Get Jobs, by Peter Cappelli, who argues that the reported skills gap is created largely by hiring practices. Many people have the competencies to learn new techniques if provided with work-related training. The Business Roundtable agrees, arguing that employers would find greater success by focusing on hiring competencies. Are the applicants organized? Self-motivated? Punctual? Do they present a strong work ethic?
The Business Roundtable, in a 2009 survey of employers, identified concerns about certain technical and job-related skills, but "the most serious gaps are believed to be ‘soft skills,’ such as work ethic, accountability and self-motivation." Certainly employers predicted that they would need workers to have improved, up-to-date technical skills, but those people are comparatively easy to find. Employees can be trained, and new hires with the education in that specified area can be sought.
Far more distressing was the fact that 49 percent of employers found a moderate or large gap between employee skill level and performance level: 26 percent identified a moderate gap (level 4 on a scale of 1 to 7), and 23 percent found a large gap (levels 5 to 7).
The same study also concluded that the gap between the skill and performance levels of 51 percent of employees has an impact on company productivity, meaning that employees with performance issues are affecting the bottom line. No skills deficit was associated with specialized IT, management, administrative, or mechanical work. People know how to do jobs; they just don’t act like it. The skills that were not being met included personal accountability for work, self-motivation, strong work ethic, punctuality, time management, professionalism, and adaptability.
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Those are not skills that a business can expect to train and instill in its workers; hiring people who already have them is cheaper and easier.
Before pursuing my Ph.D. and becoming a college professor, I worked in medical publishing and was responsible for hiring those in my division. I saw this issue regularly. The people who succeeded were those who had a strong work ethic, produced work on time, adapted to changes, and suggested new ideas with a plan for making them work. They received bonuses, promotions, raises, and work opportunities that others did not.
The rest stayed in the same positions for years, were replaced, or even fired. Their haphazard morning-arrival times, uncertain work delivery, and indifference to participating in the needs of the company made them expendable. You might get a second chance, but a third and a fourth, and a deadline extension and then another? No.
We do our students a disservice when we provide them with extensions, lax lateness policies, and extra-credit opportunities. They could learn those values at home, in community service, or other groups, but colleges really do most closely replicate some of the demands of a life at work. Since 65 percent of employers expect to hire employees with an associate degree or higher, professors are at the forefront of those who can inculcate these soft skills.
Most students today have been raised in an environment of endless second chances, so my policies surprise them — and many don’t like me for it. Throughout the semester, I have to explain to the class and to individuals why my rules are actually part of the training that college provides to help them in their eventual careers. My introduction-to-literature class might seem to have nothing to do with their engineering, accounting, or social-work degrees, but the values that I am enforcing have everything to do with their ability to be hired, their chances of being promoted, and their future fiscal success.
Students can show up late, but they learn that it matters. If students forget that an assignment is due, they learn how to use their handy-dandy smartphone to set calendar and other reminders about scheduled work. When they return after missing a class without the completed assignment, they learn that the world does not stop with their absence but continues to have demands, even expectations.
They learn to use their peers as support toward ensuring that they are aware of obligations, just as colleagues at work help one another. As many people have said before me, there is no extra credit in life. If an employee does not submit work on time, she can expect to be penalized. In the rising world of free agents, a freelancer who doesn’t deliver can expect never to be hired again.
It’s terrifying. I know that. I try to support my students. I introduce them to online tools. I am sympathetic to the challenges of multiple-demand systems, and I reassure them that managing this chaos is a part of being an adult. Very few students really hate me by the end of the semester. Many express appreciation for the clarity of my rules, because they always know where they stand. Last semester a business student even thanked me for forcing him to adopt a more regimented attitude toward his schoolwork.
Work ethic, punctuality, and time management should hardly be shocking expectations of a college student. Isn’t it a problem that too often we don’t demand those skills of them?This Thursday, May 11 it was announced that Alfonso Sosa was no longer Necaxa’s head coach heading into the 17/18 Liga MX season. The Mexican manager had done an excellent job under Los Rayos leading them to the Liga MX and to the playoffs in the Apertura 2016 competition.
In the Clausura 2017 tournament, Sosa led Necaxa to a 12th place finish with 21 points. While this does not seem too bad, Necaxa had struggled in the Clausura competition even falling into the relegation mix at one point in the season. The real problem with Alfonso Sosa and why his exit from the team is not all that bad was his failure to adjust to other tactics. The Liga MX’s best managers will adjust to certain situations and play accordingly when needed.
Alfonso Sosa would not abandon his defensive, counter-attacking style of play all season long. While these tactics worked in the Apertura 2016, teams quickly caught on to Sosa’s tactics and made Necaxa a very beatable side. Another problem was that Los Rayos’ back line was regressing with three players over 29 comprising the back four. A good indicator of how fragile the defense was, is the work the goalkeeper, Marcelo Barovero put in. The Argentine goalie led the Liga MX with 75 saves and was a key figure for Necaxa, some wins coming because of Barovero’s work. Necaxa’s strength was in its forwards with players like Edson Puch and Jesus Isijara but “El Pocho” could not make the most of his pacey, potent forwards.
Los Rayos had the second worst offense in the Clausura 2017 with only 16 goals, eight goals less than in the Apertura 2016 when Necaxa scored 24 goals. The team from Aguascalientes allowed 21 goals in the Clausura 2017 making for a negative five-goal differential. Significantly lower than the plus-six goal differential Alfonso Sosa held in the Apertura 2016. Sosa’s tactics were clearly not good enough to keep Necaxa as a consistent contender for the next few tournaments. The tactics may have even led the team to a disastrous end. Now it is time for Necaxa to enter a transitional phase with a new manager heading into the next Liga MX season.President Donald Trump in his first official day in office reaffirmed his intention to significantly alter U.S. trade agreements.
Minutes after Trump took the oath of office Friday, his administration announced his intention to withdraw the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement in a statement posted to the White House’s website.
“With a lifetime of negotiating experience, the President understands how critical it is to put American workers and businesses first when it comes to trade,” the White House said in the statement. “With tough and fair agreements, international trade can be used to grow our economy, return millions of jobs to America’s shores and revitalize our nation’s suffering communities.”
Although the White House statement said Trump’s position on trade will “bring jobs back to America’s shores, increase wages and support U.S. manufacturing,” the Center for Automotive Research suggests the opposite.
A recent study conducted by CAR found that withdrawing from NAFTA, and implementing Trump’s proposed 35 percent tariff on all Mexico-built vehicles, would eliminate at least 31,000 U.S. automotive manufacturing jobs. Additionally, doing so would require the 10 largest automakers to increase U.S. production output by 1 million units, which currently they don’t have the capacity to do.
Trump has singled out Mexico the most in his criticism of NAFTA, but restructuring the agreement would also have a major impact on Canada. In his statement congratulating Trump on his inauguration, Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau reportedly stressed the importance of the country’s relationship with the U.S.
“Canada and the United States have built one of the closest relationships between any two countries in the world,” Trudeau said in a statement. “This enduring partnership is essential to our shared prosperity and security.”
Experts suggest withdrawing from NAFTA would be a complex process, as 55 percent and 85 percent of all cars made in Mexico and Canada, respectfully, are imported to the U.S.
Thumbnail photo via Lauren Petracca/The Greenville News via USA TODAY NETWORK
Thumbnail photo via Republican presidential hopeful Donald TrumpA bill moved to Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's (R) desk on Monday that requires hospitals to keep brain-dead pregnant women on life support to protect the fetus, even if the woman's family members object.
House Bill 1274, sponsored by state Rep. Austin Badon (D), specifies that if a woman is at least 20 weeks pregnant, the doctor must keep her on mechanical support unless her will specifically states that she wants to be taken off life support if she is pregnant. The bill overwhelmingly passed the House and Senate last week.
"Do we really want to pull the plug of that healthy baby?" Badon said during debates, according to The Times-Picayune.
The state Senate passed the bill with an amendment that would have given family members the option of taking the woman off life support, but a six-person conference committee of House and Senate members stripped that provision in their final compromise.
A Texas judge ruled earlier this year that a Fort Worth hospital had to remove a pregnant woman from life support in accordance with her husband's wishes.
Marlise Munoz, a 33-year-old paramedic, was about 14 weeks pregnant when she had a pulmonary embolism that left her brain-dead. The hospital refused to take her off life support because of a Texas law that states "a person may not withdraw or withhold life-sustaining treatment under this subchapter from a pregnant patient," prompting Munoz's husband to sue.
"It's very frustrating because we know what our daughter wanted, and we're not about to honor that because of this law," Munoz's mother, Lynne Machado, told ABC News in December.
The judge ruled that the law didn't apply to Munoz because she was legally dead. She was 22 weeks pregnant by the time the hospital took her off life support, and her husband's attorneys said the fetus was "distinctly abnormal," with physical deformities and life-threatening conditions.
Women's rights advocates said that while the Texas law and the new Louisiana bill don't explicitly mention abortion, they fit into a larger pattern of laws passed by state legislatures that restrict reproductive choice. The Louisiana state legislature passed a bill earlier this year that requires women seeking an abortion to be told about the alleged psychological and emotional effects of the procedure, as well as a bill that requires abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a local hospital in order to operate.
"Laws like this show the sinister underlying belief that anti-choice politicians hold -- that women's sole purpose is to have children, and once we are pregnant, our rights to make our own decisions fly right out the window regardless of what we think, our families think, and what medical experts think," Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, told The Huffington Post in a statement. "Pregnancies are complicated. Each one is different, and when women suffer unimaginable tragedies in our pregnancies that render us incapable of making our own decisions, those are best left to those who know and love us and to the medical professionals who are charged with our care."Close
Joss Whedon's next project isn't what you'd expect, but it will still make longtime fans of the writer and director very happy: Whedon recently stated that he's working on another musical.
Whedon fans are already familiar with what he can do with the musical genre: not only did he give television viewers one of the best musical episodes of all time — Buffy the Vampire Slayer's "Once More, With Feeling" — but he also embraced the concept of the Web series early on with Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, which starred Nathan Fillion, Felicia Day and Neal Patrick Harris all singing their hearts out.
Last night, Whedon told attendees at an event held at the University of Oxford's Student Union that his latest project is also a musical.
Of course, although fans would very much like that musical to become a sequel to Dr. Horrible, it's likely it's for something new, as Whedon stated that the format of a musical fit the emotions he wanted to hit with the piece, which suggests this is a new idea he's cooked up. However, fans continue to hope for a Dr. Horrible 2, although Whedon's recent schedule just hasn't allowed for it, but not for a lack of love for the project.
"There's nothing I've done that I enjoyed more, that I cared more about that I thought would disappear more quickly than Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog," said Whedon. "It came from a political place and a whimsical place... that's been the benchmark of everything I do."
Now, though, Whedon has more free time, since he's reportedly done with making Avengers films for Marvel. Now that he doesn't have to work with Marvel in creating its cinematic universe (a task never easy for directors on the company's films), he has time to rededicate himself to the smaller projects that both he and his fans love, such as Much Ado About Nothing, which Whedon released in 2012.
Although Whedon has done bigger and better paid projects since his previous musical days, fans might find themselves surprised when they learn that Dr. Horrible still earned Whedon more money than the first Avengers film.
So, if the new musical isn't a sequel to Dr. Horrible, what is it about? Whedon said nothing about a plot or details, but with his imagination, it could be a musical adaptation of a Shakespeare play, a horror movie set to music, a romp in the Wild West complete with singing or something Whedon fans haven't thought of yet.
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ⓒ 2018 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.The Springboks start their End of year tour against Wales next Saturday, only two weeks after a brutal Currie Cup Final. With Wales being the current Six Nations champions, and the first match on the tour, I think this might very well be our toughest assignment.
My thinking here is simple, it is the first match in very different conditions, and there are bound to be a host of new combinations that will take a half to find their rhythm. The Springboks may have a fair bit of confidence on their side, but so too will Wales. It is sure to be a low scoring, tight affair.
With that in mind, how do we approach putting together a team to do battle? This is not the test in which to try new combinations and give a host of players their first caps, but also not the test to just use the same team from the Rugby Championship, as there are only three tests after all, and we need to make best use of all of them. So quite a balancing act.
Against the Welsh, I would use my most experienced front row, being that of Beast Mtawarira, Bismarck du Plessis and Jannie du Plessis. If they can set the tone in the first half, it will allow the Boks to use their entire benched front row in the second half. A fresh front row will do wonders for our set pieces, especially the scrums.
Eben Etzebeth is a must in the second row. He has been a rock in that position all season, and is one of the first names on the teamsheet. His partner is debatable. Do we use Bakkies Botha to soften the Welsh up before allowing Piet-Steph du Toit to come on and wreak havoc, or do we entrust du Toit with a starting cap and allow Bakkies to do the damage in the second half. Personally, I would give du Toit the start.
The loose forward combination will again see some heated debate, but I would simply go for the tried and tested. We know a combination of Francois Louw, Willem Alberts and Duane Vermeulen is the best, so we might as well start with them and allow someone like Siya Kolisi to run amok later in the match.
For the half backs, there isn’t much to choose from at scrumhalf, but if fit, Fourie du Preez will be my first choice here. He has shown to be the better scrumhalf in recent matches, although starting Pienaar in his home conditions might have some merit. It is a toss up for me, but du Preez will get the nod in my mind. As for flyhalf, my opinion on this is well known, I would allow Morne Steyn to play the first half and Pat Lambie the second half. Whether that actually happens, remains to be seen (with Johan Goosen in the mix).
The rest of the backline looks set to see changes from the Rugby Championship, with the return of Jaque Fourie and JP Pietersen set to bolster the team. A combination of Jean de Villiers and Jaque Fourie in midfield really excites me, with Jan Serfontein allowed to slot inside Fourie later in the match. As for the back three, Pietersen in combination with Bryan Habana and Willie le Roux should be very exciting. Although European conditions do not allow for an expansive game, le Roux’s explosive counter attacking can catch slower teams off guard.
So here it, my own starting fifteen to take on Wales next week:
15. Willie le Roux, 14. JP Pietersen, 13. Jaque Fourie, 12. Jean de Villiers, 11. Bryan Habana, 10. Morne Steyn, 9. Fourie du Preez, 8. Duane Vermeulen, 7. Willem Alberts, 6. Francois Louw, 5. Eben Etzebeth, 4. Pieter-Steph du Toit, 3. Jannie du Plessis, 2. Bismarck du Plessis, 1. Tendai Mtawarira.
Subs: 16. Adriaan Strauss, 17. Coenie Oosthuizen, 18. Frans Malherbe, 19. Bakkies Botha, 20. Siya Kolisi, 21. Ruan Pienaar, 22. Pat Lambie, 23. Jan Serfontein.Does any show say more about the jittery times we live in than AMC’s Breaking Bad? Creator Vince Gilligan’s New Mexico-set TV noir debuted mere months before the Great Recession hit, and its ultra-savvy parable of the decline of American morals just keeps on getting more resonant. If our Depression-era forebears had _The Grapes of Wrath _to identify with, we’ve got the indelibly named Walt White—once an upstanding high-school chemistry teacher, now cooking meth for big bucks to provide for his family before cancer does him in.
With just one season left to go, Breaking Bad has shifted from being all about Bryan Cranston’s triple-Emmy’d (so far) lead performance to the best ensemble show on TV. This year, we were spun around four compromised points of the male compass: brains (the increasingly Machiavellian Walt), ego (Giancarlo Esposito’s drug kingpin Gus), heart (Aaron Paul’s Jesse, Walt’s reluctant sorcerer’s apprentice), and pure testosterone (Dean Norris as Hank, Walt’s DEA-agent brother-in-law—who’s got a supernally wise dark-side twin in Jonathan Banks, Gus’s head enforcer). Which one we get off on most says as much about us as picking our favorite Beatle.
Gilligan gives his actors full props for inspiring story developments he hadn’t planned on. "Gustavo was not supposed to be a continuing character," he says. "And in the first season, I thought of Hank as just a foil for Walt." Seeing what Esposito and Norris brought to the party changed his mind, and Gilligan is just as high on Paul’s metamorphosis. "In a way, Jesse has turned into the show’s moral center—and that points out what a dark show it is. If there’s any justice in this world, after Breaking Bad ends, Aaron will go off and become a big movie star."A State Department spokesman declined to comment on this story, saying only that the United States enjoys a "normalized" relationship with Libya. He stressed that the Libyans "did meet their commitment" to dismantle their nuclear weapons program.
The United States had a troubled relationship with Libya during the later years of the last century. In the two decades after Muammar al-Qaddafi seized power in 1969, Libya targeted the U.S. and its allies with state-sponsored acts of terrorism that killed hundreds of civilians. In three incidents in the 1980s, Libya's military attacked U.S. navy ships and fighter jets in the Mediterranean. For its part, the U.S. responded with airstrikes and decades of crippling economic sanctions. However, relations between the two countries have warmed in recent years, beginning with Libya's 2003 pledge to dismantle its nuclear program and peaking in 2007 with President George W. Bush's decision to send a U.S. ambassador to Tripoli, the first in 35 years.
Libya agreed to remove its weapons-grade materials and equipment shortly after a 2003 incident in which the U.S. government intercepted a ship bound for that country with Pakistani-made black-market centrifuges. For six years, Libyan officials complied with U.S.-led international efforts to dismantle the program. In November of last year, when officials without notice halted the dismantling process, the Libyans were down to their last 5.2 kilograms--not enough to make a conventional weapon, but sufficient for a dirty bomb.* A few days later, the U.S. embassy was contacted by Saif al-Islam al-Qaddafi. The son of Muammar al-Qaddafi, Saif is widely seen as Libya's great hope for reform should he win out against his more conservative brother, Mutassim, and succeed their father. But on that day, Saif told the U.S. ambassador to Libya that he was "fed up" with the U.S. He warned, "Slowly, slowly, we are moving backward rather than forward."
Saif, according to the State Department cables reviewed by The Atlantic, told U.S. representatives that he could "fix" the nuclear crisis--if the U.S. met his demands. His list included military equipment, assistance in building a nuclear medical facility, relaxation of trade embargoes against Libya, and a sum of money that he implied would be in the tens of millions of dollars. But Saif made clear that what he sought most was respect. He suggested that the United States and Libya end their decades of enmity with a grand gesture of détente, even recommending that the senior Qaddafi and President Obama hold a joint summit. The incongruity of demanding friendship from the U.S. while simultaneously blackmailing it with the risk of loose nuclear materials does not appear to have bothered Saif. He concluded with a bit of American vernacular, telling the ambassador, "The ball is in your court."
The U.S. ambassador warned Saif that the Libyans had "chosen a very dangerous issue on which to express its apparent pique about perceived problems in the bilateral relationship," as an embassy official later put it in summarizing the meeting. According to that official, whose cable to Washington was among the 115 pages reviewed by The Atlantic, the ambassador added, "By its actions, Libya was jeopardizing its relationship with the whole international community."
As Saif laid out his demands to the United States, Libya's uranium sat outside Tajoura inviting more and more risk each day. The casks holding the uranium were designed for easy transportation but only short-term storage, a dangerous combination that made them susceptible to theft and cracking. Though International Atomic Energy Agency seals had been placed on the casks, the seals were only meant to indicate whether tampering had occurred and could be easily broken.
At one point, according to the documents, U.S. officials were alarmed to find only a single armed guard at the nuclear facility, and "they did not know if [his gun] was loaded." Perhaps most worryingly, the casks had been left near the facility's large loading crane. U.S. officials worried about the security of the casks. It would have been easy for anyone with a gun and a truck to drive up, overpower the guard, use the crane to load the casks onto the truck, and |
that the United States continues to be seen as a land of new opportunity and a hoped for and cherished new homeland for those who have lost so much. We must remain, as citizens of this great country, Semper Fidelis.The New Sam Rivers' Rivbea Orchestra
Did you get worked up when Sam Rivers' estate sale happened last weekend? Work out your feelings by stewing in his music, revived at the end of every month at Will's Pub.
9 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 26, at Will's Pub, $7-$10
John Waite
The lead singer of popular '70s-'80s bands the Babys and Bad English performs an intimate solo set.
6:30 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 27, at Velvet Bar in the Hard Rock Hotel, $29
The Mellow Relics EP Release Show
The Mellow Relics instigate melodic conversations between their jangly guitars and wailing sax lines, tucked neatly under an easy groove.
9 p.m. Friday, Aug. 28, at Orlando Brewing, free
Exotype
Last year, the six-piece Orlando progressive metal band released their self-titled debut, which notably tempers modern electronic urges with heavy rock melodies.
6 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 29, at Backbooth, $12
Dex Romweber
Flat Duo Jets' Dex Romweber expressively smolders onstage, performing his roots-rock originals and stunning covers with soulfulness that is mesmerizing and palpable. His voice will shake you.
8 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 30, at Will's Pub, $10-$12
2 Piece and a Biscuit DJ Night
Half of Wet Nurse performs cover songs and two-piece originals after a DJ set of some of the garage punk band's favorite songs.
9 p.m. Monday, Aug. 31, at Will's Pub, free
The Good Life
Tim Kasher's other other band returns after eight years without a peep recorded to release Everybody's Coming Down, and you can bet it aptly describes the reaction dedicated Saddle Creek fans will have once they hear he's in town.
8 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 1, at the Social, $12-$15Quite a while back, I visited Austin to hear about this new game called Shroud of the Avatar. That was the day I met Richard Garriott and Chris Roberts for the first time, and I’ll admit to being a little star-struck. I’d been writing for a while by then, but that was my first time meeting iconic people in the field who’d helped shape what video games look like to the degree those two guys have done over the years.
I’ve also been a huge sandbox guy ever since Ultima Online defined what sandbox games even were, and so meeting Richard was a particularly awesome experience for me. I say all this so you know how inept I was at that first meeting because the context really matters here. When describing the skill system they had imagined for Shroud of the Avatar, I immediately balked despite being overwhelmed a little by everything else because it wasn’t the use-based skills system we’d all come to know and love. It’s actually something that’s so definitive of the genre that I couldn’t stop from actually expressing my surprise and asking about it.
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So yeah, this article is part celebration and part I-told-you-so, as the folks at Portalarium switch from their old skill system to a new use-based model that’s much more in line with that we’d all expect from a sandbox game. It’s also a bit of an ovation to a team that pulled off such a dramatic change to a core system in a single month. Lastly, we’ll talk a bit about how the fans have been contributing to the game, because like the over-achievers at Portalarium, the fans don’t do things in half-measure, either.
Practice Making Perfect
While I’ve been telling everyone that nearly two years of my prophetic caution against turning away from a use-based skill system has been haunting the back of Richard’s mind, the truth is there are people with far more pull than I can claim. Backers in the Dev+ community have a lot more clout than you’d expect to see in any project under development, and the team at Portalarium takes their community very seriously.
Thus, despite my joking about it, the truth is that the community has had a lot of conversations about how skills work in Shroud, and in a monster display of integrity, Starr Long and Richard Garriott charged their team of developers with implementing the overhaul of the existing skills system. The new system has some pretty intelligent design choices that I think will make for an incredibly viable solution in the long term. What they had before was cool, but I think the system they’re going to will make for a much better game over all.
Learn skills from trainers, and then select which you want to train when you fight to get better at them.
The gist of the new system is that you’ll have two pools of experience. As you harvest resources and craft things, you’ll gain crafting experience. Obviously, you’ll get adventuring experience for specifically killing stuff. Questing will give you experience for both, and it all goes into the two respective pools.
These two experience pools are sort of your current mental capacity for learning new stuff. As you use skills related to either pool of experience, you’ll get better at that skill. Let’s say you attack and kill a bear with your sword. You’ve been using that sword, so you’ll certainly be getting better at that by spending a bit of experience there. The remainder experience will also be stored in your adventuring experience pool.
As you practice with your bow on a training dummy later, that experience will be spent from the accumulated adventure pool to help you develop your skill in archery. The more you practice with a given skill, the more experience gets converted from the pool, except there’s a catch.
Each time you use a skill, converting some experience to get better at it, only a percentage of that experience is converted. That means you get diminishing returns over time, unless you’re replenishing that pool. Practice dummies will only get you so far, so eventually you have to actually go out and kill something.
The dragon didn’t quite make it in this pass, but it was too cool not to show off.
The old system was introduced because Richard, Starr, and their team didn’t like the idea of a player doing things like weighting their space bar down to build up their jumping skill, or engaging other immersion-breaking things like that. The genius of the new system is that it fixes that problem, while still keeping the sandbox feel of a use-based system. You can still keep working on your jump by bouncing everywhere a la Tigger, but it stops being worth it as the returns get progressively smaller.
This new system encourages the player to get out and experience the game in the way that contributes to the environment, while still preserving the opportunity to get better at a new skill by knocking the stuffing out of a practice dummy for a while. Sandbox games are all about the freedom of choice, so I’m really glad to see the guys putting a system in that encourages players to engage in a certain way without actually locking them into it.
Maco-Experience-nomics
There’s an economics to the skills game, too. Interestingly, this harkens back to a previous conversation I’d had with Chris Spears about tracking data in the game. They track the creation and destruction of gold in the game, because creating money at a rate near what’s absorbed makes for a solid in-game economy. If you create money at a rate above or below the rate it’s being used, you create inflation or depression, respectively.
You probably haven’t thought about it, but skills and experience are exactly the same. If experience is generated in the game and not subtracted or spent in any way, then developers have to keep adding more and more content of higher levels to challenge max-level players. But the Shroud of the Avatar team made another really awesome move. They’re implementing skill decay.
The chaotic Darkstarr has arrived in Novia, spurring new fashions in the mobile abode industry.
Now, don’t blow a gasket. It’s capped, so you don’t log out and come back a month later to find you lost everything, but you will find that your character is now a little rusty and needs some practice to get back to peak performance.
Here again, they chose to use a percentage-based system that impacts you more the higher skilled you are. This means players will have natural equilibriums where their skills gained balance the atrophy of not using other skills. This means that players who have time and invest more effort in practicing will be able to perform at a higher level, but not so much higher as to not be competitive.
The great thing about this is that it’ll allow for new skills to be added indefinitely. There’s no reason for the game to have a finite number of skills, because no one will ever be able to accumulate so many of them that they’re over-powered. Conversely, any new skills can be picked up easily and taken for a test run to see if you want to put effort in working down that line. That makes adding new skills much easier and less game breaking.
It’s absolutely brilliant, because it also offers tons of flexibility for the players. I’m not stuck with whatever skills I’ve selected, and I don’t even have to “reset” my skill points to change my player design. I just start practicing with something else, and I’ll get better at it.
There are also new UIs for crafting, as well as new Salvage and Repair skills.
Advanced AGILE and Great Management
I don’t know of another game that’s managed to pull off a major change like this mid-stream outside of Shroud of the Avatar. I couldn’t even imagine a game like World of Warcraft trying it, and Star Citizen is proof that major design changes don’t always go so well, even during the development phase. To make a change this sweeping in a mere few weeks, while still adhering to the existing framework the old system was built around, is just completely unheard of.
It’s not a sexy thing to talk about, but this really is a testament to the agile philosophy the team at Portalarium take so seriously. They stick to their monthly releases with an almost religious zeal, and the results are speaking for themselves. It says a great deal about the professionalism of the people involved in a project, and at least as much about the quality of their leadership.
I can’t just point to the developers when acknowledging this point, though. Again, I get to brag on the community around Shroud of the Avatar. It seems like I’m doing this a lot, but I like supporting good people who are engaged in great things. The community directly and consistently contributes to the developers being able to accomplish as much as they do.
Dev+ backers spend a great deal of effort giving good feedback with each release, enabling the developers to more easily spot and correct problems. More importantly, they also engage in-game to make other players’ experiences more meaningful in very significant ways. This is often in the form of events and time spent helping get new players acclimated to the game, but sometimes their efforts are much more subtle.
Players, not developers, decorated every house you see in Hometown… or is it pronounced “Hometon?”
Last release, Starr Long created a new town called Hometown. He populated this new town with examples of all the houses and basements in the game’s store. It was actually a really cool idea, because you could go look at all the options and walk through them before you decided what you wanted to buy. The community decided empty houses didn’t represent the game well enough and took action, though.
With permission from the developers, they took turns decorating the houses in Hometown. Not only did this make the houses more attractive and interesting to walk through, but they decided it was a chance to test decorative objects, as well. The developers placed down chests with all the available decorations, and players went to work. As they found decorations that didn’t work, they dumped them in a separate chest for developers to take a look at. It was a simple act with little fanfare that made a dramatic impact on the game.
A Lot Has Changed
As crowdfunding gets more popular, it’s getting harder to decide what you should help fund or shouldn’t. I have two tests that Shroud of the Avatar passes with flying colors. First, I want to know that the people I’m funding are professionals with a proven track record of excellence and a history of well-run projects. Portalarium certainly fits that bill, and they prove it each month with massive updates that blow away any other development project I’ve ever seen.
My second test tends to be the community around the project. A community that actively supports the developers and works hard to be pleasant and helpful to new members is what we called “force multipliers” in my former profession. Big gee-wiz stuff attracts people to look at your game, but it’s the little stuff that keeps them around and playing. A solid community is the anchor many of those little things are hitched to.
Even if I weren’t just a fan of the genre, those things alone would have made me take a serious look at Shroud. Frankly, it’s made a skill system that I’ve never been all that crazy about much more palatable. The old system certainly had its merits, and I always respected it as a design choice. That said, I am super excited to see how the new change works out, and even more excited to play with it over the next couple months as they work out the kinks.
If you tried Shroud of the Avatar a while back and weren’t that crazy about it, you might give it another go. So much has changed over just the last six months that the game is almost unrecognizable. You should definitely give it a shot if it didn’t feel sandbox-like enough for you. If nothing else, you get to interact with pleasant people while you do and there’s definitely something to be said for that.The Clinton campaign's decision not to reject or denounce Geraldine Ferraro's racial gaffe strikes me as a conscious and deliberate one. The Obama campaign saw Samantha Power resign for a less offensive remark. But Ferraro is now on the networks and airwaves amping up the volume, and Clinton, in classic passive-aggressive mode, is merely "disagreeing." Isn't this obviously about Pennsylvania? Isn't this classic Rove-Morris politics - to keep designating Obama a beneficiary of affirmative action and Clinton a victimized white woman in order to racially polarize a primary where Clinton needs white ethnic votes?
Ferraro's original gaffe was an accident. The compounding of it is a strategy. A reader comments:
I'm willing to bet damn near anything Bill thought this up himself. As a white male Bill realized he couldn't push Obama into the ghetto box, but what a brilliant strategy! - let's have another "disadvantaged group" lambaste Obama through an elderly white female surrogate to divide and conquer in the victimology sweepstakes. Since whites outnumber blacks, and white females in particular outnumber black voters, it's an incredibly audacious gambit to win the nomination. Throwing the kitchen sink apparently means turning the Democratic Party into an all out race versus gender war, ultimately allowing Bill and Hillary to either emerge on top or for Obama to be so badly damaged that the Superdelegates will fear he's lost the white vote in the general election. That's exactly the game the Clinton's have set in motion here.
(Photo: U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton chats with longtime-friend Geraldine Ferraro before commencement exercises for Marymount Manhattan College in Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center May 20, 2005 in New York City. By Chris Hondros/Getty Images.)
We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.Justin Ireland says he always wondered how his dog Thor, a beefy 3½-year-old pit bull-boxer mix, would respond if he got into an altercation.
Now he knows.
Saco police released this artist's composite sketch of the man suspected of trying to rob Holly's Gas. Justin Ireland, who was working at Holly’s Gas when a man tried to rob the station, got some assistance from Thor, his pit bull-boxer mix. David Hench/Staff Writer
Ireland, 21, was working at Holly’s Gas, the hot pink gas station on Route 1 in Saco, when a man walked up to the door of the office at 3:25 p.m. Tuesday and asked to use his phone. A mask-like covering partially obscured the man’s face. Ireland figured he was just bundled up against the cold.
Thor was excited to have a visitor, so Ireland used a knee to keep the dog back as he opened the door, so Thor wouldn’t run outside.
When Ireland refused the man’s request, because he doesn’t let anybody use his phone, the man pulled out a gun, shoved Ireland and demanded money.
Ireland was startled and scared at first. But with the small gun pointed right at him, Ireland could tell that the diameter of the barrel was too small to accommodate even a.22-caliber bullet, leading him to conclude it was a BB gun.
“I went from nervous to pissed off,” he said. “I said, ‘I can’t believe you have the (gall) to pull a BB gun on me,'” Ireland said.
The would-be robber yelled back that it was real and moved to shove Ireland again. Before Ireland realized what was happening, Thor had leapt past his still-outstretched knee and lunged at the gunman.
“Once he came at me the second time, that’s when Thor went after him,” he said.
The man turned and fled. Ireland pulled Thor back inside, then chased the man. He lost his footing on the snow and the man made it to a light blue, newer model Chevrolet Silverado extended cab pickup truck, which had been parked around the corner from the station on Flag Pond Road. The man drove away.
Later, police reviewed security tape frame by frame and saw that Thor had landed a couple of good chomps, biting one side of the man’s face and then the other. Ireland said he doesn’t believe that Thor’s bite, as powerful as it is, broke the skin beneath the mask.
The robber remains at large and police are still looking for him. He was last seen wearing a navy blue sweatshirt with the word “GAP” written across the front, black pants, gray and black gloves, a winter hat and a dark green mask with orange liner covering the bottom of his face.
“He was tiny – the same height as me but skinnier,” said Ireland, who is 5 feet 9 inches and 315 pounds.
Saco police ask that anyone with information call them at 282-8216.
Ireland said he got Thor when the dog was 11 months old from a woman in New Hampshire who was moving in with her sister and couldn’t keep him. The shelter where he was headed would have euthanized him because he is part pit bull, Ireland said.
As news of Thor’s intervention spread late Tuesday, the accolades started to come in. More exciting for him, someome brought him a big bag of dog treats, Ireland said.
“After work, I went out and bought him one of those big, $20 bones,” Ireland said.
ShareCAMP DAVID, Md. (Reuters) - The United States will keep funding Afghan security forces at the targeted peak personnel level of 352,000 at least through the 2017 fiscal year, extending a financial commitment that has cost about $4 billion annually, U.S. officials said on Monday.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of a news conference at Camp David, the U.S. presidential retreat, where Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has been meeting with senior U.S. officials ahead of talks at the White House on Tuesday.
“It’s clear that the 352,000 surge force that has been in place since at least 2012 is the appropriate level to maintain for now. And then we’re going to work our way to a more sustainable structure over time,” a senior Obama administration official told reporters.
The official acknowledged that, due to heavy attrition, Afghan forces were well below the 352,000 level, possibly around 330,000 forces now. The official said the cost was $4.1 billion for fiscal year 2015, and it would fall to a projected $3.8 billion for fiscal year 2016.
At the news conference on Monday, officials were expected to announce the resumption of regular high-level diplomatic and defense talks between Afghanistan and the United States. They were also expected to tie existing plans for Afghan development funding to incentives.A cyclist has been removed from a nude bicycle race after he became aroused by the sight of his fellow participants. The man became aroused when his fellow cyclists de-robed at the starting line of the World Naked Bike Ride in Kent this weekend.
The man, who we’ve heard was one of the biggest members of his cycling cub, was escorted away from the race by police after stunned onlookers noticed he had an erection as he de-robed at the start line.
Everyone was taking their clothes off to get ready for the ride. I heard gasps and I turned around – it was a horrible sight. It’s fair to say he was overexcited and got aroused. It looked like he was enjoying the event a bit too much.
A witness
Ride organiser Barry Freeman released a statement after a number of complaints, but a few people have come out and said they felt he shouldn’t have been ejected from the race and that the punishment was hard-on him. We’ll just have to see how it stands up in court.
We do not accept this behaviour and he was dealt with and removed before the ride started. Barry Freeman
The naked rides take place all over the world and are organised to highlight the dangers cyclists face from cars. Organisers sent out a warning prior to the race. “The police have confirmed they WILL act on ANY inappropriate behaviour and we, the organisers will support that. “If you are coming just to be a pain in the neck and to be the one to end this WNBR we’d rather you stayed at home.”Looking for news you can trust?
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Bank of America, which last fall announced plans to lay off 30,000 workers, is about to go on a hiring spree—overseas.
America’s second-largest bank is relocating its business-support operations to the Philippines, according to a high-ranking Filipino government official recently quoted in the Filipino press. The move, which includes a portion of the bank’s customer service unit, comes less than three years after Bank of America received a $45 billion federal bailout.
Roman Romulo, deputy majority leader of the Philippine House of Representatives, bragged to the Manila Standard Today earlier this month that the Philippines “has secured its place as the world’s fastest-growing outsourcing hub.” Romulo pointed out that BofA is the last of the “big four” US banks to move their business-support network to his island nation, where the average family makes $4,700 a year.
A spokesman for Bank of America, Mark Pipitone, was unable to provide additional information about the bank’s offshoring plans on Friday. “We have employees and operations where we can ensure that we best serve our customers and clients,” he told me in an email.
The bank’s outsourcing comes amid rising concerns about the security of customers’ financial data in the hands of foreign contractors. In March, undercover reporters for England’s Sunday Times met in India with “IT consultants” who claimed they were call center workers and offered to sell them credit card and medical information for 500,000 Britons—including account holders at major banks such as HSBC.
To prevent similar scandals from rocking the Philippines, Romulo is pushing a law that would require Filipino companies to “protect the integrity and confidentiality of any personal information collected from their clients, in compliance with international privacy standards,” according to the Filipino television network ABS/CBN News.
US banks already are operating call centers in the Philippines, “despite the fact that they haven’t actually passed this rudimentary legislation,” says Shane Larson, legislative director for the Communication Workers of America (CWA), which represents 150,000 American call center workers. The Indian government is ahead of the Philippines in passing data privacy laws, notes the union, but those laws specifically exempt the call center industry. And that could lead to problems: In a 2005 survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers, 85 percent of the Indian outsourcing companies that responded said they had experienced information security breaches in the previous year.
In a 2010 report on the offshoring of technical jobs, New York’s Department of Labor concluded that data security in the medical and financial fields is “of critical concern” and that “other nations’ legal systems (especially in developing countries such as India) require reform to match that of the US with respect to privacy and computer security.”
Don’t miss the brilliant longread: “My Summer at an Indian Call Center“
Needless to say, the outsourcing is bad news for an already hurting US call center industry, which has shed some 500,000 jobs during the past four years—about 10 percent of the total. The CWA hopes to reverse this trend by pushing the US Call Center and Consumer Protection Act, a bill that would make any company that outsources call center jobs ineligible for federal loans and grants.
In recent years, local governments in the deindustrializing Midwest have tried to boost their economies by luring call centers with generous tax breaks and economic incentives. T-Mobile, for instance, accepted more than $61 million in state and local recruitment subsidies to locate call center jobs here. But it recently announced it would close seven American call centers, putting around 2,000 people out of work—even as it continues to operate centers in the Philippines and Honduras. (The CWA called the company out in a recent report titled “Why Shipping Call Center Jobs Overseas Hurts Us Back Home.”)
In addition to the “frustrations” of dealing with customer-service workers halfway around the globe, “there is the bigger picture of how opaque the process is, and, as a result, some of the security questions that are raised,” says Larson of the CWA. “I think Americans deserve to know to whom they are speaking and to where their information is going.”In Google’s ideal world, a mobile app is not a closed space but an open one — a layer for services that can easily connect with one another, like the Web. Ergo, the introduction last month of a method for streaming apps directly inside Google search, sans download.
It was a very limited rollout, but an important one in Google’s move to create a world in which it retains its position as portal to the consumer Internet.
Now Google is expanding that streaming capability to ads. Its mobile ad unit is adding two new formats for developers to promote their apps inside of other apps. The first, called Trial Run Ads, lets smartphone users test out an app — in all likelihood, a game — for a minute without downloading it. It will work for anyone running ads on AdMob, Google’s mobile network, which serves around 650,000 apps. Developers only pay if the user clicks to install; and, theoretically, they will get more eager downloaders, solving the nagging issue of neglect for apps.
The second deals with more lively formats for full-screen, or interstitial, ads. Google may take some heat for this, as it recently moved to de-rank full-screen mobile ads in its search results, infuriating many. That was only about keeping search undiluted and not meant to impact the vast (and remunerative) world of ads within apps, according to people familiar with the matter.
The two new formats come from Sissie Hsiao, who was promoted to lead Google’s critical mobile ad division in June.The boy allegedly put the bee on to his classmate's cheek An Indonesian schoolboy who was facing "serious abuse" charges for causing a bee to sting a classmate has been cleared by a court, reports say. The boy, believed to be about nine years old, had allegedly placed the bee on a girl's face where it stung her. Her parents reported him to the police who arrested him. He faced up to three years in prison. But the judge said the case was about "normal children's naughtiness" and should never have reached court. "It could have been settled amicably by the school and the parents involved," judge Sutriadi Yahya was quoted as saying by the AFP news agency. Mr Yahya said the boy had been acquitted of all charges and the court would "leave it to the parents to guide him". The boy's mother, Any Sulistyowati, wept as the verdict was read out, said AFP. "We're satisfied with the judge's decision. We will look after our child properly," she said. The Jakarta Post said the girl's parents were angry that she was being teased at school and had wanted to make an example of the boy. Children in Indonesia are tried as adults from the age of eight, but there are calls for the age to be raised to 12. Juveniles who are given prison sentences usually serve their term in adult jails, contrary to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Indonesia is a signatory. In 2009, a group of 10 boys who worked as shoe shiners were accused of gambling while waiting for customers in the capital, Jakarta. They were found guilty and faced five years in prison, but were returned to their parents' care after a public outcry.
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The resurgent debate over gun control has put a spotlight on the hardline leaders of the National Rifle Association. In the wake of the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, executive vice president Wayne LaPierre delivered a full-throated rejection of gun control and called for more firearms in schools, while David Keene, the group’s president, predicted the failure of any new assault weapons ban introduced in Congress. The two NRA figureheads purported to speak for more than 4 million American gun owners, though the group’s membership may in fact be smaller.
But whatever its true size, today’s NRA, widely considered to be disproportionately influential in politics, operates more like a corporation or politburo than a typical nonprofit or lobbying organization. Its 76 board directors and 10 executive officers keep a grip on power through elections in which ordinary grassroots members appear to have little say.
The NRA leadership is known as much for its organizational secrecy as its absolutist interpretation of the Second Amendment. That may be why, until now, little has been known about some of its most powerful insiders. They sit on the NRA board of directors’ nine-member Nominating Committee, which, despite ballots distributed annually to legions of NRA members, closely controls who can be elected to the NRA board. Mother Jones has uncovered key details about the current Nominating Committee*:
George K. Kollitides II, the chief executive of Freedom Group—which made the Bushmaster military-style assault rifle used in the Newtown massacre—was appointed as a member of the current committee, despite his failed attempts to be elected to the NRA board.
The current head of the Nominating Committee, Patricia A. Clark, lives in Newtown, just a couple of miles from the school where 20 young children and six adults were massacred.
While longtime NRA members and election watchers have reported that the Nominating Committee consists entirely of elected board members, the organization’s bylaws allow for three members to be appointed from outside the NRA board—as three of its current members were.
Two additional outsiders appointed to the current Nominating Committee include Roger K. Bain, a licensed federal firearms dealer in Pennsylvania, and Riley B. Smith, a timber company executive in Alabama.
Long before Newtown, and even before the bloodbath at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, a survey conducted in May 2012 by Republican pollster Frank Luntz found that most gun owners, including current and former members of the NRA, favor tighter gun regulations such as universal criminal background checks. And according to an ABC/Washington Post poll published on Tuesday, 86 percent of gun-owning households support a law requiring background checks at gun shows to close the so-called “loophole.” So what motivates NRA leaders to remain so out of step with their constituency, flatly rejecting any discussion of legal reform?
One answer may be their ties to the $11.7 billion gun industry. Freedom Group’s Kollitides ran for the NRA board in 2009 but lost, despite an endorsement from gun manufacturer Remington. “His campaign didn’t sit well with some gun bloggers, who viewed him as an industry interloper,” according to a 2011 report in the New York Times.
It remains unclear who among the NRA leadership tapped Kollitides, Bain, and Smith, to be on the current Nominating Committee.
“I was appointed,” Bain confirmed in a brief phone call. “I am not a board member,” he said, declining to say who appointed him. “This conversation is over.”
Calls to Kollitides and Smith seeking comment were not returned. The NRA declined to respond to multiple requests for comment regarding its board members and other organizational details. However, one NRA official, who declined to be named, said that Kollitides “has never been on the board, although he has run several times.”
But that need not stand in the way. “You’ve got a good friend you want to get more involved, and you nominate him,” a current long-serving NRA board member told Mother Jones.
Back in August 2011, the NRA Nominating Committee elected Clark, a board member since 1999, as its chair. Clark, a competitive sport shooter and an instructor in the Eddie Eagle GunSafe program heralded by LaPierre in his recent media blitz, is a longtime resident of Newtown. Her home is about a 10-minute drive by car from Sandy Hook Elementary School and about a 15-minute drive from the former home of Nancy Lanza, who was also murdered by her son on December 14 after he got possession of her semi-automatic assault rifle and other legally registered weapons.
Reached by phone on December 29 in nearby Bridgeport, Connecticut, where she works in the health care industry, Clark confirmed her NRA leadership role. When asked if she knew any of the victims or their families in Newtown, she replied, “This is a hard time for me. I am not really interested in giving an interview at this time.”
Unlike the NRA’s paid executive officers, who earn big money for their work, Clark’s directorship is unpaid. (LaPierre took home $960,000 from the NRA and related organizations in 2010; Kayne B. Robinson, the executive director of general operations, earned more than $1 million.)
Elections for the NRA board, which oversees the organization’s nearly 800 employees and more than $200 million in annual revenues, occur annually for 25 directors, who serve three-year terms. The vote typically involves less than 7 percent of NRA members, according to past NRA ballot results and pro-NRA bloggers. A low election turnout among members is not uncommon among nonprofit groups, but how a candidate gets his or her name on the ballot is key. According to an NRA supporter and self-proclaimed Second Amendment activist in Pennsylvania who blogs under the handle “Sebastian,” this occurs one of two ways: It requires a grassroots petition by members, which rarely gets a candidate on the ballot, or a candidate must be included on the official slate endorsed by the Nominating Committee.
“Read the bios in your ballot and you’ll see that almost all were nominated by the nominating committee,” complained “Pecos Bill” from Illinois last January in one pro-gun-rights forum. “Seems the NRA, fine organization that it is, is being run like a modern corporation and the ‘good ol’ boys’ are keeping themselves in power.”
*This refers to the Nominating Committee appointed by the NRA board in 2011 for the most recent board elections in 2012. This year’s Nominating Committee, whose members remain unclear, presumably will soon release its handpicked slate of candidates for NRA board elections in 2013.
In fact, 10 women currently serve on the board, but few people had access to that information until very recently, when the NRA posted a complete list on its website. (In the past, the NRA cloaked its board in secrecy; incomplete and outdated lists were published by outside groups using press clips and legally required NRA financial disclosures.) According to a search using Archive.org, the current board page was published sometime after December 6.
The Nominating Committee now led by Clark handpicked nearly all of the candidates on the 2012 ballot. As John Richardson, an NRA “Life Member” in North Carolina explained on his blog, No Lawyers – Only Guns and Money, in January 2012, “This year there are 31 candidates running for 25 positions. Of these 31, 29 were nominated by the Nominating Committee. The remaining two candidates were nominated by a petition of the membership which requires at least 250 signatures.” (One of those two nominated by petition was elected to the board last year.)
Other notable figures currently serving on the board include actor and firearms enthusiast Tom Selleck; anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist; Lt. Colonel Oliver North of Iran-Contra fame; right-wing rocker Ted Nugent, whose thinly veiled threats about Barack Obama’s reelection campaign prompted a Secret Service inquiry; and Marion Hammer, the former NRA president who helped mastermind the spread of Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law.
At a poignant news conference held in Newtown on Monday, parents of some of the slain first-graders announced Sandy Hook Promise, a new group and campaign to promote “common sense solutions” to America’s gun violence problem. It is unclear whether Patricia A. Clark attended that gathering in her local community. But she has shown a certain kind of interest in kids for decades. According to her board bio, she has “worked with Juniors for more than 30 years” as a firearms coach and instructor. As a line in her bio puts it, she is an “NRA Benefactor and Heritage Society member who believes that youngsters are the key to NRA’s future.”Horror is one of the most difficult genres to master. It's malleable and relies on both the presentation of atmosphere and the viewer's sensibilities, which often makes for many forgettable films and near hits, as the narrative almost always collapses underneath the impressive weight of the set up. Andre Ovredal's The Autopsy of Jane Doe is one such offering, using a simplistic baseline and a single location to build a unrivaled sense of dread that bottoms out in the final stretch. Featuring a trio of exceptional performances and an excellent example of micro-world building, this is one of the year's better horror movies whose advantages overcome an underwhelming finish.
Brian Cox and Emile H |
severity of his injury," Mr Curtain says in his review.
"I do not believe any lack of medical attention contributed to Phillip's death."
He also found that while Hughes was wearing a helmet that was compliant with the Australian standard of the time – which has since been withdrawn – the protective device did not meet the more recent British standard which sees the protective facial grille extend further to the back of the helmet.
But Mr Curtain says that even if Hughes had been wearing the English standard helmet, he did not believe it would have saved him given the nature of the blow he sustained.
"I do not believe that the new helmet would have afforded additional protection against the blow given the location of where Phillip was struck, as the protection to the neck, at the rear, is no different (to the helmet Hughes was wearing)," he says.
Cricket Australia Chief Executive Officer James Sutherland said today that a number of recommendations contained in Mr Curtain's review had already been implemented and that further measures will be taken to try and prevent a recurrence of the event that shook the game worldwide.
"The global cricket community was deeply saddened by the tragic death of Phillip Hughes and the great loss his family suffered," Mr Sutherland said.
"We received Mr Curtain's review last season and since that time we have been considering his recommendations and discussing with relevant bodies as to how we best make changes necessary to prevent an accident of this nature happening again.
"While there will always be a small risk we believe that the measures we have already taken and will enact following this review will reduce that risk even further."
In recommending the compulsory adoption of helmets for first-class batters facing all bowlers except spinners and for close-in (within seven metres of the bat) fielders except those behind the wicket on the off-side, Mr Curtain specified that those helmets "should be to the highest standard".
Other recommendations contained in Mr Curtain's report include:
Players and coaching staff involved in training sessions within practice nets where fast bowlers are operating should also be required to wear protective helmets, including those operating bowling machines (although the recommendation does not apply to bowlers)
A defibrillator be available at all first-class matches in case medical staff need to deal with trauma-related cardiac incidents or coronary conditions, but there was no evidence to show risk of cardiac injury is significantly reduced by players wearing chest protection
Protective headwear for umpires should be considered if there is seen to be an increased risk of injury to on-field officials, although statistics show that risk to be minimal at present
Any helmet that is struck with force, even if it does not sustain visible damage, be immediately replaced and that players should carry at least one spare helmet as part of their cricket kit
Mr Curtain also described the 'Concussion and Head Injury Policy' introduced by CA as "sensible and commendable" although he noted that a change to the laws of cricket relating to the use of substitute players might help to further safeguard players who have suffered a blow to the head.
Under the CA policy, team medical staff wield sole discretion as to whether any Australia player at national, state or elite pathway level who has been struck in the head can continue to take part in the game, with return to the field ruled out on the day the injury is sustained if concussion is diagnosed.
"Of concern to some is the fact that players who have been struck on the head and have suffered some symptoms (of concussion) may not admit to this as they would not want to prejudice the team by leaving it effectively a man short in batting and/or bowling," Mr Curtain says.
Quick Single: Hughes career in pictures
"In some quarters, there is agitation for the rules to be changed to accommodate a substitute who can bat and/or bowl, in contrast with the existing rules.
"As my terms of reference do not extend to matters involving the rules of the game, I have no suggestions to make in this regard, but merely draw it to Cricket Australia's attention that this may be a matter requiring ongoing consideration."
In response to this issue, Mr Sutherland said that CA was exploring the possibility of allowing a 'concussion substitute' to be permitted during domestic matches, although such a change to playing conditions in international fixtures was the domain of the International Cricket Council.
"It is understood that the ICC Cricket Committee will consider this and related issues at their next meeting on 31 May," Mr Sutherland said.
"ICC approval of the introduction of substitutes is required in order for four-day matches to retain their first class status.
"The Cricket Australia Playing Conditions Advisory Committee will also consider recommendations relating to concussion substitutes in all other domestic cricket competitions under CA's auspices."
Asked by CA to examine their current guidelines for screening contracted players, particularly those with specific vulnerabilities, Mr Curtain found that medical screening is not an efficient means by which susceptibility to risks such as cardiac or head injuries can be diagnosed.
"I have come to the view that it is not appropriate that screening of contracted players be undertaken," he says.
But he recommended that, should Cricket Australia's medical representatives become aware that a player has heightened vulnerability that might place them at risk of serious injury, it should be agreed (in discussion with the player concerned) that they stop playing in order to minimise that risk.
"In the event that the player does not agree not to play, in my opinion the medical practitioner should advise Cricket Australia that the player should not continue to play, for unspecified medical reasons," Mr Curtain says.
"The medical practitioner would thus respect the medical privilege of the player but also discharge his or her obligations to Cricket Australia to report on any impediment to the cricket continuing to play."
Cricket Australia has already indicated it will co-operate fully with the coronial inquest into Phillip Hughes' death that is expected to be held in Sydney in October this year.
"We have had ongoing open dialogue with the New South Wales Crown Solicitor and have indicated that we will be as co-operative as possible with any coronial inquest," Mr Sutherland said.
"Never again do we want to see a tragedy of that nature happen on a cricket field and we have shared the findings of this review with the coroner."Although it was chalked up to a misunderstanding, a well-publicized—and rescinded—barring of Chinese scientists from a NASA conference on exoplanets in November highlighted a congressionally imposed ban on bilateral cooperation between the space agency and China. In effect for the past two years, the ban has kept NASA from partnering with one of the world’s leading and most rapidly growing space powers.
“China can’t even talk to the United States to coordinate different activities in space science because of the ban,” says Gregory Kulacki, a China expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Such discussions would help the Chinese and US programs to avoid duplication in the construction of space instruments and would ensure that “both can make meaningful contributions to space science,” he says.
“There are a lot of areas, especially in space science, that are noncontroversial and that could benefit both. People are afraid to [engage in them] because they are unclear on the ban’s implications,” Kulacki says.
Letter of the law The ban, authored by Representative Frank Wolf (R-VA), limited the range of discussion that NASA administrator Charles Bolden could have with Chinese government officials when he visited Beijing in October. First enacted in NASA’s fiscal year 2011 appropriations, Wolf’s provision included an exception that allowed Bolden to meet with Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) president Bai Chunli while the NASA chief was in China to attend an International Astronautical Congress (IAC) meeting in September of this year. NASA spokesman Allard Beutel says that Bolden followed the law’s requirement to notify Congress at least 30 days in advance that his bilateral discussions would have no harmful effect on US national security or economic interests and to certify that the government officials Bolden met had no direct involvement in human rights violations. Bolden’s discussions with Bai were limited to a single narrow topic: the resumption of a joint activity with CAS that had been suspended as a result of the Wolf clause. “We had a preexisting agreement that we coordinate our Earth observation data with the idea of improving environmental decision making in a particular region, the Himalayas,” says Beutel. The data collection is coordinated through the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, a Nepal-based scientific organization. Wolf, who chairs the appropriations subcommittee that funds NASA, is a vociferous critic of the Chinese regime, citing its human rights violations, its sponsorship of hacking and industrial espionage, and other issues. In March Wolf raised concerns over an incident in which a Chinese citizen working as a contractor at NASA’s Langley Research Center was arrested as he tried to leave the country. Although the computer and other electronics he was carrying were found to contain no sensitive information, Bolden, at Wolf’s urging, nevertheless instituted a moratorium on issuing new credentials to individuals from designated countries, including China, while the agency reviewed the adequacy of its background-check requirements. Organizers of the Kepler exoplanet science conference at NASA’s Ames Research Center mistakenly believed that the moratorium remained in place, and acting out of what NASA spokesman Beutel described as “extreme caution,” informed six Chinese scientists that they could not attend. The Chinese were re-invited after Wolf publicly informed Bolden that the clause did not apply to nongovernment Chinese individuals. Bolden blamed the mix-up on “midlevel managers” at Ames. The 17-day October government shutdown complicated matters, as NASA employees were prohibited from working. According to the recently published book China in Space: The Great Leap Forward (Springer Praxis Books, 2013), China in 2011 overtook the US in the number of space launches. Its 2012 space budget is estimated at $3.4 billion, making China’s the world’s fifth largest space program. “NASA is missing out on the opportunity to cooperate with one of only three countries that know how to put humans in space,” notes John Logsdon, a space policy expert at George Washington University. China, he adds, is “clearly an emerging leader in space.”The Mummy is a 2017 American action-adventure film that was directed by Alex Kurtzman and written by David Koepp, Christopher McQuarrie and Dylan Kussman, with a story by Kurtzman, Jon Spaights and Jenny Lumet. The film is a reboot of The Mummy franchise and serves as the first installment in the Universal Dark Universe. The film features Tom Cruise, Annabelle Wallis, Sofia Boutella, Jake Johnson, Courtney B. Vance and Russell Crowe.
Starting us off in the year 1127 AD, several English crusader knights are burying an Egyptian ruby within the tomb of one of their own. In present-day London, a construction crew discovers the tomb and a, what some would consider to be, mysterious man is authorized to investigate the site. Later on in the film, we are taken to present-day Iraq, where Sergeant Nick Morton and Corporal Chris Vail discover the tomb of Ahmanet after an airstrike hits an insurgent stronghold. The sarcophagus is then pulled from a pool of mercury and transported to England. From there, the insanity begins.
The announcement for the reboot originally came out in 2012. After going through multiple directors, with Len Wiseman leaving the project in 2013 and Andres Muschietti in 2014. Principal photography began on April 3, 2016 in Oxford, United Kingdom, and also took place in Surrey. Filming on the movie wrapped up on July 17, 2016, in London. Production then moved to Nambia for two weeks, with principal photography on the film being completed on August 13, 2016.
The Mummy grossed $407.8 million worldwide against its $345 million production and advertising budget, having a worldwide opening of $172.4 million, making it the largest global debut of Tom Cruise’s career. The film was considered to be a box office disappointment given its high production an marketing costs, and originally had a projected loss of approximately $95 million.
The Film Itself (3.5/5):
I’m sure I’m going to get a lot of negative feedback, but in all honesty, I liked The Mummy for what it had to offer. While this film is labeled as a reboot of the original 1999 film, it definitely should have not been as it takes a completely different spin to the story, including a different name for the mummy itself. The film itself has no relation to the earlier series outside of bearing the same name. The movie is packed to the brim of action sequences that my wife and I found ourselves not able to take our eyes off of the tv as the movie moved onward. After watching through this film, there were a lot of questions that were left unanswered, however I do get the feeling that this movie in particular is being used as a foundation to a new cinematic universe that’s being created.
Picture Quality (3.75/5):
The Mummy comes on a Blu-ray disc that encoded just like any other Blu-ray release. Presented in 1080p, the picture itself was generally pretty clean and clear; except for when the film moved onward into the darker sequences. The scenes that take place in the lower levels of lighting were extremely difficult to visually understand what was happening and I found myself pretty much giving up during these scenes because the effort outweighed the benefit of added focus.
Audio Quality (5/5):
Packed with a Dolby Atmos audio track, The Mummy offers an all out immersive experience for home viewers. Doing an absolutely fantastic job with its multi-channel presentation, you really do feel as if you are right in the middle of all of the action. One of the most notorious pieces of this releases audio track are the gunshots as they ring out all over. Other aspects, including the sandstorms, shattering pieces of glass, and explosions offer an extensive width and depth with top-of-the line clarity. The dialogue of the film is clean and clear and provided with naturally positioned and well prioritized detail.
The Packaging (3/5):
The Mummy comes packaged in your standard two-disc Blu-ray amaray case. Within that case is the standard Blu-ray copy and the standard DVD copy of the film, each disc not really featuring any artwork outside of the standard text that is used to differentiate the disc from others one might own. There is also a digital copy redemption pamphlet that is included as well as a slipcover that’s been made available in the initial pressing of this release and features the same artwork as the Blu-ray case.
Special Features (4/5):
There was a surprising amount of additional content that’s been made available on the Blu-ray copy of The Mummy, offering an even deeper look into the film and the work that went into making this film available. Included with this release is:
Deleted & Extended Scenes
Cruise & Kurtzman: A Conversation
Rooted In Reality
Life In Zero-G: Creating The Plane Crash
Meet Ahmanet
Cruise In Action
Becoming Jekyll And Hyde
Choreographed Chaos
Nick Morton: In Search Of A Soul
Ahmanet Reborn: Animated Graphic Novel
Feature Audio Commentary
Technical Specs:
Video
Codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Resolution: 1080p
Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1
Original Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1
Audio
English: Dolby Atmos
English: Dolby TrueHD 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1
French: Dolby Digital 5.1
Subtitles
English SDH, French, Spanish
Runtime
Original Film: 110 minutes
Final Thoughts:
As you can see, I did enjoy The Mummy – however this film was nowhere near as enjoyable as the original 1999 film that featured Brendan Fraser. While the movie was decent, it definitely should have NOT have been labeled as a reboot, it should have been labeled as a new film. While the story of the film wasn’t necessarily the greatest, it did do a pretty good job at building the foundation of a new cinematic universe that I’m eager to see take off. The visual presentation of the Blu-ray wasn’t bad, except for areas where there were lower levels of lighting. I’m sure those who pick this film up on UHD will get a better visual experience with the use of HDR; however I know I’m not spending the money to pick this up on 4K. The audio presentation was simply superb and sounded absolutely fantastic as it roared through my home theater system. There’s a lot of additional content that’s been provided for further exploration of the film. If you’re interested in grabbing this film for your collection, I just ask that you go into this movie with zero expectations and ignore the fact that this film is supposed to be a reboot.
Note: This Blu-ray was sent to us for review. This has not affected our judgement or editorial process in any way. Please contact us if you have any questions regarding this process.The Beatles played their final public concert at Candlestick Park in San Francisco back in 1966, which gives the soon-to-be-demolished ballpark a special place in Paul McCartney ‘s heart. Macca had made it clear he wanted to perform the final concert at Candlestick and today he’s been confirmed to do just that on August 14.
Billed as “Farewell to Candlestick: The Final Concert,” we can’t wait to see what McCartney has in store for the Candlestick finale. Tickets for Paul McCartney’s Farewell to Candlestick: The Final Concert will go on sale Monday, May 5 at 10 a.m. PT.
Listen to a recording of The Beatles final concert from August 29, 1966 at Candlestick Park:
Here’s the current list of confirmed Paul McCartney U.S. dates:
June 14: Lubbock, TX -United Spirit Arena
June 16: Dallas, TX -American Airlines Center
June 19: New Orleans, LA -Smoothie King Center (SOLD OUT)
June 21: Atlanta, GA -Philips Arena
June 22: Jacksonville, FL -Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Arena
June 25: Nashville, TN -Bridgestone Arena
June 26: Louisville, KY -Yum! Center (SOLD OUT)
July 5: Albany, NY -Times Union Center (SOLD OUT)
July 7: Pittsburgh, PA -Consol Energy Center (SOLD OUT)
July 9: Chicago, IL -United Center
July 12: Fargo, ND -Fargodome
July 14: Lincoln, NE -Pinnacle Bank Arena
July 16: Kansas City, MO -Sprint Center
August 2: Minneapolis, MN -Target Field
August 7: Salt Lake City, UT -EnergySolutions Arena
August 14: San Francisco, CA -Candlestick ParkWASHINGTON -- Minnesota's gubernatorial candidates are not fans of allowing transgender high school students to participate in sports based on their gender identity, a policy currently being considered by the state's high school league.
During a Wednesday night debate, the moderator raised the issue, posing what he said was "by far" the most emailed question from Minnesota voters. Each candidate deferred to the Minnesota State High School League to make the decision, though they made clear they didn't like the sound of the policy. Some used harsher words than others.
"I will tell you, as a dad of two teenaged boys, I don't think it makes a lot of sense to have boys and girls in the same locker room," said Jeff Johnson, the Republican candidate.
"It's a very complicated issue," said Gov. Mark Dayton (D), the incumbent. "Giving transgender students the choice of which team they want to play on is, I think, problematic."
"I would also put it in the hands of the Minnesota State High School League," added Hannah Nicolette, the independent candidate. "If there's demonstrable harm, we can address that as it comes. But I put it in their responsibility."
The league recently decided to postpone a vote until December on whether to let transgender high school students train and compete with sports teams based on their gender identity, instead of their gender at birth. Members of the organization said they wanted more time to study the issue.
The debate has generated significant controversy. The state's largest newspaper, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, ran a full-page anti-transgender ad from a group called Minnesota Child Protection League. Meanwhile, Zeam Porter, a transgender athlete at a Minnesota high school, delivered a moving speech to the league about the effect of policies surrounding transgender students and sports teams.SAN DIEGO - Police are investigating an online threat of violence to San Diego's LGBT community that read: "You're next."
On Tuesday evening, a 10News viewer saw the post in the men-seeking-men section of the Craigslist San Diego personal ads. He took a screenshot and sent it to 10News before the post was flagged and removed.
The post is titled "We need more Orlando's (sic)," and it is accompanied by a photo of a hand firing a revolver with a bullet coming out of the barrel.
The post read: "Orlando was long overdue. Cleanse your community of the filth that gives decent gay men and women a bad name. Those people were walking diseases, bug chasers, and thank god for AIDS and 9-11 and now Orlando. San Diego you are next …"
10News sent the screenshot to the San Diego Police Department and the FBI.
SDPD Lt. Scott Wahl said the department will investigate the post. Wahl emphasized that police have had extra officers on patrol in places where people gather in the wake of the Orlando shooting.
FBI Special Agent Darrell Foxworth told 10News the bureau's Joint Terrorism Task Force is investigating the posting.
Foxworth told Team 10 the task force is a multi-law enforcement agency that will work together to find out who made this threat.
"This is something that's very serious, very concerning to all of us, especially given what's happened recently in Orlando," said Foxworth.
Foxworth said the FBI receives thousands of similar complaints from across the country.
"We are going to use all lawful means available to us, so if we have to go out and get a search warrant, we will do that. If it doesn't require a search warrant, we're going to do whatever it takes to do it in a lawful and legal matter," Foxworth told 10News.
Foxworth said there are no known credible threats to San Diego right now, but they are always keeping watch.
"We don't have the luxury of just looking at this and letting it go," Foxworth said.
On Wednesday, SDPD Chief Shelley Zimmerman issued this statement regarding the post:
"The San Diego Police Department is aware of a recent post on Craigslist that has since been removed. We are investigating it collaboratively with our law enforcement partners. The latest information remains, there are no known credible threats to the San Diego region. As always, we encourage our community if they see something, hear something, or know something, to say something."A brilliant young man, he was appointed professor at the University of Basel aged 24 having not even finished his degree. His evanescent philosophical life ended 20 years later when he went insane and died shortly afterwards.
Nietzsche’s argued that the Christian system of faith and worship was not only incorrect, but harmful to society because it allowed the weak to rule the strong – it suppressed the will to power which was the driving force of human character. Nietzsche wanted people to throw of the shackles of our misguided Christian morality and become supermen – free and titanic.
However, without God he felt that the future of man might spiral into a society of nihilism, devoid of any meaning; his aim was for man to realise the lack of divine purpose and create his own values. The core of Nietzsche’s work, including Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883-92), Beyond Good and Evil (1886), The Birth of Tragedy (1872) was to find a meaning and morality in the absence of God.CLOSE A TransAsia Airways flight crashed in the Penghu Islands off the coast of Taiwan Wednesday, killing most of the people on board.
Rescue workers survey the wreckage of TransAsia Airways Flight GE222 that crashed while attempting to land in stormy weather on the Taiwanese island of Penghu on July 23, 2014. (Photo11: Wong Yao-wen, AP)
After staying too long at her parents' house in Kaohsiung, Taiwan's second city, Chen Caijia and her son arrived at the airport too late to board their Wednesday afternoon flight back home to Penghu Island, an archipelago in the Taiwan Strait loved by windsurfers and beach-goers.
They can count themselves lucky. At least 47 people were feared dead after a TransAsia Airways plane crashed Wednesday while trying to make an emergency landing in stormy weather in the Penghu Islands off the coast of Taiwan.
Others were less fortunate. Soldier Cai Minhua tried Tuesday to return to his military base on Penghu, after a vacation, but the flight, a short hop of 35 minutes, was canceled as Typhoon Matmo approached. Cai ended up on Wednesday's TransAsia Airways flight GE222, along with six members of the Chen family, all residents of Magong, Penghu's pretty main town.
Their flight crashed just a mile from its destination, Magong airport, in stormy weather at the typhoon's tail end.
The mother's escape, and the soldier's death on duty, were among the earliest narratives of survival and loss to emerge, as reported by Taiwan's United Daily News, Hong Kong's Apple Daily and Singapore's Lianhe Zaobao Online.
Villagers rushed to rescue passengers in heavy rain. The plane crashed into two empty houses, avoiding deaths in the ground.
But hard questions will be raised about why the flight went ahead. The plane, already delayed in its take-off by bad weather, apparently crashed after aborting a first landing attempt. Across the Taiwan Strait in mainland China's Fujian province, authorities had canceled flights and trains earlier Wednesday in anticipation of Typhoon Matmo's arrival.
Taiwan Transport Minister Yeh Kuang-shih, who said 47 people were feared dead, was quoted by the government's Central News Agency as saying another 11 people were injured after the ATR-72 aircraft crashed outside the airport in Xixi village while attempting a second landing.
Later, he said that 46 "were missing" and that crews at the crash site had found around a dozen bodies, according to the agency.
Yeh said flight carried 58 passengers and crewmembers. The CNA, quoting a local fire brigade chief, had initially reported the death toll at 51.
Flight GE222 was flying from Kaohsiung, a major city on the southwest coast of Taiwan's main island, to Magong, one of two airports on Penghu Island, which is located halfway between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan in the Taiwan Strait.
The Taiwan News reports that the aircraft took off more than 90 minutes late because of the poor weather, and the pilot reportedly asked to wait until 7:06 p.m. before being allowed to land.
The plane slammed into the ground in the village, setting fire to at least two houses. Photos in the local media from the crash site showed a handful of firefighters using flashlights to look at wreckage in the darkness.
Taiwanese media identified the pilot as 60-year-old Lee Yi-liang and his co-pilot as Chiang Kuan-hsing, 39, and said each had flown over 20,000 hours, according to Taiwan News.
Although the center of Typhoon Matmo had already swept through the islands, heavy rain and strong winds from the system continued to batter the area.
A radar image from the moment of the plane crash showed heavy rain over the area, AccuWeather reports.
CNN reported that the storm brought 10 inches of rain in the area and winds up to 47 mph.
The accident happened in the Taiwan Strait that separates the self-ruled island from mainland China, which has in the past threatened to invade if Taiwan ever formally declares independence. Cross-Strait relations have warmed in recent years under the current Taiwanese administration, led by the Nationalist KMT Party, the former foes of Chairman Mao's Communist Party. Many Taiwanese remain nervous about closer economic ties with China and have held demonstrations this year.
Calum MacLeod reported from Beijing. Contributing: Sunny Yang in Beijing, Doyle Rice in McLean, Va.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1rATeAgWhile the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal this morning gave front-page coverage to yesterday's grisly beheading of a British serviceman on a London street in broad daylight, the New York Times placed their 20-paragraph story by London correspondent John F. Burns on page A7. Editors slapped on the headline, "'Barbaric' Attack in London Renews Fears of Terror Threat," with "barbaric" in scare quotes.
While the Post, Journal, and Times all ran quotes from one of the attackers as transcribed from a cell phone video filmed by a bystander, the Times curiously left out a portion of the rant where the attacker boasted, "We swear by the almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you until you leave us alone."
The Times's Burns did quote one thing the attacker said, and it was a line in which he effectively blamed the British government for pushing him to a homicidal rage:
I apologize that women had to see this today, but in our lands women have to see the same thing....You people will never be safe. Remove your governments! They don't care about you.
But as Washington Post London bureau chief Anthony Faiola noted, immediately before that so-called apology, the attacker claimed inspiration from the Koran, insisting that
There are many, many ayah [verses] throughout the Koran that says we must fight them as they fight us, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
Burns curiously left that line out of his story.
Had such a brutal attack happened in London or the U.S. and it was followed by the assailant boasting on camera, "We won't stop fighting you until we claim this country for Jesus Christ!" or that the Bible justified his violence, it's hard to believe those facts wouldn't be placed prominently in the story and maybe even quoted in the headline.The chassis of the new ZenBook Pro UX550 is created from a single piece of aluminum. Asus advertises 40 manufacturing steps, including the polishing for the iconic design with the concentric circles on the lid. The top edge of the base unit is also polished, which creates a very nice contrast to the otherwise matte black chassis. The other two visual accents are the Asus logos underneath the screen and on the lid. The latter is translucent and will light up when the system is turned on. The polished edge is also comfortable for the wrists. The bottom is slightly rounded as well and the overall handling is very good. The only problem with our black model is the susceptibility to fingerprints. You will have to clean it a lot (an appropriate cloth is not provided). We can imagine the optional blue model (Royal Blue) is more convenient in this respect.
The stability, however, cannot fully meet the high expectations. The base unit is very sturdy at the palm rests and the sides of the keyboard, but this changes towards the center. Even medium pressure is sufficient to dent the surface. You can also dent the bottom panel at this spot and you can hear it has contact with the surface below. It is possible to remove the whole bottom panel for maintenance purposes, but more on that later. The notebook stands very well on the desk thanks to four large rubberized support feet.
The display hinge is very firm and it is hard to open with just one hand. There is a small indentation with two status lights on the front edge, which are easy to see both when the lid is open and closed. The firm hinge prevents bouncing very well and the maximum opening angle is ~140 degrees, which should be sufficient in practice. The thin lid is surprisingly sturdy. You can dent or twist it with a lot of pressure, but there are no picture distortions and the whole construction leaves a good impression in practice.
All in all, the new Asus ZenBook Pro UX550 is a very elegant and stylish device. We did not find any flaws with the build quality, but the aluminum case from Apple still has the edge in terms of the stability.I know that’s a strong claim for children’s cartoon on the Disney Channel. But seriously, the show about two brothers who spend each day having an insane adventure, their sister Candace, who spends each day trying to bust them, and their pet platypus Perry, who spends each day thwarting the mad schemes of the evil Dr. Doofenshmirtz, is one of the best depictions of science fiction on television today.
For one thing, outside of its spec fic premise, Phineas and Ferb is a really good show in general. I could write whole other articles on how it’s a blisteringly funny satire of contemporary pop culture, or how it’s a loving portrayal of a blended family that treats divorce and remarriage as normal parts of life, or how it’s remarkably cleverly written using repetition, variation, and song to create complex and compelling characters, or how the secret protagonist of the show is actually Candace, the teenager trapped between her desperate need to be an adult and her own childish desires to have fun.
All that aside, Phineas and Ferb is a great science fiction, by which I mean it uses an impossible world to tell real stories about real people. Beyond the individual episodes that focus on tropes of the sci fi genre (rockets, robots, time machines and shrink rays, for example), the whole show is, at its heart, about two mad scientists, Phineas Flynn* and Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz, who, though unaware of each other, are rivals in their quests to reshape the city of Danville and the entire Tri-State Area (named after John P. Tristate).
*Ferb Fletcher, Phineas’s brother, is a brilliant scientist in his own right, but since he rarely speaks or acts independently, he usually fills the role of Igor, as he explicitly does in the episode “the Monster of Phineas-n-Ferbenstein.”
That Phineas and Doofenshmirtz are two sides of the same triangle headed coin is the subtext of every episode, and the actual text of episodes like “I Scream, You Scream,” where they accidentally switch blueprints, and “Hail Doofania,” where they switch dialogue. Young Phineas is absolutely the better scientist, and just as mad. His solution to almost every problem is to build something impossible, usually before lunch. Even his lemonade stand is powered by a giant anthropomorphic robot. Doofenshmirtz, on the other hand, is no slouch in the building impossible devices department. He’s mainly hindered by his insistence that each device end in “-inator”, including his “Age Accelerator…-inator,” and that his plans are constantly foiled by a, well, “suave, semi-aquatic personification of unstoppable dynamic fury.”
The real difference then between the two is not what they can do, which is anything, but what they choose to do with almost unlimited power. Phineas is an altruistic epicurean on a quest to have the best summer ever. He doesn’t just want to ride a rollercoaster, he wants to ride the best rollercoaster, and if he has to build it himself (with the aid of his brother and friends), he will. But not just for himself. He wants everyone to have the best summer ever, whether that means inviting his friends along on his adventures or transforming Danville into a cooler place for everyone or gearing his adventures towards solving one of his friends specific problems. And I do mean he wants to help everyone, including Candace, against whom he holds no grudge for her constant attempts at busting him. Of course, that also leads to Phineas’s main flaw: he doesn’t always notice when his help is unwanted or its over the top nature causes more harm than good, like the giant tilt-a-whirl speed dating machine he builds for Candace, or the army of potato gremlins he accidentally unleashes trying to make latkes. But his heart is always in the right place, when he causes problems he makes sure to fix them, and even when his inventions fail, he laughs it off and looks forward to his next crazy plan.
Doofenshmirtz, on the other hand, is whatever the opposite of an altruistic epicurean is. A mean-spirited megalomaniac. Most of Doofenshmirtz’s schemes are aimed at taking over the entire Tri-State area, when they are not designed to revenge himself for some petty, possibly imagined slight. Not that he didn’t have a miserable childhood growing up in the country of Gimmelshtump—for example, his family could not afford a lawn gnome so he had to stand in the garden each night wearing a pointed hat and fake beard—but that’s no reason to vacuum away everybody else’s lawn gnome. His solutions always involve making everybody else’s life worse, rather than make his own life better. Rather than make himself more attractive, he creates a ray to make everyone else uglier. As focused as he is on the failures in his life, ignoring his amazing ex-wife and kick ass daughter, no wonder he’s miserable and spends each afternoon getting beaten up by a monotreme.
And while some episodes show how Phineas and Doofenshmirtz aren’t that different, other episodes, very science fiction-y episodes, demonstrate just how important their differences are and how horrible it would be if Doofenshmitz ever, you know, won. One great strength of science fiction is the ability to tell stories that are not just impossible generally, but would also ruin the ongoing narrative. But with alternate dimensions (in the TV movie Phineas and Ferb: Across the 2nd Dimension) and time travel (“Phineas and Ferb’s Quantum Booglaloo”), we see that a world ruled by Doofenshmirtz would be a colorless place where everyone wears the same clothes and children spend the summer indoors while hoping nothing bad happens to them. The two episodes also make it clear that, whether they know it or not, it is actually Phineas and Ferb, and the children they inspire, that keep the world from slipping into Doofensmirtz’s hands.
The point is clear, mad science aimed at hurting people creates a grey world where everyone looks the same and no one has fun. Helping others creates a colorful world full of intelligent people able to rise to any challenge. Phineas and Ferb has heroes using science at its best, and villains using it at its worst, and the show uses science fiction to tell inspiring stories about imagination. It’s a fantastic show everybody should be watching, and in closing, there’s a platypus controlling me.
Steven Padnick is a comics editor. By day.Cops are on the hunt for a dwarf who sexually assaulted a straphanger in Brooklyn, police said Wednesday.
The assailant groped a 36-year-old woman’s buttocks aboard a J train at Broadway Junction in Brownsville at about 2:45 p |
To keep itself in good shape, it must rely on tortuous supply lines thousands of miles long. Because of this, it is not the arbiter of its own fate in Afghanistan, though this seems to have gone almost unnoticed for years.
Of all the impractical wars a declining empire could fight, the Afghan one may be the most impractical of all. Hand it to the Soviet Union, at least its “bleeding wound” -- the phrase Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev gave to its Afghan debacle of the 1980s -- was conveniently next door. For the nearly 91,000 American troops now in that country, their 40,000 NATO counterparts, and thousands of private contractors, the supplies that make the war possible can only enter Afghanistan three ways: perhaps 20% come in by air at staggering expense; more than a third arrive by the shortest and cheapest route -- through the Pakistani port of Karachi, by truck or train north, and then by truck across narrow mountain defiles; and perhaps 40% (only “non-lethal” supplies allowed) via the Northern Distribution Network (NDN).
The NDN was fully developed only beginning in 2009, when it belatedly became clear to Washington that Pakistan had a potential stranglehold on the American war effort. Involving at least 16 countries and just about every form of transport imaginable, the NDN is actually three routes, two of them via Russia, that funnel just about everything through the bottleneck of corrupt, autocratic Uzbekistan.
In other words, simply to fight its war, Washington has made itself dependent on the kindness of strangers -- in this case, Pakistan and Russia. It’s one thing when a superpower or great power on the rise casts its lot with countries that may not be natural allies; it’s quite a different story when a declining power does so. Russian leaders are already making noises about the viability of the northern route if the U.S. continues to displease it on the placement of its prospective European missile defense system.
But the more immediate psychodrama of the Afghan War is in Pakistan. There, the massive resupply operation is already a major scandal. It was estimated, for instance, that, in 2008, 12% of all U.S. supplies heading from Karachi to Bagram Air Base went missing somewhere en route. In what Karachi’s police chief has called “the mother of all scams,” 29,000 cargo loads of U.S. supplies have disappeared after being unloaded at that port.
In fact, the whole supply system -- together with the local security and protection agreements and bribes to various groups that are part and parcel of it along the way -- has evidently helped fund and supply the Taliban, as well as stocking every bazaar en route and supporting local warlords and crooks of every sort.
Recently, in response to American air strikes that killed 24 of their border troops, the Pakistani leadership forced the Americans to leave Shamsi air base, where the CIA ran some of its drone operations, successfully pressured Washington into at least temporarily halting its drone air campaign in Pakistan’s borderlands, and closed the border crossings through which the whole American supply system must pass. They remain closed almost two months later. Without those routes, in the long run, the American war simply cannot be fought.
Though those crossings are likely to be reopened after a significant renegotiation of U.S.-Pakistani relations, the message couldn’t be clearer. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as in those Pakistani borderlands, have not only drained American treasure, but exposed the relative helplessness of the “sole superpower.” Ten (or even five) years ago, the Pakistanis would simply never have dared to take actions like these.
As it turned out, the power of the U.S. military was threateningly impressive, but only until George W. Bush pulled the trigger twice. In doing so, he revealed to the world that the U.S. could not win distant land wars against minimalist enemies or impose its will on two weak countries in the Greater Middle East. Another reality was exposed as well, even if it has taken time to sink in: we no longer live on a planet where it's obvious how to leverage staggering advantages in military technology into any other kind of power.
In the process, all the world could see what the United States was: the other declining power of the Cold War era. Washington’s state of dependence on the Eurasian mainland is now clear enough, which means that, whatever “agreements” are reached with the Afghan government, the future in that country is not American.
Over the last decade, the U.S. has been taught a repetitive lesson when it comes to ground wars on the Eurasian mainland: don’t launch them. The debacle of the impending double defeat this time around couldn’t be more obvious. The only question that remains is just how humiliating the coming retreat from Afghanistan will turn out to be. The longer the U.S. stays, the more devastating the blow to its power.
All of this should hardly need to be said and yet, as 2012 begins, with the next political season already upon us, it is no less painfully clear that Washington will be incapable of ending the Afghan War any time soon.
At the height of what looked like success in Iraq and Afghanistan, American officials fretted endlessly about how, in the condescending phrase of the moment, to put an “Afghan face” or “Iraqi face” on America’s wars. Now, at a nadir moment in the Greater Middle East, perhaps it’s finally time to put an American face on America’s wars, to see them clearly for the imperial debacles they have been -- and act accordingly.
Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project and the author of The American Way of War: How Bush’s Wars Became Obama’s as well as The End of Victory Culture, runs the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com. His latest book, The United States of Fear (Haymarket Books), has just been published.
Copyright 2012 Tom EngelhardtWorking in R&D since '95, Mark became Magic head designer in '03. His hobbies: spending time with family, writing about Magic in all mediums, and creating short bios.
Welcome to Temur Week! This is the fifth and final clan-themed week and we'll be talking all about the green-blue-red wedge. As I've done for the previous four clan theme weeks (Abzan, Jeskai, Sultai, and Mardu), I'm going to put the three relevant colors in a room, ask a few questions, and then get out of the way as they talk among themselves. My goal for this entire series is to give you a better sense of how the colors relate and understand the differences and similarities between them through interaction. If you're interested in the topic of color philosophy, please check out this page, which collects the many color pie articles (more than 20) I've written over the years.
Let's get started:
Hello, colors. We're going to start this interview like the four others. Going in the order you appear in Temur mana costs, please introduce yourself, then explain your end goal and the means you use to accomplish it.
I'm Green. I'm the center of the Temur clan. I seek acceptance and I do so through harmony.
I'm Blue. I seek perfection and do so through the acquisition of knowledge.
I'm Red. I seek freedom and attain it through action.
Let's begin by having each of you explain how you feel about the attribute that ties your clan together. How do each of you feel about savagery?
Before we jump into this topic, I'd like to take a second to talk about the word "savagery." The word, as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is "The quality of lacking the restraints normal to civilized human beings." An alternative definition is "The quality of lacking complex or advanced culture." In each case, it is defined by a lack of a more cultured response.
What are you doing?
If we're going to discuss a word and what it means to us, don't we have to first understand the context of the word, linguistically?
I think examining the meaning of the word "savagery" is about as far away from savagery as one can get. Being savage is about giving in to one's impulses and instincts, of doing what needs to be done in the heat of the moment in order to survive.
But the definition implies it's contextual.
Must you overanalyze everything? Is it against the rules to just explain how something makes you feel?
I believe that savagery can be just as mental as it is physical or emotional.
Really?
But that's why there are three of us—because we each approach the attribute differently.
To me, savagery is finding inner strength and drawing it out.
That is what mental fortitude is—just with your brain rather than your muscles.
So it's looking within.
Yes.
Good. You do have a tendency to want to look without.
Meaning?
Life provides you with all the answers, and all you need to find them is to look within. When I talk about harmony, what I mean is learning to stop struggling with the universe and start realizing that the things you need are already within you.
I fundamentally disagree with that. We are born blank slates with ultimate potential, but that potential comes from without. Anyone can become anything, but you need knowledge, experience, and the proper tools.
Are you saying savagery comes from without?
No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that savagery is about overriding normal psychological limits that most likely developed as a means of protection. That way, you can perform an action that is outside your norm.
So savagery is like breaking rules?
I guess you could interpret it that way.
Good. I can get behind breaking rules.
To me, savagery is about accepting your animal nature. Within each one of us, we have a connection to the web of life. That means we all have a feral side, and savagery is us tapping into that.
Replace animal nature with emotions and I'm down with that.
To me, savagery is digging deep to find the mental strength within yourself to accomplish the task at hand.
I see very little thinking in savagery. When I'm at my most savage, I'm the furthest from inside my head. Being savage is listening not to your head but to your whole body. It's giving in to the primal forces that connect us to the earth.
I have to agree with Green here. Savagery is listening to your id, to the most basic elements of your psyche. There's no thinking going on.
Savagery has no mental component for either of you because you both shun thinking.
What do you mean by that?
You both live by credos that reject the idea that rational thought is a positive force. That's why it's so hard to talk with the two of you, because you never bother thinking anything through.
I find it interesting that you equate us choosing not to do things your way as a sign of ignorance.
It's not ignorance, it's apathy. You two don't seem to care. There's a world of knowledge out there that can help you with whatever task you have at hand, but the two of you feel as if using the experience gained by others is somehow forbidden.
While you reject the mere thought that there exists something, outside of hard data, that can provide answers.
Data is objective.
Life isn't about objectivity.
Maybe not for you.
Does it ever bother you that you live in a cold world devoid of any feeling?
What do you want me to do? Act on every whim like you? Make shortsighted decisions that prioritize whatever thought is at the forefront of my brain?
Does it make you feel more superior to think of every act I make as an irrational one? The only difference between you and me is our motivation. I'm trying to stay true to who I am and to those who I care about. I try to stand for something and make my life have meaning. You seem more motivated by trying to never make a mistake. Well, I hope you're happy in your sterile, cold, little life, never knowing what it is to be close to another individual or feel true happiness—or any real emotion, for that matter.
I have feelings. I have emotions. I just choose to understand them for what they are and not let them run my life. We are blessed with intellect for a reason, because it allows us the ability to shape who we are and what we can become. When my life ends, I'm going to be the best that I can become, while you're going to be the same fool you've been your entire life.
That's because I'm happy with who I am. Did you ever stop to wonder why you try so hard to change? Because you don't like who you are right now.
Red hit upon the key difference between you and us. We're focused on looking within and recognizing who we are and what makes us special, rather than seeking external answers to explain how we can become something else.
Do you ever laugh? Do you ever cry?
Do you ever embrace the miracle of who you are? Are you capable of enjoying a sunset or relaxing to the sound of the rain?
Are you two content with never aiming to improve yourself? Of never trying to do better, to become better?
For someone who claims to value knowledge, you love jumping to conclusions. Red and I both strive to be better. We just don't do it your way.
Let's move on to the next topic. What mechanical elements do you three have for a strategy of savagery?
The three of us all have the capability of having bigger bodies, especially at common.
Green and I have trample. We also both have ability to pump our power and/or toughness. I have firebreathing. Green has the Rootwalla ability. Green and I both have spells that pump as well. Even Blue occasionally does +1/-1 boosting.
Using a similar theme of growth, Green and I both have access to card drawing. Green tends to focus its card drawing through creatures. Red and I both have access to looting, although mine is "draw then discard," while Red's is "discard then draw."
Green and I are both capable of damage. I do direct damage to creatures, players, and—indirectly—Planeswalkers. Green and I can both destroy artifacts and lands, while Green can also destroy enchantments and occasionally Planeswalkers. Blue doesn't destroy, but it can transform creatures, steal them, bounce them, and lock them down.
Green and I can use the advantage of surprise to ambush with flash. Red, and occasionally Green, has haste.
I also have a strong theme of variable power and toughness that grows over time. In addition, I'm able to distribute +1/+1 counters to make other things permanently grow.
Green and I also have access to mana. Green does it more permanently with land fetching and creatures that can activate to produce mana. I tend to have rituals or permanents that sacrifice themselves to produce mana temporarily.
Creature keyword-wise, we each have creature keywords that can help us in a fight. I have hexproof, so no one can interfere in my fights; Red has first strike and double strike, to dominate fights; Green has deathtouch, vigilance, and reach, to upgrade its fights.
We all have the means to be tough when called upon, to make sure that we're the ones who win the fight.
Blue, let's talk a bit about what it's like to work with your two enemies.
I live my life around a simple premise—every problem has a solution. They key is to spend the time and energy to figure out what that solution is. For example, let's say I have a problem with a neighbor. We have a disagreement. I will take the time to understand what my neighbor's issue is. Why is she upset? Were there actions that I took that led to her being upset? Are there steps I could take to rectify the situation so that she's no longer upset? During the same timeframe that I would be calculating my next move, Green would be starting a fight with her while Red would be burning down her house. That's my major problem.
Your problem is that we take action? That we actually do something about our problems?
No, my problem isn't that you take action. It's that you take action without thinking it through. You seek out the shortest path to every resolution.
Because the longest path is so much better?
Are you even aware of the chaos you create? Emotions are dangerous. Impulses are reckless. It's like you put out every fire by throwing the nearest liquid on it, even when that liquid is gasoline.
First off, I do not put out fires. Second, you act as if emotions aren't a core essence of who we are. They're not some faulty wiring. Your emotions are you. You live your life in self-denial, rejecting who you are.
We are more than just our base impulses. I reject emotion? You reject intellect. What makes us who we are is not what we feel but how we think. If we followed every impulse, we'd be no better than animals.
Hey! You should only hope that you live your life with half as much grace as any creature in nature. They don't live their lives in self-doubting angst. They embrace who they are and live it with every ounce of their being.
That's the difference between us and most animals. They don't have an intellect. They're not capable of higher thought. We shouldn't live like animals because we're better than them. We're capable of more. That's all I want. I just want people to live up to their potential.
You act as if intelligence is some marker of quality. So you're smarter. Someone else is faster. Someone else is stronger. Someone else is more compassionate. There are many different attributes to strive for. If you want that thing to be intelligence or knowledge or whatever high brain function you designate, great. Just stop judging everyone else by the same criteria. It's insulting and short-sighted.
I'm short-sighted? Red is the poster child for "Hit first, ask questions later."
You're the poster child for "Give me an hour and I'll get back to you."
There's nothing wrong with restraint.
Yes, there is. You act as if inaction has no consequences. While you take your time to think the problem through, others are making the choices for you.
And when you act without thinking, you're dictating an outcome that you can't control.
Control is overrated.
According to you!
You keep saying you want to perfect yourself, but I don't understand how you do that if you reject the very idea of looking inward.
I value knowledge about myself. Part of growing is understanding your own strengths and weaknesses. What I don't do, though, is assume that there are forces going on beyond my comprehension.
Well, I'm glad you understand everything so there are no "forces beyond your comprehension."
For a color who's supposedly all about knowledge, you have a lot of ignorance.
I'm outnumbered by two colors incapable of logical discussion. I'm not sure what, exactly, we're going to accomplish here.
Heaven forbid the color who craves information ever learn anything from us.
I thought the key to learning was to keep an open mind.
I'm done talking about this. Let's move on.
Red and Green, it's clear you two have issues with Blue. I'm curious to hear about what conflicts the two of you have.
The simple answer is to look at the conflict of other allies—White for me and Black for Red. The White-Black conflict is about the needs of the group versus the needs of the individual. Red and I are definitely on different sides of this debate. I'm less civilized than White, but I do believe in the importance of the community. Creatures have to understand their roles in the web of life and be careful not to stray from those roles. Red, on the other hand, is much more individual-focused. Red's entire philosophy comes out of each individual following its own passion so, by its nature, Red's philosophy leans more toward the needs of the individual.
Green has two sides, a destructive side and a peaceful side. I get the former. I understand the need to take action and cause destruction. The peaceful side, though, is further from how I function. It's not that I need to fight all the time, because I don't, but I can't handle the inaction. I have to be doing something.
Red's not the color to meditate or even sit still for any great length of time.
And Green is a little too worried about how everything interconnects.
Our time is about up. Why don't we end this interview like we've ended all the previous ones. Give me a short, pithy pitch on why people should play Temur. Go in your mana order again.
If you want to win, back the strongest fighter.
Believing you're capable of victory is the number-one quality needed to attain it.
The battle is won by the person who wants it more.
I'd like to thank the three colors for coming here today.
And that's the final wedge interview. I am very interested about what you thought of this series and whether or not you'd like to see more things like it (although not exactly the same) in the future. You can write to me through my email or any of my social media (Twitter, Tumblr, Google+, Instagram).
Join us next week as we get the first glimpse of what changes Sarkhan has wrought as Dragons of Tarkir previews begin.
Until then, may you have strength on your side.
"Drive to Work #202—If Magic Started Over"
Back in January, I wrote a popular article called "Starting Over," where I went back in time and talked with Richard Garfield about the changes I would make if Magic was starting over. Today's podcast is on that very topic, exploring a little more in depth the changes I'd make.
"Drive to Work #203—2007"
This podcast is another in my "20 Years in 20 Podcasts" series, where I walk through all the key Magic events of the year. Today, I talk about 2007.For friends and family who loved him dearly, the death of Robert Harkin in early August was sudden and unexpected. But despite their sadness, they can take comfort in knowing that his legacy will live on. His sister Karen has taken over his Facebook page and honors her brother by continuing to share Islamophobic rhetoric in his memory.
Absolutely beautiful.
They rarely chose to talk about politics while he was alive, but Karen has been able to reconnect with her brother since his death by discovering his fear and hatred of Islam. It’s been a steep learning curve, but in time she’s been able to understand so much about what he cared about most, and she now feels closer to him than ever. The threat Syrian refugees pose to our freedom, the politicians who willingly turn a blind eye to the rising threat of Islamic terrorism—all of the bigoted beliefs that made Robert who he was.
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Since picking up the mantle of his Facebook account, Karen has committed to maintaining the xenophobia that exemplified her brother’s life. When Time magazine ran a story about a Muslim woman who felt unsafe in America, Karen understood right away that Robert would want to share the article with the comment “Maybe she’d feel more safe if she moved to Saudia Arabia where she can practice Sharia Law with the rest of them.” Sometimes a sister just knows.
For those who were close to Robert, seeing a backwards, misinformed post decrying the spread of radical Islam is like being with him again. His page is a place where those who knew him can come share a memory and talk about the spread of Sharia law—exactly what Robert would have wanted. Whenever she posts about the inherent violence in the Muslim faith, Karen takes comfort in knowing that with every like and share, her brother remains a vibrant part of peoples’ lives.
“In the wake of Robert’s death, I think everyone was just looking for a place to see hateful rhetoric,” says Karen, who remembers her brother by spending two to three hours per day scouring the internet for signs of a larger Islamic conspiracy. “I miss him every day. But as long as I continue to invite his Facebook friends to like a group whose mission is to block the construction of mosques in America, it’s like he’s still here.”
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Wow, if only everyone had such a devoted sister! Wherever he is, Robert must be resting easy knowing his sister is there to share his hateful, paranoid beliefs with the world.In Mac and Windows, you can easily sync your iPhone/iPod Touch with iTunes, but in Linux, there is no easy way to sync your iDevice’s music library with any of the media player. Even if you are willing to jailbreak your phone, there are still plenty of complicated steps that you need to do to get the syncing to work. With the release of iFuse (and a bunch of other library), things have changed. Not only can you mount your iPhone as an external drive in Ubuntu, you can also use it to sync your music library with Rhythmbox.
The following tutorial only works in Ubuntu Karmic (and other karmic-derivative distro) and iPhone firmware 3.0 and above.
Remove all iFuse related files
If you have previously installed ifuse in your system, you need to remove it and its related files. If you did not install ifuse before, you can ignore this part and skip to the next section.
You also need to remove the jonabeck repository from your apt list.
Delete the jonabeck PPA from the sources.list file. Save and close.
Refresh your system.
Installing iFuse (for Ubuntu Karmic only)
Add the iFuse PPA to your repository:
Update your system
If there is a need, restart your computer.
Install the relevant packages
Update: I have removed libiphone0 libiphone-dev from the above packages since they are not longer needed.
When the installation is done, go to System -> Users and Groups
Click on the key icon to unlock.
Click the Manage Groups button. Scroll down till you see the fuse entry. Select it and click the Properties button.
Check the box beside your username and click OK.
Close all windows and restart your computer.
You can now plug in your iPhone/iPod Touch and see it appears in your Rhythmbox and Nautilus.
That’s it. Let us know in the comments if this works for you.The Atlanta Falcons agreed to terms with starting safety Thomas DeCoud on Tuesday, the team announced.
The team did not reveal terms of the contract but a league source told ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter that DeCoud's deal is for five years with a $17.5 million base package. DeCoud received $4 million in guarantees and $6.25 million in potential bonus dollars. The maximum value of the deal is $21 million.
"Thanks for all the congratulations, everyone," DeCoud told his followers on Twitter. "Looking forward to taking my game to the next level and help the falcons take that next step."
DeCoud, who turns 27 later this month, played in 94.9 percent of the Falcons' snaps last season and led the team with four interceptions and was third in tackles with 109.
A third-round pick by the Falcons in 2008, he has been a starter in 47 of his 58 career games and has eight career interceptions, four forced fumbles and 19 passes defensed.
He was one of several Falcons defensive players scheduled to be free agents next Tuesday, March 13. Atlanta's other key defenders who could leave via free agency include linebacker Curtis Lofton, who led the team in tackles, and defensive end John Abraham, who led with 9½ sacks.
The Falcons used their franchise tag last week on cornerback Brent Grimes, who led the team with 17 passes defensed in 2011.
Information from ESPN.com NFC South blogger Pat Yasinskas and The Associated Press was used in this report.A man shown in a viral video getting punched and kicked as a crowd yells, "Don't vote Trump" acknowledges he supports Donald Trump but said Thursday that's not what started the beating on the West Side the day after the presidential election.
David Wilcox, 49, said he was about to turn left from Kedzie Avenue to Roosevelt Road around 1 p.m. Wednesday when a black sedan pulled up and scraped the right side of his Pontiac Bonneville.
"I stopped and parked. And I asked if they had insurance, and the next thing that I knew they were beating the s--- out of me," Wilcox said Thursday.
A phone video shot from a bus stop at the intersection shows Wilcox being knocked to the pavement as five people gather around him. A man in the group straddles his back and punches Wilcox with both hands.
As the fight picks up, people on the sidewalk away from the struggle yell taunts that include "You voted Trump," "Beat his ass" and "Don't vote Trump."
There's laughter as Wilcox rolls on his back and covers his face. Two people hit and kick him. Wilcox gets up and tries to get back in his car, but someone repeatedly punches him until he slumps by the side of the vehicle.
Posted By GhostIn a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) today, Apple revealed that CEO Tim Cook has donated 50,000 Apple stock shares to charity this week. At today’s stock price of just over $130 per share, this number of shares is equivalent to approximately $6.5 million. Cook’s previous publicly-known, personal donation was to Project One America, an LGBT equality campaign…
Apple did not disclose which charities Cook donated these shares to today’s filing, which was first noted by Daisuke Wakabayashi. The filing notes that Cook did not simultaneously sell any shares for his benefit. In related news, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering Dan Riccio sold 24,085 shares this week, which is equivalent to approximately $3.1 million at today’s share price.
Since becoming CEO in 2011, Cook has promoted charity as a key part of Apple’s mission. Upon taking over, Cook initiated an employee charity program. Cook has also held several lunches for charity on Apple’s campus and has pledged to give away all of his money to charity over the course of the rest of his life. Apple has also expanded its offerings for employees to help their communities.Background and development Edit
Incident Edit
During the halftime show, Jackson performed a medley of hits, beginning with "All for You", "Rhythm Nation" and a brief excerpt of "The Knowledge" before surprise guest Timberlake appeared to perform a duet of his song "Rock Your Body" with Jackson.[46][47] The performance featured several suggestive dance moves by both singers, and as Timberlake reached his final line of "Rock Your Body", "I'm gonna have you naked by the end of this song", Timberlake pulled off a part of Jackson's costume, revealing her right breast, partially covered by a piece of nipple jewelry, for less than a second (after which the CBS broadcast immediately cut to an aerial view of Reliant Stadium). MTV's CEO Tom Freston claimed in an interview with the Reuters news agency that the exposure was a stunt orchestrated by Jackson.[48] Jackson's publicist stated the performance ending was only supposed to reveal Jackson's red lace bra, though the lace undergarment was accidentally removed along with the outer layer.[8][49]
Responses Edit
Public reaction Edit
Other controversies Edit
Aftermath and effects Edit
Popular culture Edit
Legacy Edit
See also EditBeyond Red vs. Blue: The Political Typology
Overview
With the economy still struggling and the nation involved in multiple military operations overseas, the public’s political mood is fractious. In this environment, many political attitudes have become more doctrinaire at both ends of the ideological spectrum, a polarization that reflects the current atmosphere in Washington.
Yet at the same time, a growing number of Americans are choosing not to identify with either political party, and the center of the political spectrum is increasingly diverse. Rather than being moderate, many of these independents hold extremely strong ideological positions on issues such as the role of government, immigration, the environment and social issues. But they combine these views in ways that defy liberal or conservative orthodoxy.
For political leaders in both parties, the challenge is not only one of appeasing ideological and moderate “wings” within their coalitions, but rather holding together remarkably disparate groups, many of whom have strong disagreements with core principles that have defined each party’s political character in recent years.
The most visible shift in the political landscape since Pew Research’s previous political typology in early 2005 is the emergence of a single bloc of across-the-board conservatives. The long-standing divide between economic, pro-business conservatives and social conservatives has blurred. Today, Staunch Conservatives take extremely conservative positions on nearly all issues – on the size and role of government, on economics, foreign policy, social issues and moral concerns. Most agree with the Tea Party and even more very strongly disapprove of Barack Obama’s job performance. A second core group of Republicans – Main Street Republicans – also is conservative, but less consistently so.
On the left, Solid Liberals express diametrically opposing views from the Staunch Conservatives on virtually every issue. While Solid Liberals are predominantly white, minorities make up greater shares of New Coalition Democrats – who include nearly equal numbers 0f whites, African Americans and Hispanics – and Hard-Pressed Democrats, who are about a third African American. Unlike Solid Liberals, both of these last two groups are highly religious and socially conservative. New Coalition Democrats are distinguished by their upbeat attitudes in the face of economic struggles.
Independents have played a determinative role in the last three national elections. But the three groups in the center of the political typology have very little in common, aside from their avoidance of partisan labels. Libertarians and Post-Moderns are largely white, well-educated and affluent. They also share a relatively secular outlook on some social issues, including homosexuality and abortion. But Republican-oriented Libertarians are far more critical of government, less supportive of environmental regulations, and more supportive of business than are Post-Moderns, most of whom lean Democratic.
Disaffecteds, the other main group of independents, are financially stressed and cynical about politics. Most lean to the Republican Party, though they differ from the core Republican groups in their support for increased government aid to the poor. Another group in the center, Bystanders, largely consign themselves to the political sidelines and for the most part are not included in this analysis.
These are the principal findings of the political typology study by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, which sorts Americans into cohesive groups based on values, political beliefs, and party affiliation. The new study is based on two surveys with a combined sample of 3,029 adults, conducted Feb. 22-Mar. 14, 2011 and a smaller callback survey conducted April 7-10, 2011 with 1,432 of the same respondents.
This is the fifth typology created by the Pew Research Center since 1987. Many of the groups identified in the current analysis are similar to those in past typologies, reflecting the continuing importance of a number of key beliefs and values. But there are a number of critical differences as well.
The new groupings underscore the substantial political changes that have occurred since the spring of 2005, when the previous typology was released. Today, there are two core Republican groups, compared with three in 2005, to some extent reflecting a decline in GOP party affiliation. However, Democrats have not made gains in party identification. Rather, there has been a sharp rise in the percentage of independents – from 30% in 2005 to 37% currently. Today, there are three disparate groups of independents, compared with two in 2005.
While Republicans trail the Democrats in party affiliation, they enjoy advantages in other areas: The two core GOP groups are more homogenous – demographically and ideologically – than are the three core Democratic groups. And socioeconomic differences are more apparent on the left: Nearly half of Solid Liberals (49%) are college graduates, compared with 27% of New Coalition Democrats and just 13% of Hard-Pressed Democrats.
The GOP still enjoys an intensity advantage, which proved to be a crucial factor in the Republicans’ victories in the 2010 midterm elections. For example, the GOP’s core groups – Staunch Conservatives and Main Street Republicans – express strongly negative opinions about last year’s health care legislation, while reactions among the Democratic groups are more mixed. Even Solid Liberals offer only tepid support for the bill – 43% say it will have a mostly positive impact on the nation’s health care, while somewhat more (51%) say it will have a mixed effect.
However, maintaining solid support among the GOP-oriented groups in the center of the typology represents a formidable challenge for Republicans. The cross-pressured Disaffecteds highlight this challenge. They were an important part of the GOP coalition in 2010, but were lackluster supporters of John McCain two years earlier.
Like the core GOP groups, most Disaffecteds (73%) view government as nearly always wasteful and inefficient. At the same time, a solid majority of Disaffecteds (61%) say the government should do more to help needy Americans even if that means going deeper into debt.
Libertarians, the other Republican-leaning group, overwhelmingly oppose expanding aid for the poor if it means increasing the nation’s debt. Yet on immigration and homosexuality, Libertarians’ views differ markedly from those of the core Republican groups. Fully 71% of Libertarians say homosexuality should be accepted by society; nearly as many Staunch Conservatives (68%) say it should be discouraged.
Many of the political values and attitudes of Post-Moderns, young, Democratically-oriented independents, fit awkwardly with those of core Democratic groups. Post-Moderns overwhelmingly voted for Obama in 2008, but their turnout fell off dramatically last fall, which contributed to the Democrats’ poor showing in the midterms. Compared with the core Democratic groups, Post-Moderns are less supportive of increased aid for the needy and are far less likely to view racial discrimination as the main obstacle to African American progress.
Partisan Dividing Line: Views of Government
The new typology finds a deep and continuing divide between the two parties, as well as differences within both partisan coalitions. But the nature of the partisan divide has changed substantially over time.
More than in the recent past, attitudes about government separate Democrats from Republicans, and it is these beliefs that are most correlated with political preferences looking ahead to 2012. In 2005, at the height of the Iraq war and shortly after an election in which national security was a dominant issue, opinions about assertiveness in foreign affairs almost completely distinguished Democrats from Republicans. Partisan divisions over national security remain, but in an era when the public’s focus is more inward-looking, they are less pronounced.
As in recent years, beliefs about the environment, business, immigration and the challenges faced by African Americans are important fissures between the parties, though to some extent within them as well.
In general, there is far more agreement across |
translators, programmer, editors, and testers. But most importantly, we are all very passionate about bringing interesting media to fans who do not have direct access due to language barriers or other restricting factors.
This will be our second Kickstarter looking to fund the active development of a game title. We've previously run successful Kickstarters to fund localization, such as fault milestone one, CLANNAD, the Fruit of Grisaia Series, and are bringing our experience in working with games to Narcissu.
Who's Stage-Nana
Stage-Nana is a Japanese doujin group that created the original Narcissu series a decade ago in 2005. The group is led by Tomo Kataoka, a veteran of the Japanese visual novel industry. Kataoka is also a primary scenario writer/director for the Nekoneko-Software brand of visual novels in Japan. Nekoneko-Software had just celebrated their 16th year as a company.
Stage-Nana are providing the writing and their expertise in producing visual novels for this project. They will be working full time with Sekai Project until everything for this Kickstarter campaign is complete.
Message from the creator Tomo Kataoka
Click to enlarge
We've got many people contributing to this project. Here's a look at some of the hard-working staff:
We're expecting to have all domestic US shipping costs included in all tiers, for international backers, there's an additional fee to cover shipping (noted in the tiers on the sidebar).
Physical game discs are not expected to have any DRM. Digital distribution will initially be over Steam, other DRM-free options are being looked into.
Reward details
Tapestry/Wallscroll
The Tapestry will be a B2-sized wallscroll printed on high quality cloth, and here's the design we're planning on printing with it:
B2 sized tapestry artwork
Mini-novel
This a preview of selected pages from the physical mini-novel which we mentioned earlier in our campaign. It is only available to backers at the $100 tier and higher, and not as an add-on. The Japanese-only version was previously sold in very limited quantities by Stage-Nana at C88 summer comike.
This novel focuses on Narcissu: Sumire and is a prologue to the VN, and also includes some production pictures and notes. It is approx 96 pages long in Japanese, and will be longer once the English translation is added. This English version is exclusive to this Kickstarter.
All backers can add additional physical items to their pledges right now. Add in the appropriate amount to your pledge, and we will ask you what you would like when the campaign closes. And you'll have a chance to make some adjustments after the campaign closes via backerkit. Multiple add-ons are OK. The shipping fee only has to be paid once if it applies.
NOTE: Digital items are NOT part of the add-on system, and NOT be on backerkit. Because the games are releasing as soon as they are completed, it would cause far too much confusion as to who should get what. So if you want the games plus add-ons, it is highly recommended you at back at least the $20 reward tier.
Additional Shipping for add-on items
Backers w/ add-ons of the $1, 20, 30, and 60 reward tiers, please add a one-time $15 shipping fee, this applies to both US and International backers.
. Backers of the $100 reward tier or higher, there is no additional fee, it is already included in the reward tier.
Items available for Add-ons/backerkit
$35 All 4 games on 1 disc
$30 Physical soundtrack
$40 Physical visual fanbook
$40 T-shirt
$30 Tenugui hand towel
$60 B2 tapestry
$200,000: Other platforms. (We're researching what's feasible now)
$250,000: Brand new Narcissu opening animation movie.
$500,000: A 30 minute ~ 1 hour long OVA.
Planned Production Schedule
Unlike our previous Kickstarter campaigns, we are experimenting with getting completed games into backer's hands much sooner. Translation of the games has already been under way, with "Himeko's Epilogue" and "A Little Iris" having their production prioritized.
With the translation having a head start, the new artwork, voices, and programming/debugging will be the main factors in whether production completes on time. Currently our best estimates for completion are as follows, and we'll be updating regularly as things change.
Late November - Digital release: "Himeko's Epilogue"
Late December - Digital Release: "Narcissu:A Little Iris"
January - Digital Release "Narcissu: Zero"
February - Digital Release "Narcissu: Sumire"
Funding Breakdown
The estimated production expenses for the project are as follows (*about 10% goes towards KS and processing fees.):
$40k for voice licenses & new voice recording
$8k for Himeko's Epilogue, artwork, programming, etc.
$17k for A Little Iris, artwork, programming, etc.
$20k for Zero, artwork, programming, etc.
$50k for Sumire, new scenario writing, artwork, programming, etc.
For a total of $135k.
But why is that different from our $75k goal? Because we knew before this project started that it would take a big effort to get off the ground. That is why we've spent the $60,000 and found an additional funding source before turning to Kickstarter.
Japanese version of the page follows
ナルキッソスシリーズの翻訳版を一緒に作りませんか？
私たちセカイプロジェクトは、ナルキッソスシリーズの生みの親であるステージななと提携してナルキッソスの翻訳版を制作したいと考えています。 もちろん、ただの翻訳版ではなく、既存のシナリオを新規のビジュアルと新録のボイスで生まれ変わらせ、さらには未発表の新シナリオも追加いたします。 そして、それらを行うには、他でもないあなたの支援が必要なのです。
ナルキッソスの翻訳版は4本に分けてリリースする予定です。
『ナルキッソス すみれ』 ： 新規シナリオ
『ナルキッソス ゼロ』 ： 『7階』の始まりに関する物語
『ナルキッソス 小さなイリス』 ： 中世ヨーロッパを舞台にした外伝
『姫子エピローグ』 ： ナルキッソス SIDE2nd のエピローグにあたる小編
ボーナス： エクストラショートストーリー『1980』（シナリオ：片岡とも）
ナルキッソスって？
生と死をテーマにしたビジュアルノベルゲームです。 その高いクオリティーと感動的なストーリーで幅広い層に知られており、 世界中でのダウンロード回数は総計100万回以上。 漫画やライトノベルも刊行され、携帯用アプリにもなり、 ファンの手による翻訳版は、英語、中国語、フランス語、ポーランド語などが作られました。
現在、Steamでナルキッソスとナルキッソス SIDE2ndが無料配信中です。 ダウンロード数は127,000を越え、レビュワーからは1800以上の『非常に良い』という評価を受けています。
どうしてキックスターター？
私たちは、英語への翻訳費用とステージななに新規ビジュアルなどを用意してもらうための資金として、6万ドルの投資を行いました。 この企画は数か月前からすでに始動しており、下記のスケジュールに沿って現在も進行中です。
しかし、ステージななの開発費用を請け負っている私たちにとって 版権費用やビジュアル、音声、プログラムなどにかかる費用は大きなものであり、 残りの制作コストを捻出するためには、キックスターターの支援が必要です。
セカイプロジェクトって？
私たちセカイプロジェクトは、クリエイターとユーザーを言語を通して繋げる会社です。 私たちは翻訳者であり、編集者であり、最初の読者でもあります。 そして、最も重要なことして、私たちは原語を読めないファンの皆さんに『面白いもの』を届けたいという情熱にあふれています。
『ステージなな』って？
10年前にナルキッソスの1作目をリリースしたステージななは、片岡ともさんが代表を務めている日本の同人サークルです。 代表の片岡ともさんは、今年16周年を迎えたねこねこソフトのシナリオライター＆ディレクターを担当している方です。
ステージななは、ゲーム開発を進めることでこのキックスターターに協力してくれています。 このキックスタータープロジェクトが完了するまで、ステージななは私たちのプロジェクトに集中する予定です。
ナルキッソスの生みの親、片岡ともさんからのメッセージ
ゲーム紹介
報酬
＄１ ： 私たちからの感謝と支援者限定のアップデートへのアクセス権
＄２０ ： ゲーム4本のデジタル版（通常価格＄３３から約４０％オフ）
＄３０ ： ＄２０の報酬＋デジタルサウンドトラック
＄６０ ： ＄３０の報酬＋ビジュアルファンブックデジタル版
＄１００ ： ＄６０の報酬＋ゲーム4本のディスク版、サウンドトラックCD、ミニノベル
＄１５０ ： ＄１００の報酬＋限定ディスク版のナルキッソス１＋２、ゲームディスクとサウンドトラック（合計3枚）を収納できるコレクターズボックス
＄１８０ ： ＄１５０の報酬＋＄６０の報酬であるビジュアルファンブックの印刷版
＄２８０ ： ＄１８０リーワード＋ナルキッソスTシャツ
＄３５０ ： ＄２８０リワード＋ナルキッソスタペストリー
さらなる目標
200,000ドル ： 別プラットフォームでのナルキッソス翻訳版制作（どのプラットフォームにするかは選定中）
250,000ドル ： 新規のナルキッソスOPアニメーション制作
500,000ドル ： 30分～1時間のOVA制作
限定
＄１０００ ： ＄３５０の報酬＋片岡ともさんとの食事会（2016年のアニメエキスポに来ていただければご案内いたします。翻訳者付。アニメエキスポ会場までの移動費用は支援者様のご負担となります）
＄１８００ ： ＄３５０の報酬＋秋乃武彦（ナルキッソスすみれの担当絵師）が描いたカラー色紙
追加アイテム
このキックスターターを支援するみなさんは、支援金にそれぞれの金額を追加することにより、以下のアイテムを入手することが可能です。 キャンペーン終了後、発送の前に追加アイテムが必要かどうかのご連絡させていただきます。 追加アイテムは、通常の支援報酬アイテムと一緒に送付いたします。
追加アイテムを選んだ場合の追加送料に関して 支援額が$1,20,30,60の方は、$15の追加送料が必要です（アメリカの方でも、それ以外の国の方でも同様です）。 支援額が$100以上の方は、支援額の中に送料が含まれていますので、$15の追加送料は発生しません。追加アイテムが複数を選ぶ事ができます。＄１５の追加送料が必要の場合は一回だけが追加が必要となります。
$35 ： 今回のキックスターターで制作するゲーム。４タイトルが１枚に収録されているディスク版。
$30 ： サウンドトラックCD（ライナーノーツ付属）
$40 ： ビジュアルファンブック
$40 ： Tシャツ
$30 ： 手ぬぐい
$60 ： タペストリー
例：
$20の支援額＋$30のサウンドトラックCD＋$40のビジュアルファンブック＋$15の追加送料＝$105
$100の支援額＋$40のTシャツ＝$140（アメリカの場合。他の国の方は自動的に＋$10の送料）
開発スケジュール
私たちの手がけたこれまでのキックスターターと違い、一日も早く支援者の皆様に報酬をお届けするため、『姫子エピローグ』と『小さなイリス』を手始めとして翻訳作業はすでに進行中です。
翻訳をはじめ、新規ビジュアル、新録音声、プログラムやデバッグなどの作業は、進行スケジュールを左右する要素となり得ます。 こちらが現在の開発スケジュールです。変更が生じた際には、すぐに皆様にお知らせいたします。
11月末 ： 『姫子エピローグ』リリース予定
12月末 ： 『ナルキッソス 小さなイリス』リリース予定
1月 ： 『ナルキッソス ゼロ』リリース予定
2月 ： 『ナルキッソス すみれ』リリース予定
支援金の使い方
こちらは開発の費用計画です（約10％はキックスターターの料金などに使われます）
40,000ドル ： 音声の新規収録費用、音声の権利関係費用
8,000ドル ： 『姫子エピローグ』開発費用
17,000ドル ： 『ナルキッソス 小さなイリス』開発費用
20,000ドル ： 『ナルキッソス ゼロ』開発費用
50,000ドル ： 『ナルキッソス すみれ』開発費用
合計135,000ドル
どうして開発費用と達成目標の間に大きな違いがあるのですか？ 今回のプロジェクトを開始するためには、多大な労力が必要だったからです。 それこそがセカイプロジェクトがキックスターターを始める前に60,000ドルを投資した理由でもあります。Tottenham boss Andre Villas-Boas says Luka Modric needs to prepare to return to the first team if he is not sold.
Modric, 26, is understood to be a target for Real Madrid but Spurs insist the playmaker will not be sold unless a valuation, believed to be £40m, is met.
"He's training alone. We decided to do that until his mental state is ready to return to the team," said Villas-Boas.
Modric for Spurs last season Appearances: 41
Goals: Six
Assists: Five
Shots: 101
Shots on Goal: 33
"It is important that, in the coming days, he understands he must return to the first team."
He added: "We respect the player's ambition, but he must also respect the club."
Croatia international Modric joined Spurs from Dinamo Zagreb in 2008 for a reported £16m and has four years left on his White Hart Lane contract.
It is the second consecutive summer when Modric's future has been in doubt, with Spurs rejecting the advances of Chelsea last year to sign the player.
Modric was fined two weeks wages in July when he did not turn up for training and he was also absent from the club's pre-season tour to the United States.
He did return to the Spurs training base to prepare for the forthcoming season but has yet to link up with the rest of his team-mates.
"Until we receive a suitable offer for the player, he will not go," said Villa-Boas.
"The contacts we have had with other clubs have not met with what Tottenham wants for the player.
"We respect the size of Madrid and the other interested clubs, but they must respect what we are doing too."John Rocker was a guest on Toucher & Rich this morning (the interview was recorded yesterday; the audio is below). Rocker and his girlfriend Julie McGee are contestants on this season of Survivor, which debuts tonight. The former Braves reliever of course got asked about his infamous SI interview with Jeff Pearlman — he maintains that it was taken out of context, though regrets using the word “queer” — and cut off a steroids question with a complaint that they weren’t plugging Survivor. He was not here to talk about the past.
A CBS PR woman cut in and asked the hosts just to focus on Survivor.
“Okay, let’s talk Survivor.”
“I can sum it up by saying it’s the worst thing I’ve ever done.”
Related: John Rocker is Taking His Talents to Survivor
Related: Jeff Pearlman Discusses His Showtime Lakers Book, the Writing Process, and Qualms With SI SwimsuitGet the latest news and videos for this game daily, no spam, no fuss.
Curious about Ubisoft's extreme sports game, Steep? Here's some good news: Ubisoft has announced that a free trial version of the game will be available on all platforms this weekend.
Starting March 10, everyone on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC can play the game for free until March 13. Here is a rundown of when the free version will be available on each platform where you live:
You're getting access to the entire game, which includes courses in the Alps and in Alaska, a region that was added in a recent free update. The game lets you ski, snowboard, wingsuit, and paraglide in an open-world, sandbox-style environment.
During the free weekend, Steep's standard edition will be 50 percent off. The Gold Edition will be 40 percent off on Xbox Live until March 13 and until March 20 for PS4. Ubisoft's own Ubisoft Store will discount the game's standard and gold editions by 50 percent until March 14.
All progress from the free weekend will carry forward if you decide to buy the game. You can read more about Steep's free weekend here on the game's website.
Steep launched in December and has been updated multiple times. In addition to the free Alaska DLC, the game has added things like new camera angles and the ability to record replays without the HUD.
For more on Steep, check out GameSpot's review.Outside Magazine recently published a funny-but-also-deadly-serious listicle of the Ten Worst Ways to Die in the Wild. There are some pretty greusome demises to be had in the roundup, but death by cassowary is far and away the worst fate on the list.
For the uninitiated, the cassowary is a behemoth of the bird world (second-heaviest, behind the ostritch) with a face perpetually frozen in an expression resembling that of a frat bro who just challenged you to a bar fight. A bar fight for your life:
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They can grow to over six and a half feet tall, weigh well over 100 pounds, and gallop around at speeds of over thirty miles per hour – an impressive biomechanical feat for a creature with legs that might best be described as "death-cudgels with knives attached." Seriously, look at this thing. You see its feet? The middle toe on each one features a dagger-like claw that can grow up to five-inches long. And, in case you forgot what it looks like, have another look at its face. I SAID LOOK AT IT:
Is that image now permanently seared into your brain? Good. You are now prepared to read how Outside imagines death-by-Cassowary might play out in the wild. May you never find yourself in such a position, knowing what you now know*:
Twilight falls on northeastern Australia. Beer in hand and with the warm glow of the campfire illuminating the surrounding foliage, you spot a dart of blue through the green and hear a low-pitched boom—too deep to be a bird, too high to be thunder. Curious and a bit tipsy, you venture forth to explore. Meeting you eye-to-eye is a 6-foot-tall, 129-pound bird. Your eyes quickly scan the beast but miss the 5-inch dagger-like claw on its middle toe. The bird looks tame, but it has repeatedly been fed by people and is now expecting the same from you. You know not to feed the wildlife, but you toss a beer can its way. When the bird doesn't move, you move forward and make a fake charge for the (drunken) hell of it. The creature cocks its head and you think it’s finally going for the brew. But instead it lunges toward you. Suddenly, you're one of the 221 recorded victims of a cassowary attack. You laugh and turn to run, thinking the modern-day velociraptor will be easily distanced. You’re wrong. The cassowary tops out at 31 mph and easily keeps pace with your drunken amble. The bird kicks and you stumble across a log. In a flash, it leaps nearly five feet into the air, landing beside your neck. You cover your face in fear as the cassowary nears. With one powerful kick, it opens a half-inch gash, nicking your carotid artery. Hearing your screams, a nearby camper comes to your aid, shooing off the bird. Within seconds of his arrival and eight minutes after the gash was formed, you slip into unconsciousness. The camper tries to staunch the flow of blood, but it’s no use. You're the second person since 1926 to die by cassowary.
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Check out the rest of Outside Magazine's Death-By-Wilderness roundup here.
*NB: Cassowaries are actually notoriously shy creatures (it's the ones habituated to human contact that are dangerous), but that doesn't make them any less deserving of your respect.
Top image via Shutterstock/Joyce Mar, all other images via Wikimedia CommonsLots of new Windows 8 and Windows RT machines were on show at IFA in Berlin this week, many of them being given their first outing in public.
Clamshell keyboard docks adorned many of the tablets. These keyboard docks typically included extra ports and extra batteries. Most importantly of all, they included a hinge, so the screen could be positioned at any angle relative to the keyboard, and you can shut them up and use them like laptops. You could call them tablets with keyboard docks, but you'd be forgiven for calling them laptops with tear-off screens. Indeed, Asus is describing its Transformer Book as exactly that. Quite what the difference is between a convertible laptop and a dockable tablet isn't clear.
Many of these devices, even the ones claiming to be dockable tablets, will ship with their keyboard attachments in-box. The remainder will have it as an option. Only one device, the ARM-powered, Windows RT-running Samsung ATIV Tab has no public keyboard solution, though even it appears to have a dock connector on the bottom; perhaps Samsung plans to announce the keyboard later.
Then there were the devices that were out-and-out hybrids; the Dell XPS 12 Duo, a laptop form factor with a screen that can spin around in the lid; the Sony Duo 11, a tablet in which the screen slides into a fixed position to reveal a keyboard; and the Toshiba U925t, a cross between a laptop and a sunroof, where the screen can be folded flat and then slid over the keyboard to turn it into a tablet.
There's even the utterly insane Asus Taichi which decides that instead of having a complex sliding or hinging mechanism it'd be easier to simply have two screens, one on the inside and one on the outside. And while it wasn't revealed at IFA, Lenovo's IdeaPad Yoga is still on its way; on that model, the hinge simply lets you fold the laptop screen all the way back so that it lies flat against the bottom of the machine.
So if you want a laptop with a tear-off screen, or a laptop with a screen that flips or slides to convert into a fat tablet, or even a laptop with a second screen on the outside of its lid so that you can use it when closed, you're all set. You'll have lots of weird and wonderful options. Well, weird, anyway.
But if you're looking for a simple tablet, a straightforward, lightweight device that delivers an uncompromised touch experience, your options are remarkably few. But the dearth of tablety tablets is expected; the Windows 8 operating system is a hybrid, so it's not too surprising that the devices are too. As early video reviews by Ed Bott at ZDNet and The Verge demonstrate, the same holds true of Windows RT; it has an almost-complete Windows desktop (absent Windows Media Player, WordPad, and one or two other small things), and so retains the dependence on the mouse and keyboard for effective navigation.
Neither hardware nor software are engineered to give any direct equivalent to the iPad experience, and it seems that Microsoft is happy for that, preferring to promote access to full-featured desktop applications—and desktop user input devices—as strengths, rather than weaknesses, of the operating system.
Much as hybrid devices make sense given the operating system, they cause concerns of their own. We've seen hybrid designs like these before. Past Windows tablets—tablets that existed before Windows had an interface suitable for tablet users—relied on a variety of flipping and rotating screens. None of them were hugely successful, and while Windows itself was the prime cause of that, the extra cost and complexity of these hybrid devices was a small contributing factor.
Are the OEMs making a mistake here? Some industry watchers think they are, pointing to the failures of these older hybrids. The situations aren't quite analogous, though; in prior versions of Windows, the benefits of hybrid hardware were few, because of the dearth of touch software. With Windows 8, there is at least the potential for a rich ecosystem of touch software, making the complexity worth having.
But if the OEMs are making a mistake, Microsoft is arguably making the same mistake. While its Surface RT tablets won't offer the same flexibility as a clamshell keyboard dock (the kickstand holds the screen only at one angle, for example), they too will ship with keyboard covers and so are also hybrids of a sort.
And while it might be a mistake, it might also be an important safeguard. The hybridity of these devices has an important repercussion: if the response to Windows 8 is to treat it like a mostly desktop operating system with just a little bit of touch here and there, that's OK. They'll work just fine.In theory, ma’am is a courtesy term, meant to convey respect and graciousness lightly salted with deference. Yet much evidence suggests that when it comes to fomenting a sense of good will ma’am fails even more spectacularly than “Have a nice day.”
Certainly in popular culture, many female characters rebel against the ma’am tag. In the mordant, high-end medical soap, “Nurse Jackie,” when a policeman struggling to help subdue a disturbed patient made the mistake of referring to Edie Falco’s eponymous character as “ma’am,” Nurse Jackie shot back, “So help me God, do not call me ma’am — uncuff him!”
Helen Mirren, playing Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennison on the crime series “Prime Suspect” told her male subordinate: “Listen, I like to be called governor or the boss. I don’t like ma’am. I’m not the bloody queen, so take your pick.” To which came the inevitable answer, “Yes, ma’am, anything you say.”
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In the premier episode of “Star Trek: Voyager,” Kate Mulgrew as Capt. Kathryn Janeway informed a young male ensign that “ma’am is acceptable in a crunch, but I prefer captain,” and when, a few moments later, the ensign called her ma’am, the captain retorted, “It’s not crunch time yet — I’ll let you know when.”
If ma’am is meant as a verbal genuflection to power, the message is lost on many real-life powerful women, like Senator Barbara Boxer, who told a brigadier general to refer to her as “senator” rather than “ma’am” at a hearing last year. “I worked so hard to get that title,” she said, “so I’d appreciate it, yes, thank you.”
I put together a completely unscientific poll of my own, courtesy of the online service, SurveyMonkey, and asked some three-dozen professional women how they felt about the word “ma’am.” The group included lawyers, writers, scientists, policymakers, business executives and artists, who ranged in age from 20 to 65. Of the 27 women who responded, only 2 said they liked being called ma’am, applauding the word as “polite” and “because it amuses me”; 10 were neutral; and the remaining 15 disliked it to varying pH levels of causticity. As Jill Soloway, a Los Angeles-based writer who worked on the HBO series “Six Feet Under,” explained: “It makes me think I’m fat and old, like an elderly aunt.”
There are other reasons to dislike the term ma’am — for its whiff of class distinctions, for being dismissive, stiff and drab. “If someone calls me ma’am, it’s superficially a sign of respect, but it’s also creating distance,” Dr. Kroll said. “It’s saying, I’m not going to have a serious conversation with you; I’m not going to engage with you.”
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Katha Pollitt, the columnist and poet, said, “It’s part of those routine word packages that are forever flying by.”
Behind the link between “ma’am” and “old” is the familiar feminist observation that, whereas a man remains “mister” and “sir” from nursery to nursing home, a woman’s honorifics change depending on her marital status and, barring that, her age. A young miss walks a few miles, and, wedding ring or no, wham, she’s a ma’am. For many women, then, the insertion of the word “ma’am” into an otherwise pleasant social exchange can feel like a tiny jab, an unnecessary station-break to comment on one’s appearance: Hello, middle-aged- to elderly-looking woman, how may I help you this evening? Thanks, prematurely balding man with the weak chin, I’ll take that table over there, in the corner.
Defenders of ma’am consider it a dignified term. Judith Martin, who writes the syndicated Miss Manners column, is one of them. She pointed out that in England ma’am is used to address royalty of whatever age, and she attributed women’s ma’am-aphobia to the “prudishness” of modern society. “Everyone is in denial about age,” she said. “Why would you want to do away with showing respect for age? What do you gain by saying don’t treat me with respect just because I’m older? What sort of devil’s bargain is that?”
Maybe we just need a jazzier term. “How about madame?” suggested Ms. Pollitt, with that final E lending the second syllable a theatrical drawl. “Madame sounds glamorous and powerful, like you’re a serious and effective person in the world.” Bonnie Bassler, a Princeton biologist said she was perfectly happy to be called “Your Highness.”
Or how about nothing? Does nothing work for you? In my survey I posed a series of hypotheticals. For example: You’re at a restaurant with friends, and the waitress wants to warn you that your plate is hot. Would you prefer she say, “Careful, ma’am, that plate is very hot,” or, “Careful, miss,” or, “Careful, dear.” More than 80 percent of the respondents chose option number four: “Careful, that plate is very hot.” For one moment, a ma’am you’re not.OTTAWA (Reuters) - The Canadian government is eyeing legislation that would let it revoke the citizenship of dual nationals involved in acts of terrorism following news that a Canadian-Lebanese man participated in an attack that killed Israeli tourists in Bulgaria last year.
Canada's Immigration Minister Jason Kenney speaks during Question Period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa January 31, 2013. REUTERS/Chris Wattie
The Conservative government said on Tuesday that a Canadian dual national was one of three people who attacked a tourist bus in Bulgaria last summer, killing five Israelis.
Canada is investigating a separate charge by Algeria that a Canadian coordinated last month’s attack on a gas plant there.
“Canadian citizenship is predicated on loyalty to this country, and I cannot think of a more obvious act of renouncing one’s sense of loyalty than going and committing acts of terror,” Immigration Minister Jason Kenney told reporters on Wednesday.
Kenney said citizenship can now be revoked only if it was shown to have been gained fraudulently.
That did not appear to be the case with the man implicated in the Bulgarian attack, who apparently came to Canada from Lebanon aged about 8, gained Canadian citizenship three or four years later, and returned to Lebanon when he was 12.
“I understand he may have been back to Canada a few times since then, but (he) has not been a habitual resident in Canada since the age of 12,” Kenney said.
Kenney endorsed a bill introduced by Conservative legislator Devinder Shory that would enable the citizenship of dual nationals to be revoked if they engage in war against Canada. He suggested expanding the bill to include acts of terrorism, even if they were not targeted at Canada.
Kenney noted that some had questioned if Canada should continue to allow dual citizenship, following its large-scale evacuation of Canadian-Lebanese dual nationals from Lebanon in 2006.
But he said the government, and most Canadians, feel the idea of dual citizenship should stay.
“The polls I’ve seen indicate pretty strong public support for it, which is interesting, because generally Canadians are really intolerant of those who would seek to abuse the country’s generosity,” Kenney said. “So this tells me they believe that the vast majority of dual citizens are bona fide and I agree.
“I think where we might want to make a distinction is amongst those dual citizens who have completely rejected any sense of loyalty to Canada, gone out and committed terrorist crimes, (or) committed acts of war against Canada.”
Opposition New Democratic Party Member of Parliament Peter Julian accused the government of taking high-profile examples to build legislation “that goes far beyond the due process and the checks and balances that most Canadians want to see respected”.
His party does not have enough votes to block Conservative legislation.By RYAN TOLMICH
Left in club purgatory as a result of Barcelona’s transfer ban, Ben Lederman has returned to the U.S. with the aim of earning more game time.
The highly-touted 15-year-old midfielder, whose family moved from California to join Barcelona’s academy in 2011, has joined the U.S. Under-17 Residency program in Bradenton, Florida, according to Goal USA.
Lederman’s move to the residency program comes in the wake of FIFA’s strict ruling against Barcelona. Penalized last spring due to illegal transfer activity, Barcelona has seen numerous prospects, like Lederman, limited to only team practices, unable to play in games after seeing registration cards revoked.
The registration issues come as a result as Lederman’s status as an international prospect. As a non-European prospect, Lederman would be unable to feature for Barcelona until reaching his 18th birthday in May 2018.
Currently, FIFA has three exceptions that would allow a player to feature prior to their 18th birthday: if a player lives within 50 kilometers of a country’s border and the potential club is within 50 kilometers of the same border, if a player is moving from one European country to another and is at least 16, or if a player’s family is moved to a different country for reasons unrelated to sport.
The New York Times reported Monday that Lederman’s family has seen numerous appeals denied by FIFA, leading to the potential option of taking the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in an effort to challenge the rule that has left numerous young prospects throughout Europe unable to play for the teams they train with.
“It is killing him,” Ben’s father, Danny Lederman, told the New York Times. “And as his dad, it’s killing me, too, to see him like this. A year? Kids need to play; he practices, he practices, he practices, but he can’t play? It’s not right.
“I understand the rule was made to protect kids from being pulled away from their families. But our family made a choice to move to Spain together. Why should FIFA be able to tell our family where it has to live if we want our kid to play soccer?”
Lederman will now join the U.S. Under-17 Men’s National Team residency program, linking up with head coach Richie Williams, who is currently preparing his team for October Under-17 World Cup.
What do you think of Lederman’s situation? How will he fare with the residency program?
Share your thoughts below.Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The Clash were relative unknowns when Temple filmed them in 1976. L-R: Mick Jones, Paul Simonon and Joe Strummer
Director Julien Temple specialises in films on pop and rock music, most notably his dual Sex Pistols documentaries, The Great Rock'n'Roll Swindle and The Filth and the Fury.
He's also |
Gs on tropical cyclones.
“The fact that global warming’s fingerprints don’t yet jump out at us when we look at hurricanes isn’t surprising — it’s what current science tells us we should expect,” says lead author Adam Sobel, professor of Earth and environmental sciences at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and School of Engineering.
“The same science tells us that those fingerprints will show up eventually in more ultra-powerful storms.”
They examined a wide range of published analyses of tropical cyclone data and computer modelling, looking specifically at potential intensity, which predicts the maximum intensity the storms could reach in a given environment.
Their new calculations of the cancelling effect follow a 2015 study on hurricanes, led by Lamont’s Mingfang Ting, with fellow research professor Suzana Camargo, also a co-author of the new paper. It showed similar effects over the North Atlantic, where hurricanes that make landfall in the US form.
“The science tells us that [global warming’s] fingerprints will show up eventually in
more ultra-powerful storms”
Many factors determine the intensity of a tropical storm such as the notorious Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Superstorm Sandy in 2012.
Its convective strength — the boiling motion of air rising from the ocean surface to the atmosphere — depends on the temperature difference between the surface ocean and the upper atmosphere.
Computer models that simulate the physics of tropical cyclones suggest that this difference should increase as the climate and sea surface temperatures warm, and that storm strength should increase with it.
But something that is less well understood is how climate change should influence the number of cyclones that form each year. Computer models show that, while the total number should decline in a warming climate, more intense, highly destructive storms such as Nepartak are likely to become more common.
The scientists say the largest increases in tropical cyclone potential intensity are expected to be at the margins of the tropics, particularly in the Atlantic and Pacific.
The amount of rain that tropical storms bring is also expected to increase as the planet warms, because of increasing water vapour. And coastal flooding from storm surges that accompany tropical storms is expected to become more of a problem as sea levels rise.
Response to warming
The scientists also describe a shift in tropical cyclone tracks towards the tropics’ outer edges, although it is unclear whether the shift is a response to warming. Simulations for the western North Pacific suggest that it is, at least in part.
Two factors make it hard to detect GHG-related trends in tropical cyclone intensity, the authors say. One is the influence of aerosols, which models show have about twice the effect of GHGs on a tropical cyclone’s potential intensity.
So while GHG levels have been greater than aerosol levels for many decades in terms of absolute magnitude, they have only recently overtaken the cooling effect of aerosols in terms of their influence on storm intensity.
The other challenge is natural variability. Tropical cyclones are relatively rare, averaging around 90 a year, and that number fluctuates annually and from decade to decade — largely because of natural causes. It is statistically difficult to detect long-term trends within that large natural variability.
Scientists at Lamont are developing a tropical cyclone risk model that can be used in urban planning, which incorporates climate factors in determining the probability of a tropical cyclone making landfall at a given location.
Alex Kirby is a former BBC journalist and environment correspondent. He now works with universities, charities and international agencies to improve their media skills, and with journalists in the developing world keen to specialise in environmental reporting.N.Y. child advocacy group sues Texas over its foster care N.Y. group suing Texas over foster care system
Claims 12,000 children suffer in poor supervision
A New York advocacy group filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday claiming that children in the Texas foster care system are forced to spend years in abusive, poorly supervised facilities and homes hundreds of miles from family and friends.
The group, Children's Rights, filed the suit in Corpus Christi on behalf of 12,000 children housed in long-term foster homes, group homes and residential treatment centers across the state. It names Gov. Rick Perry, Texas Health and Human Services Commissioner Thomas Suehs and Texas Department of Family and Protective Services Commissioner Anne Heiligenstein as defendants.
The suit, which identified nine children by their initials as named plaintiffs, calls on the state to revamp a system that the group says fails foster children.
"For too many children, it's the end of hope for them," Children's Rights' executive director Marcia Robinson Lowry said.
In response to the suit, state officials declared Tuesday that children in Texas foster care are safe and caseloads are falling, and they said a redesign of the foster care system is well under way.
However, Lowry's group cites previous federal audits, state reports, 2010 media accounts and the details from nine child plaintiffs' experiences in arguing that the foster care system has failed to keep children safe from harm. Eight of 11 states where Children's Rights has filed child welfare lawsuits have settled with the group.
Daystar case cited
One of the child plaintiffs in the Texas case is identified as D.I., a 9-year-old Houston boy who has been in foster care since he was 6. D.I. was sexually abused by other children after being placed in a foster home with six teenagers.
The lawsuit claims the Department of Family and Protective Services never closed that foster home and continued to move D.I. to several other homes.
The lawsuit also includes the case of Daystar, a residential treatment facility in the Brazoria County town of Manvel that was closed after the restraint death of a 16-year-old developmentally disabled boy last November was ruled a homicide. The Houston Chronicle and Texas Tribune reported on the abuse of children in state-sanctioned care in Daystar and similar facilities.
Heiligenstein, the DFPS commissioner who last year began work on a state foster care redesign, said Texas has made tremendous strides improving the care of abused children who enter the system. More than $1 billion in additional funding has been pumped into the system in the past six years, Heiligenstein said.
"Texas foster children are safe, well-cared for and live in a system that is nationally recognized for finding thousands of loving, adoptive homes each year," she said in a statement. "We're on the right path and will continue to do everything we can to protect Texas children, but I worry that a lawsuit like this will take critical time and resources away from the very children it presumes to help."
Adoptions up 50 percent
In the same statement, the agency declared that Texas foster care children are safe by "an overwhelming margin" and that the foster care redesign is close to being a reality. A measure that would allow the agency to shift funds to help reallocate resources is pending in the Legislature.
The agency released figures Tuesday that show adoptions have increased more than 50 percent between fiscal years 2005 and 2010. Caseloads for foster care caseworkers have fallen by about 10 cases per worker in the same time period, from an average of 40.4 per worker a month to 29.5 in the period that ended last August, the agency said.
DFPS has been anticipating a lawsuit since 2009, after the advocacy group began requesting records. The agency notified lawmakers of such a possibility last fall in an unsigned "background memo" that is critical of the group.
"CR is very media savvy and it uses the press to 'try' its cases in the public arena to pressure agency officials into entering into settlement discussions," the memo stated.
$500-an-hour fees?
The memo also took aim at Children's Rights attorneys' fee requests to courts, which DFPS calculated are "about $500 per hour."
The document went on to list improvements made since 2004 by the DFPS Child Protective Services' division, which investigates child abuse and places children into foster care.
"Reform is working in Texas," the memo stated. "Texans know what's best for Texas. We don't need a litigious organization from New York City to tell us how to improve our CPS system. And we don't need its lawyers living off exorbitant fees paid for by the hard-working taxpayers of Texas."
However, the memo failed to mention how reductions in the agency's budget by lawmakers in the 1990s essentially pushed it to a point of crisis in 2004, prompting Perry to order a special investigation.
Perry's action came after a series of well-publicized child abuse deaths. Many of the children in those cases came from families with previous CPS histories and exposed soaring caseloads.
terri.langford@chron.comTeachers have a powerful edge over you. They have possession of the hearts and minds of kids for several hours per day longer then do parents. Children, being impressionable, tend to adopt the beliefs and practices of those they interact with the most. As of right now your 11yr old likely sees the word of teachers as infallible. After all, they've been trusted with cramming heads with knowledge, and with your permission. Not Carch-22, just a rock and a hard place.
Limitations of the source may be a place to start. Your "facts" don't match up well against the teacher's "facts" due to the trust placed in the source. Over the years teachers have taught many items that turned out to be wrong simply because that was the fashion of the day. Point out a few of those. That may lay the groundwork for the idea that even smart people may get their wires crossed due to lack of information, or incessant bad information. "Appeal to authority" is a logical fallacy that is over the heads of kids, until demonstrated in a concrete fashion.A former beauty queen has been accused of kidnapping and torturing her ex-boyfriend.
Kumari Fulbright, 25, stuck a butcher’s knife in her former lover’s ear and repeatedly bit him while he was held captive for ten hours, court documents reveal.
The law student, who ran for the title of Miss Arizona in 2006, is said to have enlisted the help of three men to tie up the 24-year-old and threaten him at gunpoint.
The gang also stole his wallet, about £250 in cash, his mobile phone and briefcase.
The victim finally fled from the second house he was taken to when he grabbed Fulbright’s gun, which went off.
A search of the premises in Tucson, Arizona, uncovered a used bullet along with.45-calibre ammunition, plastic gloves, marijuana, the victim’s possessions, and a book â How To Win Friends And Influence People.
Fulbright, who has been charged with armed robbery, kidnap and assault with a deadly weapon, was named Miss Pima County in 2005 and Miss Desert Sun in 2006.
Her attorney, Tom Hartzell, said she was a promising law student who hoped to specialise in entertainment law.
‘We’re eager to see the process through and for the truth of this matter to come to light,’ he said.
Fulbright, who worked as a clerk for a federal judge, has been released on £25,000 bail.
Officers are still searching for two men in connection with the case. A third man, Larry Hammond, remains behind bars awaiting trial.Dubai: A family believes their infant son who was declared dead 30 years ago is still alive.
Iraqi Fadil Hashmi, who works as an engineer in Abu Dhabi, recounts the hunt for his son who he thinks was kidnapped. Hashmi has been trying to uncover the truth for some 20 years.
Hashmi has left his family of three — his wife Suroor as well his son and daughter — in Canada and has been living in the UAE for almost nine years just to be near Iran, so that he can find his son.
Their son was born in an Iranian Hospital in 1984. Three days later the father was told his son was dead. Six years ago he opened his grave, but did not find his son’s body.
December 24, 1984
Hashmi and his wife were living in Iran — his wife’s home country. When she went into labour and he took her to Sajjad Hospital in Tehran, where she delivered a healthy baby, according to medical reports seen by Gulf News.
He said they choose the name Mohammad for his son, but it was not made official on any documents.
Hashmi told Gulf News that after the delivery the baby was taken away and kept on a different floor at the hospital. His son was not given to his mother for feeding. His wife was discharged the same day and they were advised to keep the baby in the hospital for a few days.
He used to visit the baby daily and nobody told him his son was ill. On the third day Hashmi went to the hospital and was told to wait for a doctor, who told him his son had heart and brain problems. Hashmi was then given the dreaded news: his son had died.
Hashmi said he took the doctor’s word for it and did not question the claim that his son was dead. He did not ask to see his son’s body because he said it was traumatic.
1995-1997
Eleven years after the alleged death of his son, Hashmi read reports about newborns being kidnapped from hospitals in Iran. “That is when I started to doubt what I was told about my son’s death.”
And that was the first step in his 20 years’ struggle to find out if his son is alive somewhere. Hashmi filed a court case against the hospital, claiming that he had not been given evidence of his son’s death. The court ordered police to investigate.
“When we went to the hospital, there was no death certificate nor was there anything to prove he was dead, except a notice of death that was not fully filled out. The notice was issued eight days after the day I was informed my son died.” Hashmi said.
The death notice did not have the baby’s date of death, gender, parents’ names or the name and signature of the person who handled the body. The document also showed that the cause of death was that he was a “premature baby”. The father said this is untrue and contradicts the initial report that the baby was a “normal newborn”.
Their next stop was the cemetery where the baby was supposedly buried. When they checked the records, Hashmi found out that another baby was buried in the same grave as his son’s. But his son’s surname “Hashmi” was written on the grave.
The court found the hospital not guilty of issuing an untrue death certificate due to lack of evidence.
Hashmi showed Gulf News documents issued by Iranian Ministry of Health a report that highlighted the discrepancies in the hospital’s paperwork. The ministry recommended there be further investigations. It said he should pursue the case with judicial and police authorities.
Hashmi said: “I requested that my son’s body be exhumed, but I was rejected and the case was closed in 1997.”
Post 1997
Hashmi claims that once the case was closed the doctor who was implicated, told him a number of times that his son had not died.
Hashmi said the doctor told him this because he thought the case was closed and would never be reopened.
2004
An Iranian newspaper Etemaad reported that a woman was arrested following multiple complaints to police from mothers whose newborns were stolen. A 30-year-old-widow was arrested. She confessed to stealing more than 70 babies and selling them to rich families after faking their documents with the help of employees at the Iranian Department of Civil Status.
This report among others, Hashmi said, confirmed his doubts that his son is not dead.
2008
Hashmi attempted to reopen the case and requested exhumation. He received approval and when they opened the grave, they found only one skeleton.
“Representatives from a genetics lab took samples from the skeleton, but due to poor technology, they could not get any results. However, when they compared size of the bones with my son’s birth record, they found that the skeleton in the grave was bigger than my son’s so it could not have been his. Forensics also confirmed the results.” Hashmi said.
Documents showed that Hashmi’s son was 44-centimetre long and the circumference of his head was 34cm. On the other hand, the skeleton that was found in the grave was 50cm long. The circumference of the head was 37cm.
Investigators had also opened an adjacent grave by mistake and found it empty. Papers showed that there was a body buried there. Hashmi said this brings the cemetery’s records into question.
2012
The genetics centre in Iran re-evaluated the DNA sample from the grave following a letter from court. The research centre now had advanced technology, which tested the DNA samples. Tests proved that the DNA of the skeleton found in the grave did not match Hashmi’s wife.
But even these findings were not taken seriously and the case was frozen.
2014
Hashmi hopes his son will read news reports and realise that may be he was this missing baby and try to contact him.
“When a child is not blood-related to a family, even if he is never told he isn’t, he might feel it. May be he will realise he does not look like his family, his blood-type is different or something. The child might be keeping these feelings to himself, so I am getting the story out so if he is out there he can reach us.”
Suroor, Hashmi’s wife, told Gulf News in a phone interview that her health has suffered greatly because of this incident. She said when she was told her son died, she became depressed and had to go on medication.
“It got worse when we realised that he can be alive, I have been on strong medication ever since and I have not been able to have a good night’s sleep.” She said she takes sleeping aids to help her sleep.
Suroor said she always felt he was alive. “It’s not easy for a mother to know her son is alive and not knowing anything about him … I never lose hope that one day I will see him.”
Like her husband, she said she hopes their son will read news reports and contact them.RBS Six Nations - England v Italy
Venue: Twickenham Date: Sunday 10 March Kick-off: 15:00 GMT Coverage: Watch live from 14:30 on BBC One, BBC One HD, mobiles and online; listen on BBC Radio 5 live; text commentary on BBC Sport website and mobiles. Highlights BBC Two Sun 23:35, repeated BBC Two Mon 13:30.
Saracens prop Mako Vunipola has been handed his first start as England make five changes for Sunday's Six Nations match against Italy at Twickenham.
Replacement flanker Tom Croft is in the squad for the first time in 11 months following a serious neck injury.
The other changes in the starting XV are half-backs Toby Flood and Danny Care, while there are also recalls for forwards James Haskell and Tom Youngs.
Mako Vunipola factfile Born 13/1/1991 Wellington, New Zealand
Wellington, New Zealand 1998 - Relocates to Wales after father Fe'ao signs for Pontypool
- Relocates to Wales after father Fe'ao signs for Pontypool 2009-10 season - Makes Bristol debut after progressing through club's academy
- Makes Bristol debut after progressing through club's academy 2010 - Promoted to England Under-20 squad
- Promoted to England Under-20 squad March 2011 - Part of England Under-20 side that wins the Grand Slam
- Part of England Under-20 side that wins the Grand Slam July 2011 - Joins Saracens after 33 appearances for Bristol, including five tries
- Joins Saracens after 33 appearances for Bristol, including five tries November 2012 - Makes full England debut against Fiji
Mako Vunipola's younger brother Billy misses out on a place on the bench.
Flood comes in for the injured Owen Farrell, with Freddie Burns called into the replacements.
Haskell and Tom Youngs replace Courtney Lawes and Dylan Hartley respectively, with the Northampton pair dropping to the bench, where they are joined by Joe Marler and Ben Youngs, who both started in the win against France.
England go into the game top of the table, having won three games in a row.
The victory over France in the last round ensured they remain on track for a first Grand Slam in a decade, and boss Stuart Lancaster always intended to "freshen up" the side in the penultimate round of the 2013 Six Nations.
"We were very happy with the way we finished the France game," he explained. "The impact the replacements made shows that we have competition for places across the board and we have had to make some tight calls.
"Danny Care has waited patiently for his opportunity. In freshening the team up, sometimes when you have a guy who is desperate to play that can help the team.
"They [Care and scrum-half rival Ben Youngs] are unbelievably close. They are both high-quality players, in great form and in great condition and pushing each other.
"Mako has thoroughly deserved his chance and we are looking forward to seeing how he goes."
Billy Twelvetrees is among the replacements after Lancaster decided against shifting centre Manu Tuilagi to the wing and benching Chris Ashton.
Six Nations table Played Won Points Difference Points England 3 3 36 6 Wales 3 2 19 4 Scotland 2 1 2 2 Ireland 2 1 2 2 Italy 3 1 -36 2 France 3 0 -25 0
Italy, who have recalled captain Sergio Parisse, started the tournament by defeating France, and Lancaster cautioned against writing off the visitors.
"Parisse coming back is a huge psychological lift and it adds a huge amount in terms of experience," said Lancaster.
"All things point towards Italy putting in a strong performance and we have to be ready."
Mako Vunipola, 22, who was born in New Zealand, and Billy, 20, born in Australia, are sons of the former Tonga captain Fe'ao.
When they first moved to Britain they lived in Wales before subsequently relocating to England. Both could have played for the Welsh alongside cousin and number eight Toby Faletau.
Mako Vunipola said making his first start will be "a great occasion for me and my family".
Media playback is not supported on this device Ashton 'hurt' by criticism
Speaking before the selection announcement, he added: "The dream for us is to be out there together for my family. Hopefully one day that will happen."
England's points difference is currently 17 better than nearest rivals Wales, whom they face in the final round of the championship in Cardiff next Saturday.
England team to face Italy: 15. Alex Goode (Saracens, 9 caps); 14. Chris Ashton (Saracens, 32 caps), 13. Manusamoa Tuilagi (Leicester Tigers, 19 caps), 12. Brad Barritt (Saracens, 14 caps), 11. Mike Brown (Harlequins, 14 caps); 10. Toby Flood (Leicester Tigers, 55 caps), 9. Danny Care (Harlequins, 39 caps); 1. Mako Vunipola (Saracens, 7 caps), 2. Tom Youngs (Leicester Tigers, 7 caps), 3. Dan Cole (Leicester Tigers, 38 caps), 4. Joe Launchbury (London Wasps, 7 caps), 5. Geoff Parling (Leicester Tigers, 15 caps), 6. James Haskell (London Wasps, 48 caps), 7. Chris Robshaw (Harlequins, capt, 15 caps), 8. Tom Wood (Northampton Saints, 16 caps)
Replacements: 16. Dylan Hartley (Northampton Saints, 45 caps), 17. David Wilson (Bath Rugby, 24 caps), 18. Joe Marler (Harlequins, 8 caps), 19. Courtney Lawes (Northampton Saints, 18 caps), 20. Tom Croft (Leicester Tigers, 36 caps), 21. Ben Youngs (Leicester Tigers, 31 caps), 22. Freddie Burns (Gloucester Rugby, 1 cap), 23. Billy Twelvetrees (Gloucester Rugby, 2 caps)
Italy: 15. Andrea Masi (Wasps) 14. Giovanbattista Venditti (Zebre) 13. Gonzalo Canale (La Rochelle) 12. Gonzalo Garcia (Zebre) 11. Luke Mclean (Treviso) 10. Luciano Orquera (Zebre) 9.Edoardo Gori (Treviso) 8. Sergio Parisse (capt, Stade Francais) 7. Robert Barbieri (Treviso) 6. Alessandro Zanni (Treviso) 5. Joshua Furno (Narbonne) 4. Quintin Geldenhuys (Zebre) 3. Martin Castrogiovanni (Leicester) 2. Leonardo Ghiraldini (Treviso) 1. Alberto De Marchi (Treviso).
Replacements: 16. Davide Giazzon (Zebre) 17. Andrea Lo Cicero (Racing Metro) 18. Lorenzo Cittadini (Treviso) 19. Antonio Pavanello (Treviso) 20. Francesco Minto (Treviso) 21. Simone Favaro (Treviso) 22. Tobias Botes (Treviso) 23. Tommaso Benvenuti (Treviso).As my colleague Peter Suderman has pointed out, Donald Trump's rumored privatization plan for the Veterans Affairs hospitals is not much of a plan at all. It seems like some Trump official, somewhere, speaking anonymously said the words system, vets, choose, and private in close proximity and that's really all we know.
But let's assume some kind of privatization plan is, in fact, afoot. Is that good news?
While there's a chance that the right people will be at the helm to craft this plan (I know some smart guys, if anyone's interested) and a robust and carefully considered privatization scheme could be enacted, based on what we know about Trump so far it seems far more likely that we'll wind up with something that looks like a giveaway to private business without the corresponding market mechanisms that are necessary for such a reform effort to show results. At the heart of the idea of privatization is the idea that when providers fail to actually deliver products or services as promised, they no longer get paid. Contracts must be canceled for legitimate (non-political) reasons, and companies must be allowed to fail for privatization to succeed. The V.A. hospitals' immunity to competition and veterans' inability to seek care elsewhere were two of the biggest reasons waiting lists got as long as they did.
True privatization is tricky to do correctly—though not impossible! As the Reason Foundation attests, it happens all the time in the real world on the state and local level in particular. But if the Carrier deal is at all instructive about how the Trump administration is going handle relations between the state and the private sector, some bullying of major market players combined with watered down cronyism and politically expedient favoritism looks like the most likely outcome. Which means that veterans may indeed wind up getting even worse care that the deeply troubled V.A. was providing. What's more, a messy half-assed reform effort with the word privatization slapped on the package will give future efforts at thoroughgoing privatization a bad name.
Those of us who are keen on privatization should take a moment to feel deep empathy for those on the other side of the political spectrum. I can only imagine the anticipatory agony of envisioning Trump-administered faux privatization is similar to what advocates of single-payer health care must have felt as they watched the Affordable Care Act take shape. The might-have-beens are cruel indeed.
I was on Kennedy talking about this very topic yesterday. Check it out:Falling deeply in love with someone is an all-consuming proposition. You can’t stop thinking about the person; you can’t sleep; you have no appetite. Life without this person is unimaginable, and you would sacrifice everything to be with him or her forever. Studies confirm the devotion: people in love spend more than 85% of their conscious hours thinking about their love object.
So, if true love completely takes us over, is it possible to have the same feelings for two love objects at the same time?
Some people claim that it’s not only possible but necessary, because one mate can’t possibly give them everything they need. As Aaron Ben-Zeév, Ph.D., professor of philosophy at the University of Haifa in Israel, wrote in Psychology Today, “loving more than one person at a time may not be entirely unfeasible, as the additional love would be based upon a different set of characteristics, and thus the two loves could be considered complementary rather than contradictory.”
Love Crazy Is Very Much Like Crazy
While feeling romantic love for two people at the same time seems possible on a rational level, can romantic love ever be considered rational? After all, many people are blindsided by love, which results in a kind of temporary insanity that defies attempts to assess it objectively. A person in the throes of love can even behave like someone who is mentally ill or on drugs.
A landmark study called “The Neuroimaging of Love,” conducted by Stephanie Ortigue, Ph.D., who teaches psychology and neurology at Syracuse University, found that falling in love can result in a euphoric state similar to that induced by cocaine. Dr. Ortigue’s investigation showed that, when a person falls in love, the brain releases a number of chemicals that cause euphoria. Couples who had just fallen in love also had higher blood levels of nerve growth factor (NGF), a molecule that is associated with the mutual attraction between people.
An especially interesting finding was how different types of love are associated with different parts of the brain. A mother’s love for a child and romantic love are not triggered by the same parts. Romantic love is more closely linked to brain regions involved in reward mechanisms, as well to higher-level areas that control cognitive function.
According to findings collected by Helen Fisher, Ph.D., a biological anthropologist at Rutgers University and expert on the biological basis of love, falling in love involves three stages: lust, attraction, and attachment. Here’s a brief rundown of these stages:
1. Lust. This is basic animal attraction triggered by the sex hormones estrogen or testosterone. Cognition may have a very low profile once these hormones go to work, with the desire for immediate gratification overriding concerns about consequences.
2. Attraction. Now the head starts going over the heels, spurred on by neurotransmitters including dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin. These hormones can render us temporarily insane, as we’re overwhelmed by desire for another that transcends mere sexual urges. Sleep, eating, jobs, and just about everything else takes a backseat to mooning over Mr. or Ms. Right.
3. Attachment. Relationships meant to last are forged during this crucial phase, and two hormones are key matchmakers. Oxytocin is released during orgasm to help promote bonding during intimacy, and secretion of vasopressin is important to long-term commitment. Suppression of either of these hormones can put a halt to one’s devotion to the love object.
Is Romantic Love a Finite Resource?
Obviously, we need to meet our basic survival needs and make a living, so we can’t devote every waking second to a love object. This devotion is therefore limited, and if there are two romantic love objects at one time, it would be difficult to determine whether that devotion were an even split between the two. Wouldn’t the one who gets the highest percentage of devotion, therefore, be the truest of the loves? And doesn’t being in love confer some exclusivity for one person over another?
There’s no clear-cut answer to these questions. My personal feeling is that you can have only one genuine romantic love at a time, but we’re in subjective territory here. If some people say they are in love with two people to an equal degree, how could we prove them wrong? At the same time, how could they prove they’re right?
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Two proposed missions would scour the moon’s upper crust for deposits of ice that may support moon bases.
We may soon be one sip of water closer to living on the moon, at least if NASA’s plans pan out. The space agency has announced their intention to send two new missions to the moon to analyze and mine pockets of frozen water. The projects, nicknamed Lunar Flashlight and Resource Prospector Mission (RPM), will launch in late 2017 and 2018, respectively.
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The lunar poles are thought to harbor massive reserves of ice.
Scientists are seeking to determine if future manned lunar outposts could exploit the deposits as a resource for drinking water. Here’s Mike Wall reporting for Space.com:
“If you’re going to have humans on the moon and you need water for drinking, breathing, rocket fuel, anything you want, it’s much, much cheaper to live off the land than it is to bring everything with you,” said Lunar Flashlight principal investigator Barbara Cohen, of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
Lunar Flashlight will be making approximately 80 rotations around the moon’s atmosphere, hovering a mere 12 miles over the lunar surface. The intent of the mission is to find, measure, and map pockets of ice in darkened craters within and around the lunar poles.
The Lunar Flashlight mission would use a solar sail to carry the spacecraft along its orbital route. According to Cohen, the device would begin to expand upon reaching space, from “the size of a cereal box” into an 860-square foot solar sail. It will take Lunar Flashlight six months to reach the moon and another year to slowly descend to the 12-mile-high research orbit.
LCROSS, an earlier NASA mission that looked for water on the moon, was a relatively low-budget affair.
While Lunar Flashlight will only observe easily accessible deposits of water, RPM will operate on the surface of the moon. The rover will be equipped with drills and other materials to extract samples from 3.3 feet below the moon’s surface. It will chart water concentrations with an on-board neutron spectrometer and a near-infrared spectrometer. It’ll have to work fast, though, as it’s lifespan is expected to be only one week as it crawls from the near side of the moon into permanently dark lunar territory.
Neither the Lunar Flashlight nor RPM projects have been approved by NASA yet, but if they are accepted, the knowledge could bring us closer to greater understanding the moon’s water resources—and what we might be able to do with them should we return.
Two proposed NASA missions would lay more groundwork for manned lunar bases.Sen. Jeff Sessions’ (R-AL) attorney general nomination has been fraught with partisan politics and gimmicks. Senate Democrats pulled every procedural maneuver in the book to delay a committee vote on his nomination. On February 1, Sessions was finally approved by an 11-9 party line vote to move his nomination to the Senate for a vote. Yesterday, a cloture motion on his nomination passed in a 52-47 vote.
CLIP: U.S. Senate confirms Sen. Jeff Sessions to be Attorney General, 52-47. https://t.co/N9qPdAy0Rf pic.twitter.com/cJkEXv2RvD — CSPAN (@cspan) February 9, 2017
Now, after weeks in limbo, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III has been confirmed the 84th Attorney General of the United States in a 52-47 vote. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) broke with Democrats to vote for Sessions.
Sessions' nomination was to be voted on first after getting the nod by the Senate Judiciary Committee, but Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins (R-ME) decided to break ranks from the GOP on Betsy DeVos’ nomination to be education secretary.Her nomination also passed the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions on a 12-11 party line vote. That forced her nomination to be pushed up on the docket.
The Senate GOP needed Sessions’ vote, as the vote on DeVos was 50-50. Vice President Mike Pence who cast the deciding vote, a first in U.S. history, eventually broke the tie.
Sessions and DeVos were seen as some of President Donald Trump’s most controversial nominees. A larger fight would have occurred if it weren’t for former Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) nuking the filibuster rules for non-Supreme Court presidential nominees, which allowed cloture to be invoked and nominees confirmed by a simple majority. No doubt that both of these nominees would have been filibustered by Senate Democrats. Given how the :Eft reacted to DeVos' confirmation, expect the liberal tears to flow again with Sessions.
So, I guess we should say thank you, Harry Reid.
UPDATE: Via Twitchy, yep--liberals are freaking out.MIAMI (CBS4) – This is something you don’t see everyday.
Miami police officer J. Brutus is OK, but possibly feeling a bit sheepish Tuesday morning, after getting distracted while driving and running his patrol car up a pole. Not into it, but up it.
“I heard boom, boom, boom!” Pamela Green said. “Then all the lights went out. I look out, I see he’s up the pole.”
The accident happened before rush hour Tuesday morning, near the intersection of NW 6th Avenue and 67th street in Miami.
Miami police spokesperson Detective Willie Moreno said Brutus, a 4 year veteran, was driving when he was momentarily distracted, as he reached for a fallen pen. His patrol car left the road and headed for a utility pole, but before it struck the pole, the car rode up along a guy wire.
“His vehicle rode on to the tension cord of this pole,” said Moreno.
The officer was briefly trapped inside the patrol car, but was helped to freedom by Miami Fire Rescue.
The officer was not hurt, and after the door was opened from the outside, the officer was able to walk away while laughing.
“For us to look and see him come out of the car, not a scratch on him,” said Yvonne Sorellis, “He didn’t even look shook up because he was just laughing.”
Yvonne grabbed a lawn chair to wait and watch because she said the ‘police car up a pole’ is better than any movie.
“Just been very interesting; I hadn’t seen nothing this good since ‘Bad Boys’ with Will Smith,” Sorellis said.
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vans and buses all mocked up with Mikel Knight insignia and full of street team members to solicit people on the street, in parking lots, and at gas stations all across the United States to purchase Mikel Knight country rap albums.
Known as the “Maverick Dirt Road Street Teams,” dozens of pseudo-employed Mikel Knight devotees fan out across smaller communities to aggressively peddle his country rap albums to local populations, usually working a dozen or more hours a day, driving through the night to their next locations, not even being given chances to shower or sleep, and leaving town before local authorities catch up with the street teams and make sure they’re obeying local sales ordinances. Right now Mikel Knight is thought to own two buses and 18 insignia-wrapped vans as part of his street team armada.
But the allegations and stories about the practices of Mikel Knight and the Maverick Dirt Road Street Team go beyond being overworked and circumventing local ordinances. Stories of physical abuse, mental anguish, individuals being abandoned in small towns, and even the death of street team members in auto accidents after being overworked have been circulating for the last year. Yet Mikel Knight seems to still enjoy superstar status in certain circles (partly because he presents such a high-profile persona through his vehicles), and few questions have been raised about what is really behind Mikel Knight and his street teams.
Recent Arrests of Mikel Knight Street Team Members
On Wednesday, May 20th, five members of Mikel Knight’s Maverick Dirt Road Street Team were arrested in Mitchell, South Dakota at the local Wal-Mart for selling CD’s without a proper peddler’s license. According to Patrol Sgt. Joel Reinesch, the Mikel Knight street teams have frequented Mitchell and surrounding communities often, usually being “shooed out of town” without incident. However, because of the recurring nature of the problem with the street teams, including the South Dakota Department of Revenue sending a letter to the Mikel Knight organization warning them about the violations as far back as 2014, the five men were arrested and cited with Class 1 misdemeanors.
The South Dakota Department of Revenue stationed two employees in the parking lot to witness the sales before the arrests were made. According to Sgt. Reinesch, since the Mikel Knight organization had been warned previously, the men could have been charged with felonies. All of the men were from different locations around the country. The individuals arrested were Dakota Savage (24) of Missouri, Terry Smith (24) of Tennessee, Jesse Weaver (22) of Oklahoma, Zachary Ayers (22) of West Virginia, and Austin Henderson (18) of Missouri. They all admitted to selling the merchandise, but none of them admitted to knowing Mikel Knight personally. Sgt. Reinesch said that they were not trying to keep the individuals from promoting Mikel Knight’s music, but after numerous warnings and incidents, authorities were left no choice but to make the arrests.
And this wasn’t the first run in with the law for the Mikel Knight street teams last week. On Monday, May 18th, authorities in Storm Lake, Iowa, approximately 3 ½ hours south and east of Mitchell, SD cited seven Mikel Knight Street Team members with Failure to Have a Solicitors License in connection with the sale of Mikel Knight CD’s.
The seven men cited were:
Zachary Ayers, age 23 of Shinnston, WV
Kyle Banks, age 25 of Moscow, OH
Austin Henderson, age 18 of Dexter, MO
Brian Mullen, age 28 of Hermitage, TN
Tyler Hediger, age 27 of Gore, OK
Terry Smith, age 25 of Cookville, TN
In O’Neill, Nebraska, about two hours south of Mitchell, SD, police were also warning residents on Wednesday, May 21st about the aggressive street teams in the area, and to not purchase items from them. “We have received several complaints about Mikel Knight vans and RVs in O’Neill and the surrounding areas,” local police said in a statement. “These parties do not have the proper permits to be selling items in the city of O’Neill. We have also take complaints of them stopping vehicles. Please do not purchase items from these vehicles and if seen attempting to sell items please make contact with your local police department.”
Police in nearby North Platte, Nebraska also received complaints about Mikel Knight street teams on Thursday, May 21st. Police were not able to make contact with the street teams before they left the area.
All of these incidents come as Mikel Knight’s “Maverick Dirt Road Street Team” continues to frequent the same towns they have been to before, building up a reputation with local residents and authorities who are then on the lookout for the vans and buses when they arrive in town.
The stated strategy behind Mikel Knight’s street teams is to circumvent the traditional album sales avenues so to not have to deal with the business side of music. You can still purchase Mikel Knight’s music online through the traditional channels like iTunes, and portions his music operation appear to operate quite normal. But his lack of playing shows and the aggressiveness of his stream team, and the way certain street team members have been treated is what has led to mounting controversy.
The Revealing Account of a Former Mikel Knight Street Team Member Ky Rodgers
In July of 2014, a former Maverick Dirt Road Street Team member named Ky Rodgers posted an extensive account of his year with Mikel Knight, the deceptions street team members were led to believe, the conditions they were forced to work under, how some members were beaten and abandoned for not making sales quotas, and how working conditions eventually resulted in Rogers being involved in a major motor vehicle accident that had him hospitalized with multiple broken vertebrae and other injuries.
“I was introduced by a couple of guys on his street team,” Ky Rodgers explained. “They told me about how he needed a new lead guitarist and that they had been showing him some of my YouTube videos and his current singer/rhythm player had fell in love with my playing. I remember riding up to Nashville, clothes packed and not even knowing what to expect. I get there, and he has like 5-6 fancy tour vans that had his face and name plastered all over them, all of them were sitting on some kind of rims nicer than most cars. The back of each van read “The Country Rap King, Music from MTV’s BuckWild”, and my heart began racing. I knew this was the real deal. I went around back to meet most of our street team, B-Mull our drummer, and Conrad the singer/guitarist at the time. We had maybe a total of 15 guys back there. We loaded up the next morning and headed out on tour, but little did I know what I was in for.”
Rodgers went on to explain that he never played any shows, and his duty as lead guitar player were to sell CD’s with everyone else in the band and the street team.
“We would pull up to random gas stations, businesses, it didn’t matter. The driver of each van would tell us to get out, ‘grab CD’s! Go hit that person..’ We weren’t touring doing shows or playing for anybody, it wasn’t what I thought it was gonna be at all … EVERY SINGLE DAY for a month to 2 months straight, we would get up at 6:30 AM and would not stop selling until midnight. We would meet up at Wal-Mart in a different town every night. Drivers would take their money that their team made that day and take it to Mikel Knight, where he would take all the money and put it in a safe. And after sweating all day, and being completely dead by the time we’d all meet up, I remember asking a couple guys on the street team ‘when we going to get a room, I’m tired man.’ and they just laughed and walked off. We slept in the vans, without getting a shower and would be woken up by Mikel Knight at 6:30 the next morning by him beating on your window and yelling at you to get out. We’d get out and he would have sort of an ‘inspiration’ speech. More like a ‘God gave me this plan a year ago and we’ve grown from 4 guys to 5 vans and 15 guys and making $10,000 a day as a company,’ while smoking on a blunt of weed. Then he would cuss / yell at the guys that didn’t do good the night before, telling them to get their numbers up or he’d slap the hell out of them, or something along those lines.”
Eventually Ky Rodgers became acclimated to the environment, became one of the street team’s best sellers, and would get compensated in intervals for his work for Mikel Knight.
“I started doing really well. Selling up to 70 cd’s a day … I remember walking into Mikel Knight’s basement and him handing me a couple thousand dollars and telling me he couldn’t wait to get me in the studio, that if I stayed around, he’d make me a rockstar. This was just the grind out part that had to be done first. After being handed a few thousand dollars my thoughts about the long nights and no showers went away. I thought, i’m 18 bringing home this kinda money in a month?? BY SELLING CD’S? I thought I had it made. But I didn’t even realize the brainwashing. His work ethics were so evil, the way he treated us was like we were slaves. But being this young, and getting handed that cash blinded me.”
Rodgers was eventually promoted to captain of one of the street teams, but began seeing things that disturbed him about Mikel Knight’s organization.
“People that had been with us from the beginning were getting promoted to driving the vans, but still had to sell CD’s. Sometimes, people’s money would come up short. Mikel Knight would beat them or have someone else jump them when we’d meet up at night. It could have been a miscalculation, or they could have stolen money, but Mikel Knight wasn’t taking chances. If someone’s team wasn’t making enough numbers, Mikel Knight would sometimes leave them in a town, sometimes without even their clothes, never paying them out. I never thought anything like this would happen to me.”
Ky Rodgers says that one night when riding in a street team van, the vehicle was in an accident in Utah, and the van fell off a three-story cliff. Ky was severely injured, and had to be care flighted to a hospital. He broke his L2, L3, and L4 vertebrae, his pelvis and sacrum, and was in the hospital for a week before he was discharged. He claims that Mikel Knight completely abandoned him and the rest of his street team crew, did not pay them, and would not return their personal possessions. Ky was stuck with $38,000 in medical bills, and couldn’t get Mikel Knight to even work with the auto insurance company to take out a claim, if the van was ever insured in the first place. “There was nothing we could do because we never signed anything saying ‘hey, you’re hired!’ He leaves no paper trail, no proof that anyone works for him, and he never withheld taxes from anyone’s pay.”
Two Street Team Members Die in Auto Accident
Ky Rodgers lived to tell his ordeal on the Mikel Knight Street Team, but two other individuals did not. A few weeks after Rodgers’ auto accident, another street team van was involved in an accident that killed two young men in Donley County in the Texas Panhandle. Taylor Robert Nixon and Robert Joseph Underfinger III were both killed in the June 16th, 2014 accident. The manager of the street team and one other individual were also injured in the incident.
According to Texas Department of Public Safety Senior Officer Daniel Hawthorne, at about 8:40 a.m. on June 16th, a 2005 Chevy van belonging to Mikel Knight veered off the road after overcorrecting and losing control, rolling several times before coming to a stop. Taylor Nixon and Robert Underfinger III were not wearing seat belts and were ejected from the van. They were pronounced dead on the scene.
Speaking in the context of Ky Rodgers’ account of his experience on the Mikel Knight street team, the aunt of Taylor Nixon named Rabecca Hughes said, “Its purpose is to prevent inhumane treatment of people; to prevent death and destruction of our youth; to hold Mikel Knight accountable for his lack of protection of his employees and directly placing them in harm’s way; for prosecution of Mikel Knight and members of his staff for physically and emotionally abusing people and profiting from their sweat and blood … If we can save one life, prevent one accident, rescue one soul, then our purpose is served. In Taylor’s name, I will not rest until Mikel Knight hears my voice, recognizes my sister’s cries for her son, and feels the wrath of those united for justice.”
Mikel Knight’s Real Name and Criminal Past
Mikel Knight’s real name is said to be Jason Cross or Jason Michael Cross, and he’s said to have hid this name because of his criminal past. Jason Michael Cross is 37-years-old with a birth date of 09/06/1976. A search of the Davidson County (Nashville) Criminal Court Clerk Database turned up 20 separate court cases against Jason Cross since 2006, and one as recent as September of 2014. The counts include multiple counts of aggravated assault, harassment, vandalism, theft, and multiple drivers license violations.
12/5/2006 – Aggravated Assault
5/20/2009 – Protection Order Violation (3 Separate counts)
5/21/2009 – No Driver’s License
11/3/2009 – No Driver’s License
4/8/2010 – Theft of $500
4/8/2010 – Harassment – Distress
4/8/2010 – Vandalism of $1000
6/28/2010 – Harassment
6/28/2010 – Aggravated Assault (Bond of $75,000)
8/4/2010 – Vandalism of $1000
8/4/2010 – Harassment
8/4/2010 -Harassment – Distress
8/4/2010 – Aggravated Assault (felony)
8/4/2010 – Theft of $500 (felony)
6/7/2011 – No Driver’s License
12/28/2011 – Driving with a Suspended License
9/23/2014 – Driver’s License Revoked
Since Mikel Knight claims to be originally from San Antonio, Saving Country Music also checked with the Bexar County Criminal Court and found multiple arrests and court actions for the same Jason M. Cross with a birth date of 09/06/1976, including an aggravated assault from 2006 that a warrant for his arrest is currently issued for.
02/18/1995 – Attempted Robbery (felony – received 10 years probation)
02/19/1996 – Assault with a Deadly Weapon (felony)
03/16/1996 – Assault with Bodily Injury
05/16/1998 – Assault with Bodily Injury
09/2/1998 – Driving with Suspended License
09/7/1998 – Assault with Bodily Injury
09/07/1999 – Assault with Bodily Injury
05/27/2006 – Assault with Bodily Injury (Pending, warrant issued for his arrest)
Because of his attempts to cover up his real identity, Saving Country Music cannot 100% confirm that Mikel Knight is the same Jason Cross the above arrest records belong to, but it can be confirmed that the two separate arrest records are for the same individual, match up with what is believed to be Mikel Knights real name a birth date, and match up with Mikel Knight’s known whereabouts at the time of the incidents. There is also the possibility there are other arrests or criminal actions against him in other locations.
Mikel Knight, or Jason Cross has also used another pseudonym to perform under as a rapper named “A-Gee The Albino Gorilla.”
Charitable Donations
There has also been questions about claims of charitable contributions made by Mikel Knight street teams. In November of 2013, street teams set up shop in the towns of Joplin, Galena, Oswego and Parsons in the area around the Missouri and Kansas border. The teams were telling businesses where they sold CD’s near, as well as customers, that proceeds from sales would go to a charity called Safe Haven. “They called the police, and the police called me and asked me if I knew anything about it and I told them I had never even heard of him,” said Safe Haven Outreach Mission Inc. director Melissa Brown based in Parsons, KS. “I guess by the time the police got there, the guy was gone.” Later Mikel Knight’s manager explained the Safe Haven charity was actually a homeless charity based in Nashville, but the local Safe Haven charity in Parsons still felt people were being deceived that their money would be helping local communities.
Mikel Knight has worked with the Safe Haven charity in Nashville for multiple years, and claims he’s given over $150,000 to Safe Haven as proceeds from street team CD sales. Saving Country Music has confirmed Mikel Knight has given donations to the charity, but questions linger if the percentage of CD sales street team members claim to collect per album is the same amount delivered to Safe Haven in Nashville. Lining up Mikel’s accumulated CD sales with the amount donated to Safe Haven, the percentages do not appear what Mikel Knight street team members say they are. Nonetheless, sizable donations have been made to the Nashville homeless shelter in Mikel Knight’s name.
Mounting Pressure on Mikel Knight
In the midst of last week’s arrests of street team members, the injuries and deaths of previous street team members, and concerns for the legality of his organization and the welfare of his workers, pressure has mounted against Mikel Knight. But the country rap performer appears to be a master of evasion, and has avoided any serious examination from authorities.
There is a Facebook page set up called Families Against Mikel Night Maverick Dirt Road Street Team that is actively trying to keep tabs on Mikel Night and many of his closest supporters. Sensing pressure, Mikel Knight regularly lashes out at his detractors with bellicose social network posts.
Conclusion
Similar to how country rap and hick hop preys on the culturally disenfranchised in America’s small towns, so does Mikel Knight and his street teams. Seeming to avoid major metropolitan areas, they set up in small towns just large enough to have a Wal-Mart, and fan out in flashy vehicles that impress locals and make them look like a major organization. It’s a superstar facade that lures in both fans, and prospective street team members who are sold on the idea of being a part of something big. Unfortunately it all hides a culture of harassment, assault, and manipulation. By operating on the road and using the shield of charity, Mikel Knight has been able to stay one step ahead of local authorities, and much of the entertainment media who just see him as another country rap star with a grassroots following and approach. Serious inquiries should be made into the legalities and working environment of the Mikel Knight organization before more injuries, assaults, and deaths are allowed to occur.A Dramatic Way To Uncork The Bubbly: Use A Sword
toggle caption iStockphoto.com
Knocking off the top of a Champagne bottle with a saber — known as sabrage — is an old rite in Europe, and a novel addition to American celebrations. But there's an art to doing it right.
Becky Sue Epstein knows a lot about taking Champagne drinking to the next level. She's the author of the book Champagne: A Global History. Sabering represents two of her passions, ones that common sense might suggest should not be combined.
"Even before I wrote the book, I loved Champagne. So I also love swords. So what I thought I would do was learn to saber off the top of a Champagne bottle," Epstein says.
Epstein learned to saber in Italy, with a small ceremonial sword made just for sabering. At home, she uses a 3-foot long Civil War replica sword, which according to one theory on the origin of the practice is actually quite appropriate.
"Apparently, this started in the time of Napoleon when there were wars all through the Champagne region. And the soldiers would come and grab a bottle of Champagne while they were on horseback; they would just take their saber and knock the top and drink it down," she says.
It's all about technique, Epstein says, and it's really very simple: Get the bottle very cold. Unwrap the foil and cage, then find the seam where the two halves of the bottle meet. Run your sword up the seam to the lip, and give it a strong knock. The top of the neck will come right off.
Epstein says you don't actually need a saber to do this: You can do it with the back of a chef's knife, or really any sturdy instrument. So, yes, you can do this at home, but like so many fun things, that doesn't mean you should.
"Do not try this at home. Never try this at home. Remember, I told you not to do this," Epstein says.
So perhaps leave this party trick to the experts. But don't worry — if you can't do without it for your next event, professional saberers are available for hire.
And if you're really set on trying it yourself, there are plenty of videos available as guides. Just make sure to try it on your first bottle, not the last.
YouTubeSoon after Arrested Development went off the air in 2006, the show's creator, Mitch Hurwitz, announced tentative plans to make a movie following the exploits of the Bluth family. Over the next five years, Hurwitz would remain optimistic about the progress of the feature but reticent too. Many believed it would never happen, but then earlier this month Hurwitz made public his intentions not only to release the film in 2013 but to produce a new miniseries which would lead up to it. Now that it looms on the horizon, though, the question has to be asked: do we really need an Arrested Development movie?
Don't get me wrong: the sheer tonnage of gags, its rich seam of characterisation, and ability to flip from the absurd and profane to the wistful made it a privilege to be part of what was never going to be more than a select, discerning audience for the show. But is there really a further chapter of the Bluth saga that Hurwitz is desperate to write? Or were the critical lambastings handed out to his barely watched post-Arrested comedies – the animated Sit Down Shut Up and the sitcom Running Wilde – the real impetus to return? Obviously, Hurwitz is a monster talent and it would be foolish to discount the chances of him making magic, but he's far from the only creative type convinced there's still an audience for a cancelled show.
Take the lovely, talented Kristen Bell for example. She can't let an interview or even a tweet pass by without trying to drum up fan support for a big-screen continuation of her high-school PI show Veronica Mars. That show's creator, a genuine, if luckless, TV genius named Rob Thomas, is campaigning hard to turn another of his creations, the semi-improvised comedy Party Down, into a presumably Christopher Guest-like ensemble movie. Kristin: Veronica Mars had a brilliant first season. It was like a gum-chewing, wisecracking film noir that followed a single murder case over twenty-two episodes. By season three, Veronica was out of high school and investigating campus crimes, ie: everything that made her special was long gone. Rob: Party Down was a terrific, heartfelt show that encompassed a little of the spirit of the original Office. Its viewing figures barely reached fifty thousand. There is no audience for either of these movies. Rob: write another show about a teenage detective and keep her in high school as long as humanly possible. Kristin: play her wizened mentor. Thank you.
Then there's the long-gestating 24 movie. I feel like I've already seen the best possible version of it; it was called Taken and starred Liam Neeson. Whether you watched it episode by episode or consumed entire seasons in marathon sittings, the main pleasure of 24 was getting lost in endless twists and insanely high stakes. The smartest route for a film to take would be to put one of Jack Bauer's remaining loved ones in jeopardy and then unleash an orgy of violence and sleeper holds. The least smart route would be to have Jack save the world from another terrorist cell. Which is what you suspect might happen.
Serenity embodied the problem with retooling TV shows that weren't hits: they have to devote a hefty chunk of screentime to re-introducing their characters and premises
Kristen Bell waits patiently for Veronica Mars to "do a Firefly"
What advice does one give to mega-successful actor-producer- director Peter Berg? He directed Friday Night Lights, a movie about the effect of high school football on a small Texan town, and then oversaw its adaptation into a TV series so beloved that NBC let it survive though five beautiful seasons. And what a satisfying elegiac ending, with the most believable and enviable married couple on television, Coach Eric Taylor and his combative but devoted guidance teacher wife Tami finally leaving Dillon, Texas for a new life in Philadelphia. I don't blame Berg for not wanting to let those characters go. That's why he's making a new Friday Night Lights movie. Maybe it'll be heart-rending and ridiculously affecting. Maybe it won't have a plot that contrives a reason for the Taylors to leave Philadelphia and come back to small-town Texas. Maybe.
As much as these potential small-to-big screen translations reek of potential disaster, the journey from living room to multiplex has been made successfully; most recently by The Inbetweeners, most lucratively by Sex And The City, and most impressively by South Park. Mark Wahlberg will probably reap similar rewards with the Entourage movie he set in motion seconds after the end of the HBO show. Hurwitz, Bell and Berg aren't looking at those movies, however. They're looking at Serenity. This was a film derived from Joss Whedon's space western Firefly, whose treatment by the Fox Network remains one of the most egregious examples of corporate insensitivity in decades: they underpromoted it, they postponed it, they rescheduled it, they showed episodes out of order and then they cancelled it. Whedon's impassioned online following and the steady sales of the DVD box set meant, however, that a movie rose from its ashes. Die-hard Whedonites were thrilled by the power of their fandom but was anyone really bowled over by Serenity? Serenity embodied the problem with retooling TV shows that weren't massive hits: they have to devote a hefty chunk of screentime to re-introducing their characters and re-establishing their premises. (By the time the second X-Files movie showed up, Mulder and Scully had been off the pop culture map for so long, that no one cared.)
Producers aren't thinking about the film, though, they're thinking about the movement. If we were living in the dark days before social media and box sets, I'm not so sure we would see as many striving to extend the lives of their low-rated shows. But if you're one of the creative types responsible for, say, The Playboy Club (recently cancelled after three episodes) and you now have the time to spend your days and nights retweeting testimonials from followers demanding the immediate return of your brilliant show, wouldn't you be convinced your dead TV show deserved to live on as a movie?
It's impossible to fault Mitch Hurwitz for wanting to keep his most cherished creations alive. It's also hard not to wish he'd had the same reaction as David Simon to the idea of a movie of The Wire: "I have no interest in doing it just to do it."The history of climbing is littered with plenty of climbers who have enjoyed pushing themselves on the rock, but maybe not so many who have enjoyed trying to run a business or both at the same time. I suppose it’s the hugely time consuming nature of climbing that ends up being a limiting factor and also that many people did not start climbing as a way of making money. I think the cool thing in our industry is that most of the companies are still run (and often owned) by real climbers - the people that truly understand why someone wants to hand over their hard earned cash for a sport which we can mostly practice for free.
My own foray into climbing related business started by joining forces with a few other climbers and creating an indoor climbing gym. In 2012, we opened The Climbing Station and whilst it was extremely scary at the time, it’s been hugely rewarding. Almost as good as climbing sometimes! That positive experience then opened my eyes up to further opportunities and by a chance encounter I met a very psyched American climber in 2014. His name was Ransom Allison and he was so incredibly motivated to try and develop some climbing product ideas that I was immediately hooked. I knew from my background in coaching that if someone has that much enthusiasm, they’re going to go a long way! With the combination of Ransom’s design and technology experience and my long term industry involvement we formed a small start up business called Sublime Climbing.
Last year we started Sublime Climbing to develop great climbing products. Products we all want and need, but no one makes. Over the last year, we’ve sat down, skyped, talked, emailed and bashed around various ideas. Whilst we have around eight or nine of different products that we are continuing to develop, we honed in on the simple idea of a “brush that doesn't break or wear down, and works perfectly” as our initial project we wanted to create. Our brush is something that every climber out there uses (or should use) and one that everyone would see as a reflection of our passion to do things incredibly well and in line with the morals of the climbing community.
We’ve had our project tested in the hands of hundreds of our climbing friends and by super-star climbers from around the world. Everyone has been so amazingly helpful. The climbing community is going to be using this brush, so who else better to test, feedback and help develop our project?!
Together with the climbing community, we've designed the Sublime Climbing Brush to be;
Nearly Unbreakable- backed by a 1 year guarantee
The Highest Bristle Density on the Market- over 14,000 bristles
Ergonomic- fits your hand exactly
Lightweight- 4 ounces
Beautiful Design- a perfect blend of form and function
Secret Compartment- for our special ClimbOn brush-bars
100% Recyclable- leave no trace with our brush
Our Sublime Climbing Brushes will be available through our Kickstarter campaign and if funded, via our online store on the Sublime Climbing Website, as well as gyms and retailers around the world. So if you’d like to see another business in climbing grow from small beginnings to create more and more amazing products then please share or back our Kickstarter when it launches on June 8th. We're in this together. We are climbers and we know climbers, and this brush is as good as it gets. It’s as simple as that.
-TomUseful Technical Details
Removing/Preventing Back Button Click History
You can allow the user to browse throughout a webpage without building up a history trail on the back button by having them click exclusively on javascript: links. This would still not remove any of the visited websites from their full browser history, so it's not a full solution.
Here's an example HTML JavaScript link:
<a href="javascript:document.location.replace('http://www.google.com/#q=something+innocuous');">CLICK HERE TO ESCAPE!</a>
If this is acceptable, you could build an inoffensive homepage from which the user could access the site that would use JavaScript to send them to the real website. Every link on that new website would have to be a javascript link. Disadvantages of this would be that they would no longer be able to use the back button to navigate and that JavaScript is 100% required for the site to function.
Sanitized History
Make sure you have inoffensive titles and icons for any pages in the site so if the user does not delete their browser history they will not grab the attention of the third party.
Preventing Access to Protected Content
One option you have is to disguise your website as something else by having the user log in before they are allowed to access any of the content. You could save their session/login data in such a way that it is cleared if they hit an escape button it is erased or reset. As part of the login page, you could give users an alternate password to type in that would redirect them to fake content if their abuser becomes suspicious enough to demand they log in.
The session/login information should never save between browser sessions and always have a short expiration period, to further reduce the chances of the abuser gaining access to the website.
Disguising the Site
Considerations
If you choose to disguise the site either on the homepage or behind a "fake" login, be very careful to choose something that makes sense and would not arouse suspicion or interest. You don't want the fake page to be some sort of game or anything that might pique the third party's interest.
You also don't want it to look so boring or mundane that the original user would be hard-pressed to explain their possibly frequent visits. It shouldn't be anything so specific that the third party would think twice about the original user visiting it though. For example, it might be suspicious if someone who does not enjoy the great outdoors were to be visiting a page on mountain biking.
It also can't do something like just redirect them to Google without explaining the fact that they had to log in to access it.
General Advice
Private Browsing
Multiple sources have suggested either educating your target audience in how to use IE's InPrivate Browsing mode, Firefox's Private Browsing mode, or Chrome's Incognito mode.
There unfortunately does not appear to be a way to prevent the browser from keeping the current page in its browsing history through JavaScript. It's possible there might be some sort of plug-in or third-party control which would enable this, but it's probably just easier to get your users to use a private browsing mode.
Clearing History
Clearing a user's web history would not be possible since browsers restrict websites from accessing or altering data on the user's computer directly. Since the user's browser history is part of this data it would be a security issue if any website could clear the history.
You should provide instructions to your users for pruning or clearing their browser history, whether on the website itself before they enter, or through whatever resource you showed them how to access your website.
Generating a Fake History
If you need to generate a fake list of visited websites, you can always create new tabs/windows for the users (or possibly iframes) at timed intervals with JavaScript, but the user would have to disable their popup blocker for this to take effect.
Further Reading
Here is a helpful article on creating a useful Quick Disguised Exit From A Website. This forum thread that I found it on also had some useful information, but it's likely you've already seen it.When Highlander Brew Co. founder Dwayne Wanner offered tastings of Pipers Loch at beer festivals in Toronto, smitten drinkers often asked where they could buy the mildly hopped yet full-bodied ale. “How do you get it? You drive four hours to the brewery,” Wanner used to say since the ale was only available at the brewery’s South River bottle shop west of Algonquin Park.
May 2017 selection from the Brew Box, a company that ships beers made at craft breweries to your front door. ( Steve Russell / Toronto Star ) Shannon Rooney checks out this months variety of craft beers she got in the mail through Brew Box, a company that ships craft brews not available at the LCBO or the Beer Store. ( Steve Russell / Toronto Star )
Recognizing the geographic limitations of his rural brewery, and the challenges of strict criteria for selling in the LCBO (just two of Highlander’s beers are in stores for this reason), Wanner opened an e-commerce shop in February. There, he sells a dozen different beers and averages 20 to 25 orders a month, most of which are sent to the Greater Toronto Area. Highlander Brew Co. is one of a handful of off-the-beaten-path Ontario craft breweries with no or limited presence in the LCBO or Beer Store that sells its beers online and has them shipped to the destination by courier or Canada Post. The turnover is usually one to seven days depending on the location. Other Ontario craft breweries that count on e-commerce include Half Hours on Earth’s which sells sour beers and farmhouse ales brewed in Seaforth, Ontario, a two-plus-hour drive from Toronto, and Niagara-on-the-Lake’s Exchange Brewery. It relies on its online shop to retain customers who have come through the brewery during the region’s busy summer months.
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“We have a lot of visitors — tourists from Toronto — so hopefully when they go back home, they’ll go on our online store and buy beers,” says Audrey Le Goff, Exchange Brewery’s marketing co-ordinator. After a limited online promotion during the 2016 holiday season, the Exchange Brewery opened its permanent e-commerce shop in April. It follows the established practice of its winery neighbours and ships its product to customers’ homes. Barley Days and County Road Beer Company, two breweries in Prince Edward County, another popular wine region, also have e-commerce sites. Shipping alcohol by mail isn’t new to the province. But the practice of ordering beer online was still relatively unknown until the LCBO launched its e-commerce site in July 2016 and put this lesser-known shopping method in the spotlight. For craft beer fanatics, a notable offering of the LCBO’s web store is its online exclusives — products which can only be purchased through the e-commerce site. “It’s a great way for smaller producers, or agents of smaller producers, to have access to a big customer base without stocking all the shelves,” says LCBO media relations co-ordinator Christine Bujold. “They may not have the ability or desire to go out to all store shelves and this gives them a vehicle for which they can introduce their product to the LCBO client base without going across the board.”
For The Brew Box Company, a monthly subscription-style service that has been shipping boxes of Ontario craft beers to customers since 2014, the LCBO’s e-commerce site is technically a competitor. But Brew Box co-founder Robert Jackiewicz says the site has helped legitimize sending beer by mail for skeptical consumers. “A constant question we would get in the beginning was ‘You guys aren’t legal, are you?’ ” says Jackiewicz, who now ships up to |
us Sherry Cask 1991 25YO.
Rounding off the single grains was the Aged over-31 Years offering, where That Boutique-y Whisky Company’s Invergordon 43 Year Old Batch 5 secured the day’s first Master medal. “This is just joyous,” said White. “It’s comforting, inviting on the nose and with some rancio.”
The panel echoed his sentiments, deeming it “a whisky to really sit back with”. Dillon said: “The premium grain category is booming, and you can see the quality in there.” Jennings concurred: “There was some stellar stuff – for people to be so excited about single grain, it’s a real statement of quality.”
After the highs of the single grains, it was time to seek out excellence in the Blended: Standard category. Highlights included La Fée’s Envy Whisky, which picked up a Gold and was found to be “everything you want in a dram in that price segment”.
Moving up the ladder, the panel found a trio of Gold medallists in the Blended: Premium flight – Highland Queen Sherry Finish Blend, and Compass Box’s Great King Street Glasgow Blend and Great Queen Street Artist’s Blend. “This was a varied flight, but it does show that if you spend a little more you get a whole lot back,” said White. Dillon agreed: “It’s a marked step up.”
It was the turn of the second panel to take on the Blended: Super Premium whiskies. Led by Billy Abbott, web content editor at The Whisky Exchange, the group comprised Karen Taylor, founder of blog Whisky for Everyone; Elise Craft, Whisky Squad co-ordinator; and Nagesh Balusu, general manager at Salt Whisky Bar and Dining Room. They discovered a Gold in Compass Box’s Asyla, which was found to be “pungent and nutty” yet “subtle and delicate”.
Away from the medallists, there was disappointment with the wider flight. “I’m not sure that super-premium is how I’d describe these whiskies, considering what ‘premium’ means across Scotch,” said Craft. Abbott agreed: “They are, unfortunately, boring, with little to distinguish between them.”
The group moved on to the Blended: Ultra Premium flight, where they found a Master in Dewar’s Signature. Praised for its “creamy” mouthfeel, sweet/floral palate and tremendous balance, the expression delighted, and was followed by a Gold for Pure Scot from the Bladnoch Distillery.
The two panels then split a mammoth flight of Blended: No Age Statement whiskies between them, marking the foray into the aged categories. It was also the largest flight of the day and one that resulted in 18 medals. Leading the group was Diageo, which was awarded Golds for Johnnie Walker Gold Label Reserve, Johnnie Walker Blue Label and Old Parr Tribute.
While there were solid whiskies present, Jennings said: “There’s so much more that could be done with a lot of these drams – consumers won’t just accept ‘good enough’ any more,” he said. Dillon agreed: “Producers need to understand that blended whisky doesn’t need to be, ‘ugh, it’s a blend’. It’s the backbone of the market, they need to step up, or it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Continuing the theme of blended Scotch by age, and assessing the Blended: Aged up to 12 Years flight was the third judging panel: Colin Hampden-White, editor of Whisky Quarterly; Paul Everest, co-founder of Banstead Vintners; and Matthew Neal, Shake and Stir mixologist and brand consultant; chaired by Matt Chambers, Whisky for Everyone founder and a freelance journalist.
The group found three Gold medallists in the shape of Johnnie Walker Black Label, Old Parr Grand 12 Year Old and Ballantine’s 12. All in all, the whiskies impressed. “This was a good flight, and it would be easy for entry level consumers to find a flavour they like,” said Neal. Hampden-White concurred: “Overall you get what you pay for – there’s lots of flavour for a decent price.”
SIX GOLDS
Another group picked up the baton for Blended: Aged 13-18 Years. Led by SB’s news, web and social editor, Annie Hayes, Athila Roos, private client director, Louis XIII; Nicola Thomson, director at Fifteen71; and Tobias Gorn, whisky and cigar sommelier at Boisdale, the panel discovered six Gold medallists: Johnnie Walker Aged 18 Years, Chivas Regal 18YO, Dewar’s 15YO The Monarch, Dewar’s 18YO The Vintage, William Lawson’s 13YO and Ballantine’s 17.
“It was a very consistent flight,” said Thomson. “It depicted what the category is all about.” Meanwhile the fifth and final group – Nick Bell, Amathus retail general manager; and Ernest Reid, chief engineer of cocktail and cheer at HBT, chaired by Amy Hopkins, The Spirits Business’s deputy editor – took on a flight of Blended: Aged 19-30 Years, discovering a further pair of Golds. It was Dewar’s NE Plus Ultra 30YO and That Boutiquey Whisky Company’s Blended Whisky #3 23 Year Old that really stood out.
Assessing the whole flight, Reid was impressed. “They were very safe, which is what you should get with a blend,” he said. Bell agreed: “The fact that almost everything entered got a medal is telling of the quality – we are looking at old blended whiskies here and the quality was great.”
It was the next flight that presented the day’s second Master medal: That Boutiquey Whisky Company’s Blended Whisky #1 50 Year Old – Batch 5, described by one judge as “one of the most delicious things I’ve ever tasted”. In the Blended: Aged Over 31 Years flight, that’s high praise indeed.
After finding a Silver medal for Compass Box’s Hedonism in the Blended Grain category, judging moved on into the realm of Blended Malts. Abbott’s panel took on the Blended Malt: Premium group, which comprised two Gold medallists: Monkey Shoulder and Shackleton.
But while the Gold and Silver medal winners found favour, more broadly there was disappointment. “There’s too much punch and not enough substance,” Taylor observed, with Balusu adding that they all felt young and high in alcohol.
The tide turned for the Blended Malt: Super Premium offer, which not only picked up the judges spirits, but also saw a Master medal given to Compass Box’s Oak Cross. “A lot of care has been put into the blending – it felt deliberate,” said Craft. The panel also noted the excellent value for money offered by the grouping, which also produced a quartet of Gold medallists.
More goodness was to follow when the judges stepped up a price bracket to check out the Blended Malt: Ultra Premium expressions. This time two picked up the coveted Master accolade: Chivas Regal Ultis and Blended Malt #1 23 from That Boutiquey Whisky Company. A further three Gold medals followed. “This was an interesting and well-balanced flight, and it was very difficult to choose between them,” reckoned Balusu. For Abbott: “There were some really great whiskies. They were all individually distinctive but really high in quality.”
SINGLE MALTS
And so concluded the battle of the blends – what was to come when the single malts were sent up for scrutiny? First to enter the fray were those flying the flag for Campbeltown, and a solitary Gold medal was found in the Aged 1318 Years segment: Glen Scotia 15 Year Old Single Malt.
“While it was hard to judge as there weren’t many entries – or possibility of entries – the Glen Scotia 15YO was delicious,” said Chambers. The delight continued in the Single Malt – Campbeltown: Single Cask flight, with Glen Scotia Distillery Edition #004 also seeing Gold. “It’s great to see such a strong showing from such a small category,” added Neal.
Time to trek up the Campbeltown peninsular and land in the Lowlands with a flurry of entries that were also assessed by Chambers’s panel. Bladnoch Samsara Single Malt was awarded a Silver in the Lowland: Super Premium category, before Lowland: No Age Statement saw William Grant & Sons’s Ailsa Bay pick up a Gold.
Then it was the turn for Ladyburn 1974 Batch #2 to win Gold in the Lowland: Aged over 31 Years bracket. “The Ladyburn was a classy example of an old Lowland whisky – light and delicate, yet complex and deep,” said Chambers. “It’s just a shame there are not yet more distilleries in this region.”
The Lowland region was completed with an entry from the Scotch Malt Whisky Society (SMWS) in the Lowland: Single Cask flight. 50.78 – Ready, Steady, Bake! was awarded another Gold. “It’s nice to see some breadth developing in this small category,” said Hampden-White, while Everest was pleased to see “interesting diversity” in the Lowland entries.
The first single malts to come under inspection by Hayes’s group was a Speyside: Standard assortment, with two picking up Gold medals: Glen Marnoch Speyside from Aldi and The Torran Single Malt Portwood Finish. “In value for money terms, they were great,” decreed Thomson. “They were complex and well made.”
After jumping up the pricing ladder considerably to Speyside: Super Premium, the judges found a Gold in The Glenrothes Vintage Reserve, and further on to Speyside: Ultra Premium for another Gold with The Glenrothes 95 American Oak. “These were classic Speyside examples – really well made and easy to drink,” felt Hayes.
Meanwhile, Hopkins’s panel was attacking a bumper flight of Speyside – No Age Statement expressions. They found 16 medals, including two Masters: Aberlour A’bunadh Batch 57 and The Glenlivet Nadurra at 61.5% abv. “I was happy to see some diversity,” mused Bell. “With NAS regional you could expect repeat, repeat, repeat. But there were some unusual, very nice expressions.” Reid agreed: “I love high abv whiskies so these were definitely the stand outs of the round.”
Back to Abbott’s team, who were busy exploring Speyside: Aged up to 12 Years. The group found another Master medal in Glenfiddich 12 Year Old, as well as a trio of Gold medallists: The Singleton of Dufftown 12 Year Old, Aberlour 12YO Double Cask Matured and Aultmore 12 Year Old.
“This is a good indication of the bread and butter end of the Speyside category – strong and consistent,” Taylor felt. But Abbott was less impressed of the wider flight, calling for greater diversity: “The Speyside entry-level whiskies seem to be getting less interesting every year, all tending to feature a similarly bland vanilla flavour.”
Would the Speyside: Aged 13-18 Years category find favour with Chambers’s panel? While the group deemed the showing “pretty safe”, they did find a Master in the “exquisite” and “honey and golden syrup-led” The Glenlivet 18 Years Old.
Continuing up the age-statement ladder was Hayes’s panel, with the 19-30 Years flight of heavy-weight whiskies fielding an enormous five Master medallists. Glenfiddich 21 Year Old, The Balvenie PortWood 21 Year Old, The Balvenie Traditional Oak 25 Year Old, The Balvenie Thirty and The Glenlivet 21 Years Old all thoroughly impressed.
“This was a very pleasant flight,” exclaimed Roos. “They all had quite a bit of complexity and concentration of character, which is what you’d expect for this age.”
While Thomson branded the flight “fantastic” and “really interesting”, Gorn still offered a word of warning: “While this was a consistent category there still can be disappointment. It’s not guaranteed that just because it’s old, a whisky will be good. But on average, these were very, very good.”
My panel continued the upbeat theme: flanking two Golds were two Master medals in the Aged over 31 Years category in the form of Rare Vintage Strathisla 1972 from Gordon & MacPhail, and The Benromach 35 Years Old. “These were exceptional whiskies, very high quality. Total harmony,” confirmed White, while Dillon deemed the flight “benchmarksetting – not just in Speyside but across the board”.
Rounding off the sizeable Speyside offering was SMWS 35.163 – A Playful Wrestling March in the Single Cask flight, which was awarded Gold by Hopkins’s panel. “It was really well balanced, and you want a lot of personality in a single cask,” concluded Bell.
Time for a journey around Scotland’s Highlands and Islands. Hopkins’s panel was the first to take the tour, finding a Silver for Aldi’s Glen Marnoch Highland in the Standard flight. They then found a Gold in the form of Loch Lomond 18 Year Old Single Malt in the Super Premium bracket, and a Master for Balblair 1990 in the Ultra Premium category.
“In terms of structure, it’s my favourite of the day,” Reid remarked on the latter. “It has a lot of layers, there’s a lot going on, but it’s not unbalanced.”
Chambers’s panel chose a trio of Silvers in the No Age Statement flight, before Hayes’s group found the same number of Golds in the Aged up to 12 Years bracket. The Singleton of Glen Ord 12 Year Old, Aberfeldy 12 Year Old and Ledaig 10 Year Old all impressed.
“It’s an interesting flight with a real mix,” Hayes concluded. While some missed the mark, Thomson felt: “You can see they’re trying to experiment with whiskymaking techniques, but it didn’t always show through. The alcohol was a little unbalanced, but there were interesting complexities and taste profiles.”
The group pressed on to the Highlands & Islands Aged 1318 Years panel, finding a strong contingent of Gold medallists: The Singleton of Glen Ord 15 and 18 Year Olds, Royal Brackla 16 Year Old, Deanston Organic 15 Year Old and Inchmurrin – Loch Lomond Collection – 18 Year Old Single Malt.
“It was a really good representation across the Highlands and Islands,” said Thomson. “Everything was so fresh – it felt like you were on an arable farm!”
Highlands & Islands: Aged 1930 Years also delighted, with Abbott’s panel discovering a Master in Aberfeldy 21 Year Old, and a Gold in Royal Brackla 21 Year Old.
“Whiskies of this age have to be treated with respect, and these have been,” reckoned Taylor. Abbott agreed: “The pair were old and elegant, without diving into the woody mess that you can often find.” They also awarded Tullibardine ‘The Murray’ a Gold in the Cask Strength segment, and found another in the Special Edition flight for Highland Park’s Valkyrie.
Hopkins’s panel rounded off the regional whistle-stop with Golds for SMWS’s 28.31 – Anything But Airy Fairy in Single Cask, and Highland Park Valkyrie in the Special Edition flight.
PEAT FIRST
The Isle of Islay then came calling, with all panels taking a departure into the land known for peat and smoke. Kicking off the island’s proceedings was Aldi’s Glen Marnoch Islay, which scooped a Gold and was deemed “really good value for money and very well made”.
Hopkins’s panel discovered two Golds in the Islay: No Age Statement flight: Bunnahabhain Cruach Mhòna and Islay #1 Batch 1 from That Boutiquey Whisky Company. “They both smelled so good,” said Reid, with Bell adding that “despite their abv and peatiness [neither fell below 50% abv] they were both very drinkable.”
It was back to Hayes’s group for the Islay: Aged up to 12 Years deputation, with Golds awarded to Gordon & MacPhail’s Connoisseurs Choice Caol Ila 2004 and Williamson 6 Year Old from That Boutiquey Whisky. “It was a really consistent flight, which showed complexity,” said Thomson, with Gorn praising the “threedimensional” nature of the grouping.
Then my panel took on the Islay: Aged 1318 Years flight, with a Gold for Bunnahabhain 18 Year Old, and for its 25 Year Old sibling and Lombard Single Malt Caol Ila 1984 in the 19 30 Years segment. We then discovered a Master in the Aged over 31 Years flight: Port Ellen 33 Year Old from That Boutiquey Whisky Company.
“It’s like a rained-off barbeque, but with none of the disappointment,” Jennings quipped, with White deeming the whisky “tremendously good”.
“What’s interesting for me is that mass market consumers see Islay as something unapproachable and impenetrable – yet these brilliantly aged Islays show it’s not all about being super peaty,” said Dillon “If it’s been aged well and if the cask is good enough, the flavour profile transcends, and in terms of flavour they can be on a par with aged Speyside.”
Moving on to Islay: Single Cask, Hopkins’s group found a Gold in SMWS’s 29.205 – Two Wheeled Beach Cruiser, and another for That Boutiquey Whisky’s Islay #1 Batch 1 in the Islay Cask Strength segment. Rounding off the day on a different theme was Hayes’s panel, with a single flavoured sample. But far from letting the side down, Ballantine’s Brasil scooped a Gold and was deemed to be “very well balanced” and “sherbety”.
All that was left for the panels to do was to refresh their palates and regroup: the Scotch Whisky Taste Master of 2017 was to be decided. Every judge retasted each Master before a vote was cast – for the outcome of that, come along to The Spirits Business Awards Lunch in December.
Click through the following pages for the Scotch Whisky Masters 2017 results in full.Heliox is a low density gas mixture of helium and oxygen commonly used in deep diving, and also for clinical purposes, particularly in the critical care setting. Heliox breathing reduces air flow resistance within the bronchial tree in patients with obstructive lung disease, and has beneficial effects in severe asthma attacks. Heliox may also reduce the work of breathing and improve pulmonary gas exchange efficiency. Despite the encouraging results, heliox use in routine practice remains controversial because of technical implications and high costs.[5] Lower density of heliox compared with the air or oxygen regardless of the concentration of helium in the mixture; improves air flow through constricted ways by transforming turbulent flow into laminar flow. Benefits are seen quickly, usually within an hour of initiation of treatment.[6]
Heliox in airway obstruction
The potential benefits of replacing nitrogen in the inspired air with helium were initially recognized in the 1930s when Barach administered helium to asthmatic patients and patients with laryngeal obstruction for relief of dyspnea.[7]
Conscious sedation, awake intubation In 1997, Milner and colleagues reported the use of heliox with a laryngeal mask airway (LMA) to allow for tracheostomy under conscious sedation in an extremely anxious patient. The patient was given heliox (80:20 ratio) by means of a non-rebreathing face mask and reported subjective improvement in dyspnea. Anesthesia was induced with midazolam and small doses of propofol while maintaining spontaneous respirations. A size 3 LMA was inserted and manual ventilation was started.[8] Administration of heliox is usually achieved through the use of a non-rebreathing face mask with gas flows in the range of 10 L/min. We should note that while the viscosity values for helium and oxygen are similar, the density of helium is much less than that of oxygen. The low density of helium allows it to play a significant clinical role in the temporary management of some forms of airway obstruction associated with gas turbulence.[3,9]
Acute vocal cord dysfunction, bilateral vocal cords paralysis Administering a helium and oxygen mixture (heliox) reduces airway resistance and may result in rapid improvement in patients with acute vocal cord dysfunction. A trial of heliox may be appropriate because of its relatively low cost and minimal adverse effects, and this has been reported in one case series.[10,11,12] Heliox has also been used effectively in cases of bilateral vocal cords paralysis after radiation therapy, post-extubation stridor, and as a temporizing measure in cases of external tracheal compression due to tumor.[13,14,15,16,17]
Intrinsic endotracheal and endobronchial, mediastinal masses Intrinsic endotracheal or endobronchial disease can pose significant airway difficulties due to airway obstruction and loss of available lung for oxygenation and ventilation. Mediastinal masses also may present extreme hazards to the airway, leading to complete airway collapse. Much of the literature on the use of heliox is limited to case descriptions.[18,19,20,21]
Croup Duncan treated seven children with severe croup refractory to epinephrine with heliox 70:30. They found that all patients showed a significant reduction in their croup scores and none required intubation.[22] Weber, et al., measured croup scores in 29 children treated either with heliox via a non-rebreather mask or nebulized racemic adrenaline, and found similar improvements with both.[23]
Tracheobronchitis, subglottic stenosis Connolly and McGuirt, detailed 14 pediatric patients (five with viral tracheobronchitis, five with inflammatory exacerbations of subglottic stenosis, and four with acute iatrogenic subglottic injury) in whom heliox was used, it would avoid intubation in 10.[24]
Exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease The lower density and the higher viscosity of helium, compared with nitrogen, increase the probability that flow in a rigid tube will be laminar instead of turbulent at any given flow rate. As the pressure differential that must be generated by the patient or ventilator to produce laminar flow is substantially less than that associated with turbulent flow, a helium oxygen mixture (heliox) might be expected to reduce the work of breathing in patients with air flow obstruction.[25] The administration of heliox has been shown in numerous case reports and case series to reduce the work of breathing in patients with obstruction in the extrathoracic and central intrathoracic airways.[6] In patients with small airway disease, including asthma or COPD, heliox is predicted to be much less effective because the cross-sectional area of the smaller airways is quite large.[26] Several groups of investigators have reported that the administration of heliox to patients with moderate or severe COPD is associated with improved exercise performance. These improvements are primarily attributable to reductions in end-expiratory lung volume or dynamic hyperinflation, which contributes to the increased work of breathing in COPD patients. Furthermore, the resulting reduced intrathoracic pressure improves hemodynamic and peripheral oxygen delivery.[25,26,27,28,29] In 10 patients with pulmonary arterial catheters, heliox decreased mean pulmonary arterial pressure, right atrial pressure, and pulmonary arterial occlusion pressure and increased cardiac index. Heliox may be a useful adjunct therapy in patients with severe COPD and acute respiratory failure with persistent intrinsic positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP)-induced hemodynamic changes despite ventilator management.[28]
Asthma There have been four previous, randomized, placebo-controlled studies examining heliox for the treatment of acute asthma in children. There will still be a role for a trial of heliox in selected children with refractory status asthmaticus.[30] In the first two studies by Carter et al., and Kudukis et al., 15 min of heliox therapy was provided to small groups of children.[31,32] In Kudukis et al., findings; there was improvement in clinical asthma score and pulsus paradoxus, whereas Carter et al., found no improvement in pulmonary function testing or clinical asthma score. The next two randomized placebo-controlled studies were conducted in children with acute asthma in the emergency department setting: The study by Kim et al., with the longer duration of heliox therapy showed improvement in clinical asthma score, whereas the study by Rivera et al., did not.[33,34]Get the biggest daily news stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
There's a great gift shop at Knowsley Safari Park.
It sells all manner of trinkets and momentos from your day.
But for one sticky-fingered individual, this isn't quite enough. They're after something else - and it's not available in the shop.
In a bizarre 'poodunnit' case, two of Knowsley Safari’s newest visitor exhibits have been stolen - model poos. Seriously.
The theft was discovered this week by staff at the Merseyside attraction, who noticed the models had gone missing from the Woodland Trail section of the park.
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
These models are, respectively, replicas of wolf and dog dung and had been fixed to wooden plinths this summer, as part of a trail of clues guests can find to determine if wolves are living in the area.
It turns out though, that when you really, really want to pinch fake poo, nothing will get in your way.
Now, Safari bosses are hoping that the mystery pooper scooper can be flushed out and are looking to replace the props with more robust models.
Knowsley Safari’s Learning and Discovery Manager, Nikki Mallott, says: "We have loved spending the summer on the trail of wolves and exploring the woodland with our guests.
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
"We are hoping it is a practical joke that these fake poos have been taken - as far as souvenirs of a trip to the Safari go, they’d have been better off looking in our gift shop.
"This area is primarily meant for children to enjoy and explore, and of course kids love the ‘yuck’ factor of the poo, so we’re getting new ones made."
Hopefully these will stick around a little longer than their predecessors.A heatwave is coming for Agents of SHIELD this September. Marvel just confirmed some long-held rumors at San Diego Comic Con by announcing that Ghost Rider was coming to their ABC series. And, now, the first teaser trailer for Ghost Rider on Agents of SHIELD has hit the Internet.
The folks over at Entertainment Weekly have shared the exclusive clip which announces Ghost Riders’ hell-bound entrance. The clip shows the Agents of SHIELD logo heating up, quit literally, as its metal turns bright orange under what’s likely hellfire. The logo then explodes, and from the fiery explosion comes Ghost Rider’s flaming skull. The clip’s ominous music swells as the skull’s eyes come aglow with fire before the entire thing rushes towards viewers. The skull, thankfully, disappears before any comic book voodoo occurs and allows the vengeful hero to enter our real world.
Marvel confirmed that Ghost Rider would be coming in the form of Robbie Reyes, the latest iteration of the character. The teen-slash-young adult will be played by Gabriel Luna. Marvel Television Jeph Loeb spoke about the reveal in a statement by saying, ”Season 4 will unquestionably be the series’ biggest, most ambitious story yet, and it all begins with the introduction of one of our greatest legacy characters in Ghost Rider. When the Spirit of Vengeance rides into S.H.I.E.L.D., it’ll change everything.” For some reason, I don’t think Loeb is kidding. The teaser trailer promises that, “Vengeance comes this Fall,” and I’m not sure whether SHIELD is going to be dishing out the vengeance or receiving it. Robbie, who debuted in Marvel’s NOW! line-up, looks like he’ll fit in with Agents of SHIELD’s ‘darker tone’ for Season 4. The character, who drives a car rather than chained-up motorcycle, finds himself turned into Ghost Rider after a tragic street race. In order to take care of his disabled brother, Robbie is willing to do anything to protect him - so he’ll probably have no issue facing down Coulson should the agent get in his way.The Schuhplattler Verein Heidengold was founded in 1979 by German immigrants and friends to preserve German heritage and culture through dance and other cultural events.
PURPOSE
The purpose of our Verein, as stated in the by-laws, is “to promote, advance, preserve, and perpetuate German and Tyrolean folk dancing, customs, costumes, and culture, and to establish mutual harmony and fellowship in the community.”
THE NAME HEIDENGOLD
The literal translation of the name Schuhplattler Verein Heidengold is “Shoe-Slap Dancing Society of the Golden Alpine Meadows.”
DANCING
As the name indicates, we’re a dancing club. Our dances are mainly of the Schuhplattler (shoe slapping) style, but we also do many figure dances which require less physical exertion. Heidengold’s membership includes dancers of all ages and at all levels of skill as well as non-dancers.
Since its founding, Heidengold has drawn its membership from the entire Upstate New York area. We currently have several of the original dancers actively involved as well as members as far away as Seattle, WA.
AFFILIATIONS
The Schuhplattler Verein Heidengold is a member of the Gauverband Nordamerika, which encompasses over eighty Schuhplattler- and Trachten- Vereine in North America. Heidengold members meet with these Vereine for either a Gaufest with prize dancing and heritage workshops on the agenda, or for a Fahnenweihe, which is a celebration of the blessing of a Verein’s new flag.
Heidengold is also a member of the Federation of German-American Societies here in Rochester, New York. We work and perform at the Federation’s annual Rochester German Fest in August, as well as attend many functions of the other local societies.
ACTIVITIES
The Schuhplattler Verein Heidengold has been very active in the local community, dancing at the Rochester Museum and Science Center’s Folk Festival, the Spencerport Kiwanis Club International Folk Festival, the Hochstein School of Music, the Memorial Art Gallery, at Lilac Festival festivities, at numerous area Oktoberfests, at local nursing homes (bringing smiles to some nice people), working on Public Television Channel 21’s (WXXI’s) membership drives, hawking newspapers for Gannett Rochester’s “Old Newsboys Day,” and performing with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. We have worked at German Day, the Main Event, and many other community functions.
We have also performed at Ethnic Day at the New York State Fair in Syracuse and at Heritage Day at the Genesee Country Museum.
The Verein occasionally holds dances with Schuhplattlers from out-of-town Vereine attending and participating. We often find ourselves travelling Buffalo, Syracuse, and Ontario, Canada to attend other Verein dances and participate in their functions.
We hold multiple events a year for our members and their families and guests. In the summer we have an annual picnic, which is always fun. We also have a Christmas party to celebrate the holiday season.
In addition to these, we also enjoy many activities socially as a group. We have gone camping, to dinner theaters, and many other functions, too numerous to mention.
INTERESTED IN LEARNING MORE? INTERESTED IN JOINING?
The Schuhplattler Verein Heidengold is always looking for new members of all ages, whether single or a couple. No prior dance experience is required. You are sincerely invited to come watch one of our practices and try a dance if you wish! If you would like to learn more feel free to email us at svheidengoldpres@gmail.com, or jwsmitty@rocherster.rr.comPolice arrested a Tampa man who operated a prostitution ring through a website and two homes in the Seminole Heights area, according to a search warrant.
Tampa prostitution ring busted
10-to-15 prostitutes were working for suspected pimp Preston Taylor
Taylor facing 13 charges
“When we get these people off the streets that are committing prostitution, they’re forced to go inside,” said Lt. Carlos Rodriguez. “I don’t think anybody would appreciate that going on next door.”
The suspected pimp, Preston Taylor, 41, had 10-to-15 prostitutes working for him and would advertise their services on his website discretemeetsoftampabay.com, according to a confidential informant.
Preston Taylor would advertise prostitutes on his website discretemeetsoftampabay.com, according to a confidential informant.
Police said Taylor used a home he rented at 2206 North Boulevard as the base of operation for the prostitution ring and used his own home at 407 E. Cayuga Street to collect $75 of every $200 earned by the women.
“If that was a prostitution house… I think the cops did a good job cleaning it up,” said resident John Elm.
Two prostitutes told police that Taylor used a Craigslist advertisement claiming to hire bartenders and waitresses to lure women into the ring, according to the warrant. Detectives said during a second interview Taylor would photograph the women’s driver’s licenses, sexually assault the victims and then flash a gun warning them not to “cross him” because he knows where their families live.
To further intimidate the women, Taylor said he had a working agreement with the Tampa Police Department to protect his operation, according to the report.
“I believe he said something to the effect that ‘TPD was on his payroll,’” said Lt. Rodriguez. “Well, clearly that’s not the case.”
Police said Taylor used his own home at 407 E. Cayuga Street to collect $75 of every $200 earned by the women.
Police said he used this home he rented at 2206 North Boulevard as the base of the operation.
Rodriguez said police first began investigating Taylor when they received multiple anonymous tips through Crime Stoppers of Tampa Bay in March. Bay News 9 captured exclusive video of detectives executing a search warrant at both homes on July 20. Officers could be seen bringing out long guns and hand guns from Taylor’s home, along with a box full of binders.
According to the warrant, Taylor would require johns who wanted to hire a prostitute to submit two forms of identification, a work email address and a credit card or utility bill. Clients could order prostitutes by texting Taylor’s cell phone after being verified, according to police.
“We’ve come across a lot of ledgers as a result of our search warrant,” Rodriguez said. “Information that we’re going to be utilizing to see if there’s any other crimes or any other people that were involved in this.”
Taylor was arrested on 13 charges including deriving proceeds from prostitution, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony and unlawful use of a two way communication device. Taylor’s being held in a Hillsborough jail on a $35,000 bond.
Police said a tipster who called in will be the second person to receive an additional reward of $1,000 under the Crime Stoppers gun bounty program because Taylor was charged with possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony.
“People who call in tips, that helps us out,” Rodriguez said. “That’s basically the only way you’re going to catch something like this run out of a private residence.”
Tampa police ask anyone with information about Taylor to call 813-231-6130.Police in New Jersey are trying to track down a suspected stalker they say jumped into a woman’s bed after breaking into her home.
As CBS2’s Marc Liverman reported, police believe the victim is one of four women whom the serial stalking suspect has targeted.
Police released a sketch of the man they say terrified the 40-year-old woman when she rolled over to find him in her bed around 5 a.m. on June 18 in Palisades Park.
The man has the entire neighborhood on edge.
“It’s crazy to have somebody walking around like that,” said Franceki Grullon of Palisades Park. “You don’t know the issues that he got in his mind.”
“My boyfriend told me, please be careful when you come to my house or leave,” said Minhee Choi of Fort Lee.
Palisades Park police Detective George Beck is leading the case. He said the first report came out two weeks ago, when a man approached a woman on Grand Avenue and made inappropriate sexual comments.
The next day on June 15, police said the same man followed the woman to her apartment – saying inappropriate sexual comments through the door before taking off. Another woman also reported being stalked that same day.
Then came the incident where the man climbed into the woman’s bed, Beck said.
“Our suspect entered a private home when a female was sleeping in her bed, and he lay down next to her,” Beck said, “and she was awoken, and she described it as her face turned to his face and she was startled, and she screamed.”
Investigators said the man asked if he could spend the night before the woman screamed and scared him off.
“Now I can’t even leave my kids to play outside, because I don’t even know, you know, what’s going to happen,” a woman said.
Police said so far, there has been no surveillance video. There are two big concerns for police – that the suspect might be picking his victims at random, and that the type of incident reported is getting worse.
“He may be getting more brazen,” Beck said.
Police said anyone living in the area should lock their doors and always be aware of their surroundings.
The victims describe the suspect as slim, Asian, about 5-foot-10 and in his 20s. The sketch shows him wearing thick, black-rimmed glasses.
Anyone with information is asked to call the Palisades Park Police Department at 210-944-0900.Jim Burroway
TODAY’S |
Cerebral Palsy but has adapted very well to Jiu-Jitsu. He will be competing at Grappler’s heart which is the first ever tournament designed for grapplers with disabilities. Find out more about Ian in his interview with BJJ Eastern Europe:
Hi Ian can you please introduce yourself to the BJJ community?
My name is Ian Matuszak. I am from Long Island, New York. I currently hold one stripe on my white belt. I train at Longo and Weidman MMA under Dave Patton and Pete Sell who are trained by Former UFC Welterweight Champion, Matt Serra. I am very passionate about Mixed Martial Arts as the pacing is mostly unpredictable. Naturally, this slowly introduced me to the different fighting styles associated with MMA. Throughout my time watching, I always found the ground aspect of fighting more compelling to watch as I didn’t really understand how the positions worked in a technical sense as I wasn’t training at the time.
How did you start training BJJ?
This is actually really great to look back on considering February 28th will be one year of training on a regular basis. Before training, I just was visiting Chris Weidman’s gym as a fan as I enjoyed watching our amateur and professional fighters train. After a couple of visits a team mate asked me if I would be interested in trying to get on the mats and learn myself. Being physically disabled with Cerebral Palsy, I didn’t know if it was possible, I wasn’t sure of my ability. The word ‘ability’ is actually really interesting as it can be perceived two ways. How individuals measure themselves and abilities that have yet to be discovered. I always tell myself that I want to try new things to test my ability. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu was the perfect outlet to do just that, so I said I would give it a try— and I am so glad that I did.
Please tell us about your disability
Cerebral Palsy is a neurological condition, caused by too much or too little oxygen being sent to the brain. This interrupts signals that are sent to the brain from the Nervous System causing mobility and speech to be affected. I mainly use a walker for mobility and a wheelchair for long distances. I also have a stutter, which is triggered based on the current situation I am in.
Please tell us more about the first Jiu Jitsu tournament strictly for the disabled, Grappler’s Heart, where you will be competing this coming April
Grappler’s Heart is an upcoming Brazilian Jiu Jitsu competition, exclusively for disabled athletes. It is being held at Renzo Gracie’s school in Brooklyn, New York on April 26th. I think this is a great opportunity for disabled athletes to showcase that they in fact can compete regardless of physical or mental “limitations.” Personally, I can’t wait to get on the mats and test myself among those who are on an equal playing field. However, thats not to say that I won’t be competing in regular divisions in the future. The way I see it, I am using Grappler’s Heart as a starting point for the competitive scene. I will play it by ear. Regardless of the outcome in April, I am so proud of myself and what I have accomplished. My goal is to inspire as many people as possible, to show that anything is possible if one’s mindset is clear and focused on the task at hand.
What are for you the benefits of training BJJ instead of some other activity or sport?
The beautiful thing about Jiu Jitsu is that it is extremely adaptable. It allows individuals who are generally not athletic to develop their own ‘game’ and skill set. If compared to another sport, say, American Football, Jiu Jitsu allows so much more room for personalization. There is no other way to hold onto the ball and run down the field, hoping for a touchdown besides the play the team decides to go with. It is very one dimensional in regards to the technique used. However, in Jiu Jitsu there are so many ways to go about doing every submission. Individuals like Eddie Bravo take it one step further by redefining concepts like the traditional guard, transforming Jiu Jitsu with their own personal flair, in Eddie’s case the Rubber Guard. Jiu Jitsu’s benefits me personally by improving my endurance, reducing my stress, learning to control my mind in regards to my objective, and increasing my confidence as a whole. Jiu Jitsu has also improved my social life as I find myself speaking more in my college (university) classes because of the relationship I have with my training partners and instructors while on the mats.
How do you adapt your BJJ game to make the most of your disability?
I would like to think my Jiu Jitsu game is very unique. I mainly rely on my upper body to get me into the more dominant positions, as I am deceptively strong. I can however use my legs to some degree. I would say the split is 90% upper body, 10% legs. My legs are mainly used for assisting in transitions. Side Control and Half Guard are the best positions for me, as I hit different chokes from many different angles. I allow my partners to get into a position that makes them think that they have an advantage, while at the same time I am looking for the right opportunity to explode, in hopes to turn the tables. I do this by regulating the amount of arm power I use and how much pressure I apply. I am also getting into the habit of sticking to my partner forcing him or her to carry my weight and endure my strength. I often find my partners focus on resisting my strength rather then focusing on offense.
However, this plan does not always work, especially with the more experienced belts as they work faster to keep up a good pace, forcing me to work and think of what I know of the situation and how to defend or otherwise combat against it. I also need to learn not to over expose my arms for attack as well as gaining speed in regards to hip movement to help situations where it is needed.
What do you think of disabled BJJ athletes such Nick Newell or Jean Jacques Machado?
Actually, I was not aware of Master Jean Jacques Machado’s disability until now. Upon looking into it, I have even more respect for him. It’s one thing to have a disability, people in general often see that as a negative, but to turn something as negative as a disability into a positive, that takes a special kind of human being. Not only that, Master Jean Jacques Machado is world class, highly respected, and one of the most influential people in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. I would like to think he has the same mindset as I do. If by chance he is reading this, it would be an honor to meet him one day. One can only hope. Disabled athletes need to have a special type of personality and Master Jean Jacques Machado has just that. I know it, I can tell.
What is next for you and your team in 2015?
2015 is a very exciting year. After Grappler’s Heart I will continue my training and decide when to compete again upon discussing it with my instructors. I look to improve every aspect of my game as well as gaining new skills to add to my arsenal.
Other events of Longo and Weidman MMA in 2015 are as follows:
My instructor, Dave Patton will be competing in the New York Open April 11th and 12th
UFC Champion Chris Weidman will be defending his belt against Vitor Belfort
UFC Lightweight Al Iaquinta will face Jorgre Masvidal on April 4th.
UFC Middleweight Eddie Gordon will face Chris Dempsey on April 18th
UFC Light- Heavyweight Gian Villante will face Corey Anderson on April 18th
UFC Bantamweight Aljamain Sterling will face Takeya Mizugaki on April 18th
Be sure to tune in!
If you want to thank somebody or sponsors, feel free
If you would like to follow me throughout my Jiu Jitsu journey, on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, do so @IanMatuszak
I appreciate everyone for taking the time to read my story.St. Louis Blues coach, Ken Hitchcock, has announced that JAKE ALLEN WILL BE STARTING… a new foundation called Jake and Melinda Gates foundation which aims to put an end to click bait titles.
“Click bait just really gets on my nerves, you wouldn’t believe the number of times I’ve been on Buzzfeed or CNN and clicked an article to find out ‘that one crazy trick you’ll never believe!’ just to be disappointed by a sensationalistic title. ‘Find out why doctors hate him’ indeed.” Jake Allen
When Allen was asked why he would start such a foundation, Allen replied; “there are tens of thousands of news agencies, blogs and sports parody websites / social media junkies across America, and really across the world who are using and abusing headlines with their never ending stream of click bait titles. The effect this has had on your average consumer is just now being understood, but really, we are more concerned about the devastating effect click bait has had on kittens, because every consumer of all things social knows that, every time you click on click bait – God Kills a Kitten.”
Jake also dropped another news bomb shell on us when he announced: JAKE ALLEN IS RETIRING… to his room, to take a nap. BEFORE HE STARTS GAME SEVEN of his online Call of Duty – Black Ops tournament.Editor's Note:
Editor's Note:
Criminals intent on stealing millions of dollars from consumer bank accounts plan to unleash a massive cyberattack on major U.S. banks, security firm McAfee warns in a new report.McAfee’s report confirms a warning from RSA, the security division of EMC Corp., which said in October that a criminal ring had created an advanced cyberattack to steal money from bank accounts at major banks, according to CNNMoney.McAfee believes the gang of criminals is set to launch the attack, known as Project Blitzkrieg, this coming spring. The attack, a sophisticated Trojan, had already been successfully tested on at least 300 bank accounts.The scheme is innovative and dangerous for a number of reasons, CNNMoney explains.U.S. banks’ security is alerted if customers use a different computer to access their account. But the criminals plan to clone computers to make it look like they are using customers' home computers.Banks also limit sizes of transfers, but the criminal ring is recruiting hundreds of criminals to transfer smaller amounts at a time.The Russian-based scheme entails a recruiting campaign promising hackers a cut of stolen funds and backing of two Russian cybercriminals, including a cybermafia chief known as NSD, CNNMoney reports. Hackers are prepared to infect computers with malware and use stolen user names and passwords to move money out of the user's accounts.Fortunately, publicity may have forced the criminals to postpone or cancel the plot, independent security researcher Brian Krebs tells CNNMoney.Krebs says he cannot find NSD in any chat forums."I can't find him anywhere," Krebs notes. "Either bringing this to light scuttled any plans to go forward, or it's still moving ahead cautiously under a much more protective cover."The stakes have never been higher for banks and financial services firms as they continue to battle cybercrime, warns Booz Allen Hamilton, a cyber security consultant, in a statement. Their customers demand fast and seamless electronic service, but are alarmed by reports of security breaches."Individual companies should not wait for legislation or an Executive Order to come together with their government counterparts to find dynamic solutions to these big issues," said Mike McConnell, vice chairman of Booz Allen, at Bloomberg's Enterprise Risk Conference.For Immediate release: February 7, 2017
Hamilton Police execute search warrants after investigation into illegal marijuana dispensary
Hamilton Police were made aware of an illegal marijuana dispensary operating in the City of Hamilton. It was determined that the operator of this dispensary was committing the criminal acts of possession for the purpose of trafficking marihuana and THC because they were selling or giving marihuana or marihuana derivatives to clients.
On February 3rd 2017, just before 3:00 p.m., members of the Hamilton Police Vice and Drug Unit executed a Controlled Drugs and Substances Act Search Warrant at a business known as “The Medicine Cabinet-Dispensary” located at 1050 Barton Street East, Hamilton. An additional CDSA Search Warrant was also granted for Cloud Nine Headshop and Lounge located at 1048 Barton Street East, Hamilton. As a result of the search, police seized approximately $20,000 worth of marihuana and marihuana derivative products including: processed marihuana; edible THC based products.
CHARGED: 29-year-old woman from Hamilton, ON (Owner /Operator of the business)
CHARGES: Possession for the Purpose of Trafficking – Marihuana, Possession for the Purpose of Trafficking – THC, Proceeds Under $5000
The woman was released on a Promise to Appear in court at a future date to answer to the charges.
The Federal Government has committed to making changes to the laws and regulations in relation to marihuana; however, until such changes are proclaimed law, the present provision of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act in relation to the possession and sale of marihuana remain in force. The Hamilton Police Service is dedicated to investigating all allegations of criminal activity, including the selling or trafficking of marihuana from dispensaries.
Anyone with information about any illegal drug trafficking is asked to contact police. To remain anonymous contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or submit tips and information online at http://crimestoppershamilton.com
LOCATION INFORMATIONVANCOUVER, BC - The Canadian Soccer Association announced today that nine players who have developed in the Vancouver Whitecaps FC Residency program have been named to the Canadian U-20 men’s national team roster for an upcoming training camp in England and Spain.
The camp, which will run from November 8 to 19, will feature three high-profile friendlies against the U-20 squads from England, Russia, and the United States.
Included on the 18-man roster are four Whitecaps FC first-team players: Marco Carducci, Sam Adekugbe, Marco Bustos and Kianz Froese. Also included is Residency midfielder Jordan Haynes, as well as Residency graduates Nolan Wirth and Chris Serban and Residency products Alex Comsia and Sadi Jaladi.
The team will come together in Bournemouth, England on November 9 and will face England at Bournemouth’s Dean Court on November 12. Then, the Red and White will travel to Marbella, Spain, where they will battle Russia on November 15 and USA on November 18.
Froese, Carducci, Haynes, and Wirth all played for the Canadian U-20 side earlier this year, helping the team to a second-place finish at the 2014 Dale Farm Milk Cup in July. Bustos, Carducci, and Haynes also played for the Canadian U-17 side in both the 2013 U-17 CONCACAF Championships and the 2013 FIFA U-17 World Cup, while Froese played in the latter.
Adekugbe has participated in Canadian training camps at both the U-18 and senior men’s levels, the most recent of which was a 10-day camp for Benito Floro’s senior men’s squad in September 2013.
The series of friendlies will serve as another opportunity for Canadian U-20 head coach Rob Gale to test the depth of his squad as he prepares for the 2015 CONCACAF U-20 Championship, which will take place in Montego Bay, Jamaica in January of next year, and will serve as a qualifier for the 2015 FIFA U-20 World Cup.
“We have good competition for places,” said Gale. “By no means is anyone guaranteed to make the starting XI with the competition we have so this camp is going to be an excellent test for the players with the opposition but also a chance for them to show that they can compete and take those spots going into January.”
CANADA
GK- Marco Carducci | CAN / Vancouver Whitecaps FC
GK- Nolan Wirth | USA / Oregon State University
D- Sam Adekugbe | CAN / Vancouver Whitecaps FC
D- Marko Aleksic | CAN / FC Edmonton
D- Alexander Comsia | FRA / RC Strasbourg
D- Luca Gasparotto | SCO / Rangers FC (on loan at Airdrieonians)
D- Jordan Haynes | CAN / Vancouver Whitecaps FC Residency
D- Rares (Chris) Serban | CAN / University of British Columbia
M- Manny Aparicio | CAN / Toronto FC
M- Louis Béland-Goyette | CAN / Impact de Montréal
M- Hanson Boakai | CAN / FC Edmonton
M- Marco Bustos | CAN / Vancouver Whitecaps FC
M- Dylan Carreiro | SCO / Dundee FC (on loan at Arbroath)
M- Kianz Froese | CAN / Vancouver Whitecaps FC
M- Jérémy Gagnon-Laparé | CAN / Impact de Montréal
M- Michael Petrasso | ENG / Queens Park Rangers (on loan at Notts County)
F- Sadi Jalali | CAN / FC Edmonton
F- Jordan Hamilton | CAN / Toronto FC (on loan at C.D. Trofense)
Bold - Current Whitecaps FC first team or Residency player
Italics - Whitecaps FC Residency productA growing number of lawmakers are expressing concern over the controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) bill that's scheduled for a vote later this week in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Backers say the bill aims to improve Internet security by making it easier for Internet Service Providers and Internet companies such as Google and Facebook to collect and share a wide range of user data with government security agencies.
Privacy and civil rights groups, and even the White House have criticized the bill, contending that it oversteps existing privacy laws and its passage would enable widespread surveillance of all online activities under the pretext of cyberecurity.
In a letter to CISPA bill sponsors Rep. Mike J. Rogers (R-Mich.) and Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md), Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and 17 other Democratic House members echoed the sentiments of its critics. In the letter, the group called on the sponsors to address what they called'real and serious' privacy concerns about the proposed legislation.
Thompson, ranking minority member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, and his backers said that the "broadness and ambiguous language" in CISPA could cause problems.
"Without specific limitations, CISPA would for the first time, grant non-civilian federal agencies, such as the National Security Agency, unfettered access to information about Americans' Internet activities and allow those agencies to use that information for virtually any purpose," the letter noted.
CISPA, introduced in the House last November, would let Internet companies monitor and collect any user information they think poses a threat to their networks or systems. The bill would also let these companies share the collected information with the NSA and other federal agencies like the Department of Homeland Security.
Proponents of the bill, which include dozens of high-tech companies and trade associations, argue that the legislation would improve cybersecurity by improving information sharing between private companies and federal law enforcement agencies.
Opponents contend that the bill is dangerously worded and open to different interpretations. CISPA could, opponents say, decimate privacy protections under existing statutes such as the Federal Wiretap Act and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act.
The legislation would provide significant legal immunity to Internet companies that share user information with the federal government.
Users have little recourse if their information was unfairly collected, privacy advocates warn. And while the bill was written to boost cybersecurity, information gathered by Internet companies can be used for any law enforcement purpose, they noted
In their letter, the legislators cited a lack of "necessary safeguards" in the bill and expressed concern over its ambiguous language. "Information sharing cannot come at the expense of the constitutional rights of our constituents," it said.
Jaikumar Vijayan covers data security and privacy issues, financial services security and e-voting for Computerworld. Follow Jaikumar on Twitter at @jaivijayan, or subscribe to Jaikumar's RSS feed. His e-mail address is jvijayan@computerworld.com.BASCOM, Fla. — Five days after Esbeidi Sanchez was baptized, she reached a breaking point no one saw coming.
Not her husband, who worked long days in the cotton fields of the Florida Panhandle to put food on the table. Not her pastor, who’d prayed with her and encouraged her to accept Jesus Christ as her personal savior. And not the teachers at Malone School, who knew her as an involved and loving mom to her two young sons.
From left, school photos of Ronaldinio Ramirez-Sanchez, 7, and Gustavo-Angel Ramirez-Sanchez, 5.
On Friday, Oct. 6, after her little boys got off the school bus and walked into their house, she shot them both in the head. Then she turned the gun on herself.
Her husband, Thomas Sanchez, came home to a horror. His wife and their oldest son, Ronaldinio “Ronny” Ramirez-Sanchez, 7, were dead. Their youngest son, Gustavo “Angel” Ramirez-Sanchez, 5, was badly injured but still breathing. Sanchez made a frantic call to 911. The boy was life-flighted to nearby Tallahassee. But he didn’t make it, dying the next day in the hospital.
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Esbeidi Sanchez poses in this undated photo.
Their deaths sent shock waves through Bascom, a tiny farming community just south of the Alabama-Florida line where dirt roads crisscross wide fields of cotton, cell-phone signals are faint and violent crime is something that happens somewhere else.
“Everybody’s flabbergasted,” said Brother John Smith, pastor of First Baptist Church in Malone. “She was a very beautiful lady and seemed like she had a real sweet personality. She didn’t indicate that anything was wrong whatsoever.”
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Sanchez left a note at the scene referencing her own suicide and personal hardships she’d faced in her life. But it didn’t explain why she killed her own children, said Capt. Scott Edwards of the Jackson County (Fla.) Sheriff’s Office.
“The note that she left does indicate that this is what she wanted to do,” he said. “Basically it was describing some incidents that occurred in her past that probably led up to this. It mentions the kids, but it doesn’t mention why she would do that to the kids. It’s probably one of the things we’ll never know.”
The Sanchez family home sits off a dirt road in a rural part of Jackson County.
Family friends say Thomas Sanchez is coping the best he can. He’s been back to the tin-roofed house off Robinson Road where his family lived happily for years, leaving behind three sets of balloons and flowers on the carport in memory of his loved ones.
But word has spread through Bascom that he’ll never live in the house again. Family friends are helping him find a new place to reside.
“He’s accepted it,” one friend said. “But just like everybody else, he doesn’t understand it.”
'It’s damn sure hard to believe'
Esbeidi Sanchez, 25, whose first name is pronounced “Es-Betty,” had no criminal record. Her immediate family had no history with Florida's child welfare system.
But court records suggest there were problems at home when Esbeidi was growing up. Her mother was granted a protection order against her father on March 7, 2005. He was charged the next day with sexual battery, but the charge was dismissed months later.
In December 2011, before Esbeidi’s second son was born, she filed a domestic violence injunction against her father. In the petition, she wrote she felt she was in danger because her father “likes violence” and had a gun. She checked a box on the form saying her father had committed or threatened to commit domestic violence and that he’d threatened to kidnap or harm her child.
“He threatened my boyfriend and maybe me and my son,” she wrote.
Her request for an injunction, however, was denied, according to court records.
Esbeidi Sanchez's two young sons attended Malone School in northern Jackson County.
Some of her friends and neighbors knew she’d had troubles with her father. But no one thought she was capable of violence herself.
Fritz Taylor, 78, a lifelong resident of Bascom, said he’d often see Esbeidi driving her children to school in the morning. The family used to come pick up pecans that had fallen in his yard.
“They were super nice,” he said. “All of them. It’s damn sure hard to believe. You’ve heard about (murder-suicides) way yonder or somewhere. You never heard about it here.”
Pat and Veneeda Jordan, whose sons employ Thomas Sanchez at their family-owned 3 J Farms, described him as a good man and hard worker and his wife as a lovely woman.
“She was just as sweet a lady as you would ever find,” he said. “She had two little boys and they were just as sweet as they could be. Every time they’d see me, they’d come hug me. I didn’t dream something like that was going to happen.”
'God knows'
Esbeidi Sanchez was baptized at First Baptist Church in Malone five days before she killed herself and her two young sons.
Esbeidi’s youngest son had started kindergarten at Malone School, her oldest first grade. “Angel” enjoyed reading to his teacher, while Ronny liked math. Esbeidi, who attended the school as a girl, visited often, attending various events and having lunch with her boys.
“Mama was very involved in the school,” said Bryant Hardy, assistant principal. “We loved their whole family. Two very sweet kids, always smiling. Every time I walked by them, they always had a hand stuck up in the air to give me high five. Everything was good to them. They were just good kids.”
Over the past few months, she’d faithfully attended Sunday service and Wednesday night youth programs at First Baptist Church, always with her children in tow. On the Sunday before her baptism, she decided to join the church, Brother Smith said. A day or two later, Smith and Pat Jordan, a member of the church, visited her at her home.
“I talked with her about praying and receiving Jesus Christ as her personal savior,” Smith recalled. “And I led her in a prayer. And she just so willingly went through it. And of course, everything seemed to be doing well.”
A black bow sits atop the mailbox at the Sanchez family home.
The following Sunday, on Oct. 1, she came forward in the sanctuary, where Smith presented her to the church. He took her straight to the baptistry, said a few words and dunked her head in the water. Her husband and children watched proudly, he said.
“When you go down in the water, it’s like Jesus being buried in the tomb,” Smith said. “And when you come out of the water, you’re resurrected to a new life. And from that point on, you’re walking with Jesus.”
Veneeda Jordan said Esbeidi was eager to get baptized and dressed up for the occasion.
“She was beautiful,” she said. “She had on a royal blue dress, full length. And it just made her glow.”
Smith has no explanation for the deaths. He said no one really knows the heart of another.
“But what I do know is God knows,” Smith said. “And God is able to be the comfort that’s needed. He may not stop these things. He may allow these things to happen. But I believe in all my heart she’s in heaven — she and those two precious children.”There were over a dozen Rams players that showed up and I was amazed so many had their own gear and were ready to get dirty. These guys were a class act and I was honestly proud that they represent my city. I wasn't a Ram's fan until Saturday and now I'm one for life.
William Hayes was the life of this game and showed up early with a custom engraved Planet Eclipse Etha complete with the Ram's logo engraved on the lid of his hopper. What he lacked in experience, he made up with some last minute recruiting and straight enthusiasm off the field. He was a pleasure to watch off the field as he relentlessly teased his fellow players and straight stole the winners trophy.
Michael Brockers had a bright pink G6r and more paintball knowledge than I expected out of a player who has played for years. This man knew who Oliver Lang was, has been watching Youtube videos nonstop, wanted opinions on the best players in the world and was asking for tips on how to expand his game to shooting with his less dominant hand and grow beyond just being just a back player. He even knew of PbNation and wants to play some local 3-man events.
Eugeen Sims was probably the most competitive on the field. He wanted to win and even upgraded to a Luxe (in almost Ram's colors) before the end of the day. He knew his way around a field and put it on Hayes right away when their teams played against each other.
Rookie Terrell Brown is a a straight beast. He is 6' 11" and 400 pounds and he still wore some people out! Look out for him.
Darryl Trent from DLX was on site and even got some games in. He made up some special edition Luxes in (almost) Ram's colors especially for the event and all of them were gone before the end of the day. William Hayes not only got one for himself, when he saw one of the refs jonsing after one but short on the cash, he helped him pick one up right on the spot!
Thanks to the guys from the Kendall Langford even said thanks for hooking him up with the best team. It was great to see you guys tear it up with rentals.
Tim Schloss from Gateway Paintball deserves all the credit in the world for setting this event up. He got true professional athletes, some of the best representatives from inside of paintball and true corporate sponsors together in just a few weeks. Special thanks to Thomas Ghee who actually did the scheduling and made sure everything ran on time.
One last thing about William Hayes. This man plays professional sports and still was one of the first people there at the field and even stayed late to clean up the trash left in the staging area by all the teams. He didn't stop helping the field staff out until all the water bottles, empty cases random trash was cleaned up off all the tables. I got a small glimpse of the off field work ethic that made him a true pro.
Nicho was on hand taking some pictures. Here's a quick look at a few.
Michael Brocker, Eugeen Sims and William Hayes with their markers.
Eugeen Sims last stand (he borrowed my loader and tank for his new Luxe)
Michael Brockers with his G6r directing traffic on the field I can't put into words how impressed I was with the St Louis Ram's organization. Nicole from the Rams had these guys on lock and not one of the players just phoned it in. They came not just to play, they came to interact with fans and raise some money for the St. Patrick Center. I saw smiles, heard war stories, witnessed a few out and out lies and saw lots of people having a great time for an even better cause. They signed autographs for anyone who asked and posed for more pictures than I could count.There were over a dozen Rams players that showed up and I was amazed so many had their own gear and were ready to get dirty. These guys were a class act and I was honestly proud that they represent my city. I wasn't a Ram's fan until Saturday and now I'm one for life.was the life of this game and showed up early with a custom engraved Planet Eclipse Etha complete with the Ram's logo engraved on the lid of his hopper. What he lacked in experience, he made up with some last minute recruiting and straight enthusiasm off the field. He was a pleasure to watch off the field as he relentlessly teased his fellow players and straight stole the winners trophy.had a bright pink G6r and more paintball knowledge than I expected out of a player who has played for years. This man knew who Oliver Lang was, has been watching Youtube videos nonstop, wanted opinions on the best players in the world and was asking for tips on how to expand his game to shooting with his less dominant hand and grow beyond just being just a back player. He even knew of PbNation and wants to play some local 3-man events.was probably the most competitive on the field. He wanted to win and even upgraded to a Luxe (in almost Ram's colors) before the end of the day. He knew his way around a field and put it on Hayes right away when their teams played against each other.Rookieis a a straight beast. He is 6' 11" and 400 pounds and he still wore some people out! Look out for him.Darryl Trent from DLX was on site and even got some games in. He made up some special edition Luxes in (almost) Ram's colors especially for the event and all of them were gone before the end of the day. William Hayes not only got one for himself, when he saw one of the refs jonsing after one but short on the cash, he helped him pick one up right on the spot!Thanks to the guys from the Luxe Mob who put down their Luxes and played with rentals to help keep the teams fair. You guys were scouted repeatedly by the NFL pros and some were even learning your names and asking how to beat you!even said thanks for hooking him up with the best team. It was great to see you guys tear it up with rentals.Tim Schloss from Gateway Paintball deserves all the credit in the world for setting this event up. He got true professional athletes, some of the best representatives from inside of paintball and true corporate sponsors together in just a few weeks. Special thanks to Thomas Ghee who actually did the scheduling and made sure everything ran on time.One last thing about William Hayes. This man plays professional sports and still was one of the first people there at the field and even stayed late to clean up the trash left in the staging area by all the teams. He didn't stop helping the field staff out until all the water bottles, empty cases random trash was cleaned up off all the tables. I got a small glimpse of the off field work ethic that made him a true pro.Nicho was on hand taking some pictures. Here's a quick look at a few.Michael Brocker, Eugeen Sims and William Hayes with their markers.Eugeen Sims last stand (he borrowed my loader and tank for his new Luxe)Michael Brockers with his G6r directing traffic on the field
Your questions are answered in the PbNation FAQ. Ask a Mod.
We deserve better villains.
"I have not seen an automag shot in anger in 10 years." Tom Cole
Most of my current guns. | Pro Player Jersey Sale. | 3rd Party Services. __________________Share. SPOILER: They know. SPOILER: They know.
MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD. IF YOU DON'T WANT TO LEARN ANYTHING ABOUT SKYRIM'S DARK BROTHERHOOD, LEAVE NOW. DON'T SAY WE DIDN'T WARN YOU.
Nightime. Alone. Snow crunching underboot, winter gnashing its teeth in swells through the thick air. I'm not hunting dragons or chasing butterflies, I'm tracking a guild of killers - Skyrim's Dark Brotherhood - across a continent.
Heading up through a set of frozen peaks, I smell blood. I pause the game for a moment and turn on The Sword's "Gods of the Earth". Much better.
A shortcut through Bleak Falls Barrow turns savage as I engage bandits, goring them atop an ancient stone shrine like Rasputin gone feral in a Frank Frazetta painting come to life. I heave billows of hot breath into the screaming wind after the kill, picking through their armor and weapons for worthy spoils. The sentries had stood guard over a giant set of doors at the base of the structure, which ostensibly leads to a dungeon. I don't investigate, moving on. I'm on a grave mission, after all.
Down the backside of the mountain, a trail leads past a small hovel-like settlement called Secunda's Kiss (low level characters, be wary of giants). Finally, I arrive at Falkreath, a mid-sized town straddling a hill, gorged with houses and an assortment of stores, and of course, a tavern. I eventually run into a roaming peasant who speaks of evil things in hushed tones. With some coaxing, she mutters a clue: Aventus Aretino, in the city of Windhelm.
The Brotherhood, Bleak Falls Barrow, Windhelm and More
Exit Theatre Mode
I could have trudged my way there, but thanks to a handy carriage system (think the stagecoaches in Red Dead Redemption), I hop a quick ride to the frigid maze of structures and passageways that make up the appropriately-named town. Inside, homeless folks, blacksmiths and guards - Windhelmsmen, all - co-mingle in the snow-torn concourses. Discussion of trade and war gradually gives way to a growing concern over a troubling series of murders (are there really any other kind?). Yes, a serial killer has moved into Windhelm. Perfect.
It takes some time to orient myself in the city, what with its multiple levels of buildings stacked upon themselves within its high stone walls. Eventually the Aretino home presents itself around a corner I must have turned past 10 times before. One picked lock later and I'm inside, standing in front of something I wasn't expecting: a small boy. Next to a dead body. And candles in a pentagram arrangement. He is Aventus Aretino, boy ritual killer.
Before I can speak to him, I notice he's talking to himself.
"They have to come, I know they will. They'll come, they will."
On and on. He notices me, gulping his breath, and lights up...
"You've come, I knew the Dark Brotherhood would come! You have to kill her. You have to kill Grelod. Grelod the Kind."
I'm paraphrasing, but it turns out little Aventus |
at the minute atto-electron volt scale.
Although the large hadron collider at CERN is grabbing the world’s attention with the quest to break the standard model, other experiments at the research centre are looking beyond the theory to help bring about a complete picture of how particles interact. One such research campaign is taking place at CERN’s antiproton decelerator – a production line for antimatter – to determine why properties of certain particles do not change if the particles’ charge is reversed.
Using the decelerator, the researchers from Japan and Germany fired antiprotons into both a magnetic and electric field, known as a Penning trap, along with hydrogen anions, which act as a proxy for the proton in the trap. By analysing the frequency of the two particles, the team obtained a value of 1(69) x10-12 for the charge-to-mass ratio difference. They only calculated the result after 13,000 frequency measurements to an accuracy of 69 parts per trillion.Catherine Hanaway is a former U.S. attorney and Missouri House speaker. (Photo: Jeff Roberson, AP)
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Former Missouri House Speaker and U.S. Attorney Catherine Hanaway says she has about $1.5 million to spend on a campaign for governor.
Hanaway on Monday said her campaign received about $360,000 in donations from 200 contributors during the past three months. She spent about $105,000.
That brings her up to roughly $1.5 million when combined with previous donations.
Hanaway was the only woman to have served as Missouri House speaker.
Hanaway faces a showdown with at least three other declared Republican candidates who also hope to be Missouri's next governor. Others are considering joining the race, and at least one has already started fundraising.
Attorney General Chris Koster is the only Democrat in the race.
Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon cannot seek re-election because of term limits.
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Read or Share this story: http://sgfnow.co/1IVq3QIThe USC Gamers Network presents: GAME ON 3, USC's semi-annual video game tournament! Everyone loved our tournament last year, so we're doing it again, and adding more games!Featured Games:Super Smash Bros. MeleeHalo: Reach (FFA and 2v2)Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (Xbox 360)(PS Vita Sponsored Fifa 12 Side Tournament)WE NEED MELEE SETUPS! For Halo and UMVC3, we can get some monitors and xbox's sponsored, but no one has CRT TVs anymore, so we are depending on the smash community to bring setups. Please contact me (mmanders@usc.edu) or Jasper Lee (jasperkl@usc.edu) if you can bring a setup! Doing so will reduce your entry fee!Sponsor Events and Giveaways:-PS Vita is sponsoring a side Vita tournament featuring Fifa 12! Prizes TBA, but knowing Sony, they should be good! There will also be free-play for other Vita games as well.-NOS Energy Drink will be doing free giveaways of drinks and other NOS apparel during the event.-ASUS will be doing free giveaways and will host a free play station for the new Street Fighter X Tekken (PS3) featuring the lag-less ASUS VH236H monitor!-Ubisoft will be hosting contest and giveaways at the event!-Slice Truck will be selling pizza during the event, so bring a big appetite.Venue:The tournament will take place in the Forum in the Ronald Tutor Campus Center on USC Campus. This is a very large room with tiered desks perfect for a smash tournament, and big-screen TVs and mic setups for spectating.Schedule:Date: Saturday March 31stRegistration: NoonMelee Begins:1Halo:Reach Begins: 1:30UMVC3 Begins: 2Tournament format and detailed rules can be found here:After the game begins there will be no more sign-ups, so please arrive on time. As we only have one day to complete 3 games, we will be running a very tight schedule. BYOC!Entry Fee: $5Waiving entry fee with Melee:Bring a full setup for Melee (non-laggy TV, console, and game) AND IF WE USE YOUR SETUP, we will waive your venue fee.Bring part of a setup (Only a non-laggy TV, console, or game) AND IF WE USE IT, we will take $2 off your venue fee.Waving entry fee for Halo and UMVC3:Bring a full setup for Halo or UMVC3 (game AND Xbox hard drive with all current patches, MLG Maps, AND TV/Monitor) AND IF WE USE YOUR SETUP, we will waive your venue fee.Bring a partial setup for Halo or UMVC3 (Only a game OR Xbox hard drive with all current patches, MLG Maps, OR TV/Monitor) AND IF WE USE YOUR SETUP, we will take $2 off your venue fee.Please message Jasper Lee via Facebook or e-mail at jasperkl@usc.edu if you plan on bringing a setup.Prizes:1st- $752nd- $503rd- $25We have to do fixed prize amounts because USC has this strict "no gambling" rule that doesn't let us distribute the entry fees like normal tournaments. This prize money is guaranteed, though, which is cool.Directions & Parking:$8 in Parking Structure X (Figueroa Street & McCarthy Way)Directions to Campus Center: http://tinyurl.com/uscgnparking Directions to The Forum (TCC 450): http://tinyurl.com/rtccdirections GAME ON!~ USC Gamers NetworkLike us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/USCGamersNetwork Youtube Page: http://www.youtube.com/user/USCGamersNetwork Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/USCGamers Special thanks to our generous sponsors:USC ITP: http://itp.usc.edu/ Primetime Gamers: http://www.primetimegamers.net/ Play N Trade: http://www.playntrade.com/ PS Vita: http://us.playstation.com/psvita/ Nos: http://www.drinknos.com/ ASUS at USC: https://www.facebook.com/ASUS.USC Slicetruck: https://www.facebook.com/slicetruckIf you didn’t like or understand The Young Ones, you were just too old. We all said it, and it rings true now. Every generation blames the one before, as we’ve been told, and while parents of kids born in the 1960s and early ’70s despaired at what now passed for comedy when four dysfunctional, vulgar, self-obsessed prats turned up on their BBC2 screen in the late autumn of 1982, the kids knew better. It was marvellous; it was something made by them for them, and their parents were squares for not understanding it.
It wasn’t even Rik Mayall’s favourite work, nor even the work that launched him initially to a television audience, and like any sitcom that represents an era, it dated before the rust enveloped the pin badges on his jacket. But it was totally definitive. His brainchild (with girlfriend Lise Mayer), his jokes, his university mate Ben Elton merely called in to “churn out the gear” and make it half-an-hour long. His career made, a cult movement veering into the mainstream. He is probably the most important individual to come from the fabled alternative comedy boom of the new wave era as a result.
Alternative comedy – loosely defined as an X-rated stand-up and character led antidote to gag-tellers whose material was offensively old hat – was a necessary phenomenon. Terry and June were worrying about the boss coming round to dinner, and Jim Davidson was inexplicably nick-nicking his way to variety show stardom. Mayall, brought up in Worcestershire, went to Manchester University as an 18 year old in 1976, but when back home during holiday time spent every evening down the pub with his friends because his parents’ telly was full of stuff made just for his mum and dad’s generation.
“I don’t half feel sorry for you, having to stay in every night,” he’d say to his folks, both actors.
“I don’t half feel sorry for you, having to go out every night,” they’d reply.
Back at university, he developed a plan to try to find a new source of entertainment for his student generation. He had theatrical ambitions but was a natural comic, something ingrained in him since a gurning session during a school nativity play in the 1960s reduced the audience of parents to hysterical jelly and got him the cane from a mortified teacher. With fellow undergraduate Adrian Edmondson, he formed a raucous comedy duo, 20th Century Coyote. The name nodded to the famous failed cartoon Acme customer, a favourite of both men, and they followed the slapstick model of cartoons but with little emphasis on self-protection, resulting in hospital treatment for each when they were genuinely set alight or knocked out cold by a flying kettle.
The Comedy Store opened in London in 1979, with Alexei Sayle and Arnold Brown performing on the opening night, and soon 20th Century Coyote were there too, eventually moving on to their self-formed Comic Strip Club nearby, evolving into The Dangerous Brothers as they did so and getting on the telly. Mayall’s reputation as a singular performer was also growing; a spotty, spoiled, political activist with appalling poetry was starting to get laughs, mainly via his scripted incompetence and petulance, while investigative reporter Kevin Turvey, Brummie and condescending, was Mayall’s solo route to recognition. Little was recalled of this character once The Young Ones hit the headlines, but nevertheless he remained a key ingredient of the growing Mayall legend, and once he became a superstar, the BBC cobbled together a disparate bunch of Turvey lectures on to video for release.
The poet, just called Rick (leading to lifelong confusion as to how the actor spelled his forename), had much more going for him as Mayall began plotting his next move. Noting the soon-to-be-launched Channel 4’s commissioning of a stack of Comic Strip films, the BBC asked him, and others, to come up with ideas to make them look like they too wanted to acknowledge the emergence of this comic boom. Mayall suggested a sitcom. Given the go-ahead, he fleshed out the characters, co-wrote the jokes, hired Elton to turn them into dialogue and liaised with assigned producer Paul Jackson (who was instantly hooked) to develop the programme’s course.
What we got was a student house full of unlikeable people, and the most generationally divisive cultural phenomenon in years. The humour was as much in the surprise element as it was in the script, though some of the jokes, verbal or physical, were instantly brilliant. Mayall portrayed his alter ego as a childish, hypocritical, self-absorbed nonentity-in-waiting, and did so spectacularly. Edmondson as the psychotic punk, fellow Comic Strip performer Nigel Planer as wimpish house-slave hippy Neil and Christopher Ryan (an unconnected actor auditioned at the last minute after Planer’s performing partner Peter Richardson fell out with Jackson and withdrew) as smooth-talking, borderline villain and house leader Mike, made for riotously brilliant television. It introduced slapstick, mindless violence, second degree swearing, masses of fake bodily fluids, surrealism, barking mad cameos, unrelated sideshows and audience participation, plus the innovative interlude featuring a live band. It was spectacularly different. And like with anything else, the people who complained tended to be the people who were not in the target audience: the mums and dads, who had to find a way of preventing their youngsters from watching this “vulgar”, “unfunny”, “bad influence” of a series without, in some cases, coming across as killjoys. Most failed.
The Radio Times and national newspapers, without exception, used one of two buzzwords in their synopses of the show when it featured in their listings. One was “anarchic”; the other “offbeat”. However, despite its narrow intentions, it became a hit beyond the target teenage crowd. The slapstick element helped, as a well-timed smack in the face with a large piece of crooked wood and a judiciously chosen sound effect will always raise a laugh, even if humans are doing it instead of a cat and mouse. And when Vyvyan was electrocuted by his own hamster, or Dawn French’s barking mad God-squadder was crushed by an enormous sandwich chucked from the skies by Keith “Pestilence” Allen, you couldn’t help but laugh. The element of surprise was key, and it was Mayall who made sure it was there.
Two series were made, along with a spin-off single by Planer, and that was deemed enough. Mayall wanted to move on. “I don’t know what it will be yet, but it will be different,” he said at the time. The Young Ones was missed, but unsurprisingly it did date, which was why it became an adored comic museum rather than an overblown parody of itself and not many people begged for more. A year later, with Elton now recruited to co-write the failing Blackadder dynasty (in which Mayall had appeared once as Mad Gerald – “close the bloody door!”), the character of Lord Flashheart was created, specifically for him. In Blackadder II’s first episode, Flashheart turns up at the eponymous peer’s wedding, attacks Percy, flirts with the Queen and Nursie, mocks Melchett, tries to castrate Edmund and then buggers off with the bride – all in one scene and all with a healthy dose of fourth-wall shoving. Mayall’s totally over-the-top portrayal of this seafaring narcissist, recreated as a squadron commander at episode length in Goes Forth four years later, was outrageous and beyond hilarious, and despite the character being somewhat irregular, contributed much to his comic armoury, while leaving his co-performers visibly aghast at his energy. It was the first time we’d seen him as the hero, the wit, the heart-throb, the attractive cad. And he was, and remained, the only man to truly equal Rowan Atkinson in a Blackadder scene.
Mayall loved Filthy, Rich & Catflap, the next venture after The Young Ones which Elton wrote alone. He starred as Richie Rich, a clapped out actor of negligible talent, with Planer as his alcoholic agent and Edmondson as his drifting, violent minder. It aired in early 1987, six months after The Young Ones had reunited for a day’s recording for Comic Relief alongside Cliff Richard, but, despite good reviews and strong figures, the BBC didn’t touch it again. Every time he was subsequently asked how come, Mayall would always say: “I don’t know why – that is, I genuinely don’t know why – it wasn’t seen as a success.” Certainly his character retained some of Rick’s infantile self-obsession but, befitting the self-indulgence of showbiz life Elton intended to satirise. Planer’s character of Ralph Filthy proved he was a proper actor, and often he stole the show. Yet it never floated the BBC’s boat, and it has still to be repeated terrestrially, took years to come out on video, and is only occasionally spotted on digital channels.
Although there was always little affinity with Mayall’s characters, there was something pitiable about them that made them hard to hate. His next creation, however, was quite the opposite. Having bumped into Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran at a promo event, and admired their work as writers of Shine On Harvey Moon, he asked, nay instructed, them to create a sitcom for him. The result was The New Statesman, based in the House of Commons in which Mayall’s character, Conservative MP Alan B’Stard, trod a fine line between believable malevolence and his love of the slapstick. He wanted 20 laughs per page; if he got 15, he’d create the other five himself just from a gesture, a sneer or a chuckle, all now guaranteed comic tools in Mayall’s armoury. B’Stard was appalling; the programme was ITV’s best sitcom since Rising Damp and there hasn’t been a better one on the network since. During the same period, Mayall reprised the character on the BBC for a Comic Relief skit (“Cor, bloody hell, Cecil Parkinson and a whip!”) and narrated George’s Marvellous Medicine for Jackanory, with parents missing the point completely when they complained to the BBC about it being “frightening” and “chaotic.”
When Mayall and Edmondson reunited for Bottom in 1992, a sitcom of squalor and physical humour that again exceeded boundaries of realism, it was like coming home. The characters – jobless ne’er do wells who share a Hammersmith flat and can live neither with nor without each other – were variations on their personas in The Young Ones but without a satirical eye. This time there was nobody in society to poke fun at; it was about the two of them, with little help from others, conceiving their own grimy little world ridden with desperation, bad puns, sexual inadequacy, outlandish violence and intentionally over-elaborate twists. Mayall was the frustrated, gloomy misanthrope who revelled in occasional victories of wit over Edmondson’s character, as useless as his counterpart but more worldly-wise, clever and with an unmatchable capacity for drink.
The show was Mayall’s finest as a post-alternative performer; the scripts didn’t always hit every height going but he exploded into the television screen with every wild scream of terror, evil guffaw or pompous bit of uninformed lecturing. This was the firebrand comic colossus he had always been, but this time he was being nothing more. The Young Ones gave him activism; Filthy, Rich & Catflap gave him satire; The New Statesman gave him a sinister side; Bottom gave him, very simply, licence to act like a child and be very, very funny with it. It is repeated more often than any of its predecessors.
There were some whiffy moments, mainly in longer productions. Drop Dead Fred, where he played the imaginary friend of an adult had concocted in childhood, was totally panned. Guest House Paradiso, a Bottom spin-off, was jokeless and directionless. The modern Comic Strip efforts, such as Four Men In A Car, were disappointing, although Mayall’s spoof adoration of Gold by Spandau Ballet after finding it on a cheap compilation CD he’d bought at a service station was enjoyably cruel. But in making some clunky choices, he wasn’t alone.
On stage, it was better – anyone who viewed a Bottom video or attended one of the many live shows will tell you that while the script was funny, the ad-libs and corpsing – Mayall was always more prone to that than Edmondson – would leave people fearing for their constitutions through laughter. Their comfort in performing together and trusting one another when stuff went awry was never more prominent, and it made them all the more loveable. And when Marks and Gran relaunched The New Statesman as a stage production, with B’Stard as a New Labour convert and fresh scripts each week to keep it topical, he was in his element – though again, the biggest laughs were reserved for his bouts of forgetfulness – brought on by the infamous quad bike crash in 1998 which left him technically dead for five days – and occasional turns to the audience to moan about the one-way system in whichever city they were in.
Edmondson’s desire to become slightly more befitting of a man in his 50s brought their partnership to an end a decade ago, and while he did BBC dramas and an ITV documentary series about Yorkshire, Mayall was forced to find his own new direction, and he too took on serious roles, while also clowning around as a narrator and on adverts, most notably sponsor bumpers on digital channels for Bombardier ale.
The death of Rik Mayall could be the first one that makes the Cream-era audience consider its own mortality. If we were old enough to remember him when he was 22 and affecting a ludicrous Birmingham accent while investigating sex (“I did find out that eating aphrodisiacs make you violently sick”), we’re now old enough to wonder when our own time will come, given that 56 is such a ludicrously young age to lose him, or anyone. For a drama student whose initial self-appointed brief was to make his own telly (“If there’s nothing on for you, you make it yourself”), he achieved so much.
The body of work he leaves behind is considerable; the adoration he attracted from pretty much everyone who watched him as a kid will remain undimmed. The influence he had on the whole shift in comic thinking, however, as comedians got cleverer, sillier and more politically aware, is probably impossible to put into words. He died once in The Young Ones (and tried to commit suicide another time) and a few times in Bottom (fell off a Ferris wheel via a ghostly hand, shot by “A-squad”, among others) but always came back for more.
That he won’t do this time isn’t just tragic, it feels very final for all of us.As the year comes to an end it's common for people to list their favorite new pieces of media, and anime is no exception to that custom. We can go further than a list of the best TV series of 2015 however, what about the greatest moments of animation of the year? While the craft can never be fully separated from the content and emotional attachment will always amplify the effect a scene can have, it's certainly possible – and not all that rare! – to find very powerful pieces of animation in otherwise lesser shows. And that's bound to give some variety to this compilation, which is by no means a Top 10; there is no competition and no particular order, this is simply a look back at this year of anime to highlight 10 memorable animated scenes.
One-Punch Man Episode #1
The series has yet to finish and is sure to deliver some of its most impressive sequences in its finale, yet One-Punch Man already has enough worthwhile material to fill up an entire list of this kind. A project blessed with renowned artists doing their best, but also one where newbies that haven't been doing key animation for even a year can pull scenes like this. Visual spectacle is as important of an element as it already was on Murata's version of the manga, and that's been obvious since the very beginning; that is why I would choose Yoshimichi Kameda's action scene from the episode 1 as the first highlight, since that is what instantly set this series apart from most action anime. The dynamic camerawork and rather elaborate setpiece are above what we expect from a TV project, and Kameda's fascinating idiosyncrasies are in full display – the body motion composed of wild poses even his jaw-dropping, sumi-e style impact frames. A scene that oozes confidence in its craft, where all hits have a heavy impact and the scale feels genuinely big. An exceptional way to set the tone for what was to come in One-Punch Man, for sure one of the peaks of Japanese animation in 2015.
Go! Princess Precure Episode #1
On a similar note, there was another 2015 series that started with a bang, perhaps unexpectedly so. As a long running Toei franchise, Precure doesn't often get notable productions, and its (admittedly very impressive) peaks are often few and far apart. The current iteration – Go! Princess Precure – decided to break that trend by having excellent action sequences every handful of episodes, with a new approach to action that was quickly made apparent as Shingo Fujii made everyone's jaws drop with this scene. Three-dimensional camerawork on a fully hand drawn scene, cool stylized effects and above all, a perfect portrayal – a young magical girl pulling off crazy moves, but who clearly isn't comfortably in charge of the powers she's just been given. Making her clumsiness apparent within a sequence that still flows incredibly well is no small feat.Fujii had been working on the franchise for a while, but his animation before this felt restrained and lacking, not even close to his output on works like Star Driver that had made people consider him one of the best webgen animators. Finally paired with a director like Yuta Tanaka who could provide him ambitious action storyboards and who embraced his distinct animation, Fujii got to prove his actual worth. Ever since then he has been refining this style, always attempting to make the battlefields feel like an actual three-dimensional space and with many flashy slowmo sequences. He's arguably topped himself with even more impressive scenes, but I will hold his work on the first episode dear as the one that first showed something I never expected I would see in this franchise.
Rolling Girls Episode #8
The first word that comes to mind when I think of Rolling Girls is “inconsistent”, both narratively and when it comes to the production. And I don't mind “mildly uneven”, Rolling Girls is a wild ride with highs and lows that are worlds apart. That of course means that when the show looks good, it really does. Similarly, its animation highlights easily earned a place in this list even though the series is also full of extremely rushed and uncorrected episodes. What stands out the most throughout are Arifumi Imai's wonderful cuts, which peak at the colorful climax of episode 8. Over the last couple of years Imai seems to have leveled up from a youngster with potential to a name everyone acknowledges, and it was Rolling Girls that highlighted one of his strongest assets: his effects drawings. Particularly so when he's given material like this, unrestricted freedom to draw FX in many shapes and a rich palette to make them beautiful. He's an animator whose work is easy to appreciate even in still shots, and scenes like his best Rolling Girls ones fill me with hope. Hope that Imai keeps getting the chance to work with directors like Kotomi Deai who share his love for vivid colors. Because as cool as his work on dreary series can be, there's nothing quite like his chromatic explosions.
Sound! Euphonium Episode #5
Let's calm down from all this intense action to draw attention to some restrained but equally masterful work. This might surprise people who have seen the series, but one of my issues with Sound! Euphonium's first episodes was the animation; not because it was bad by any stretch, it was all as polished as you'd expect from a KyoAni production, and since the very beginning the movie-level 2D instrument art was enough for top animators to lose their mind over it. But it lacked some spark. The character acting was adequate yet stiff, not as lively as you'd want from a series like this. Then episode 5 arrives, with plenty of neat little pieces of animation leading to this climax. Cartoony character art that portrays Kumiko's awkward reaction after thinking she screwed up when talking to the girl she'd been meaning to approach, followed by a genuine smile and hair animation as detailed as you could ever hope for. Coupled with the extremely impressive postproduction, this short scene is an excellent display of the range animation has as a medium. After this point and thanks to assets being freed from the movie the studio had been producing, great bits of character animation became a lot more common. The general rule of TV anime is that productions decay throughout their run, but Sound! Euphonium strongly reversed that tendency. And what started it happened to be that beautiful smile.
Absolute Duo Opening Sequence
I'd mentioned at first that finding excellent craft within mediocre projects is certainly possible, and here is a perfect example. The likely soon to be forgotten light novel adaptation Absolute Duo wasn't exactly an impressive production, yet here it is represented thanks to its opening that Ryouma Ebata directed, storyboarded and key animated all by himself. His name has been gaining a lot of recognition as of late thanks to multiple solo appearances like that, which have helped fans identify his personal quirks; his stylish approach to character motion with a solid realistic foundation yet enough exaggeration to stand out, easy to appreciate in what some already call Ebata Walk scenes. But while Absolute Duo's opening has some of that, this time he mostly put his talent into action sequences. That same snappy timing applied to fast-paced scenes with drawings loose enough to make it all flow perfectly. I don't think anyone expected spectacular fighting acrobatics chaining into a beautiful dance from this show, but that's an excellent surprise gift.
Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works Episode #17
2015 wasn't exactly kind to ufotable, usually one of the very few exceptions to the rule of messy TV anime productions. Their busy schedule and overwork forced them to break studio traditions and rely more heavily on outsourcing, and even then they have ended up facing issues they'd never suffered before. Not the best context within which to put out an ambitious animation endeavor like Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works, which they'd been hyping themselves as a project where unlike Fate/Zero, their animation team would get the spotlight over their CG crowd. A promise they didn't quite live up to, seeing how in the end the series heavily relied on digital effects to cover the shortcomings of a production that started strong but lost steam fast. Despite the less than ideal situation however, UBW a really strong asset to carry most climax scenes – Nozomu Abe, the master of FX and debris. And of his work there, the most impressive work was the Lancer vs Archer confrontation. Despite the heavy postprocessing it's impossible to miss his 2D effects overload, filling the screen at all times. His overwhelming style is a perfect fit for climactic moments like this, short bursts of animation beyond TV anime level.
Blood Blockade Battlefront Episode #1
People who have followed BONES anime for a while might be aware of what Yutaka Nakamura's role in their series is. In an industry where the majority of animators are freelancers picking up as much work as they possibly can, Nakamura – lovingly nicknamed Yutapon by fans – is a BONES employee with a contract tying him to the studio exclusively, who often shows up in productions to just animate one scene or two. And why that superstar treatment? Well, because he can draw stuff like this. The sense of speed it builds up, the organic morphing animation, the huge scale that swinging cut portrays despite the battle not making much spatial sense, all adorned with his personal quirks like the pencil impact frames and the cubic debris. It's rare to see scenes this densely packed with distinct styles and techniques, and executing all of them so well is even more exceptional. Yutapon has been one of the best action specialists in the industry for long enough to be a big influence on the new generations of animators, and the idea of youngsters learning from him is frankly appealing.
Animator Expo, Nishi-Ogikubo
It would feel wrong not to bring up Animator Expo when talking about the most precious moments of animation 2015 has brought us. And after its (so far) three short seasons, the sakuga spectacle that's impressed me the most is still Nishi-Ogikubo. “Scale” is the key element of this short movie about a woman who's become a cockroach and thus greatly shrunk; many of its best sequences play around the idea of traversing a familiar setting that's now become dangerous for her and interacting with oversized objects. Amongst them all, my personal favorite is this scene by Nishi Ogikubo's original author, Takeshi Honda himself – an ambitious sequence using lots of background animation to make the setting feel huge, as she desperately chases her husband across the room. Technically outrageous and very illustrative of the aim of this film, without a doubt a scene I'll treasure.
Shirobako Episode #23
As someone who perceives animation as a fundamental narrative element rather than a complimentary storytelling tool, I feel the need to talk about some powerful scenes that were made impactful by the visual execution. Powerful narrative beats can happen in scenes with barely any words spoken, as the climax of Shirobako #23 proves. All of Aoi's worries come to an end, as not only are her work related problems on track to be fixed but her friend who she'd been worrying about finally caught a break. All while fulfilling their dream of working together. They express their relief in completely opposite ways – Aoi can't stop herself from crying while Zuka smiles from the bottom of her heart for the first time in a long while. The entire series built up to this moment, and it's their delicate gestures that make it feel grand.Shirobako as a whole isn't a notable production, and its craft highlights mostly come from the very appropriate industry cameos (how cool is it to have Gundam Unicorn's main effects artist in charge of the scene drawn by Musani's effects expert?! ). That scene however was the labor of love of Nishihata Ayumi and Yuriko Ishii, one of the show's main animators and P.A. Works’ best character artist respectively. In a vacuum this wouldn't be a technical masterpiece by any stretch, but within context it's one of the most rewarding scenes I've experienced.
Sound! Euphonium Episode #12
And to end with another emotionally satisfying piece of animation, back to Sound! Euphonium once again. Kumiko is quietly walking home, until the frustration she's been building up for 12 episodes explodes and she breaks into a sprint ; her newfound love for music and the goals she yearns for have created a very intense desire to improve that her own skills can't always keep up with. The running starts with an excellent 3D tracking shot that marries CG and 2D craft, and what follows is equally outstanding - insanely polished drawings, a quick succession of good layouts and a constant flow of people to make it feel like an actual part of a city. The attention to detail is palpable, as you notice things like her hair progressively losing its usual fluffy form the more she runs. A girl sprinting through a bridge is perfectly ordinary content, yet everything about the execution elevates this to a truly special moment.Much like the previous Sound! Euphonium scene, this belongs to an episode directed by Yoshiji Kigami; he took a directional break in 2014 after handling the best animated TV anime episode of 2013, and his comeback this year has been certainly impressive. A very experienced master animator who now as a director can breathe life into mundane situations and make them shine. Very few people have such a grasp on this medium as he does, so we should treasure his exceptional work.
Since 10 is an arbitrary number and a whole year contains more cartoon goodness than a single article can dissect, I'm ending this while still thinking of many lovely moments of animation. Death Parade's striking skating scene with lots of Takashi Kojima cuts, Hachiman's emotional catharsis in My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU Too! by Tetsuya Takeuchi, the extraordinary weighty action in Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? #8, Kou Yoshinari's unbelievable CG-like drawings on Seraph of the end, the explosions of young talent on webgen series like Yatterman Night and Monster Musume… And of course this has all been mostly focused on TV productions since the availability of OVA and movies in the west isn't always the best, but those larger productions are logically full of notable scenes as well! From the flashy finale of Little Witch Academia 2 with the Yoshinari School of effects in full display, to a lot more grounded scenes like Toshiyuki Inoue's work on Miss Hokusai, there's plenty of work outside of TV series I've loved this year. Even a film I haven't actually had the chance to see yet like Boruto has won me over thanks to this spectacular preview!
And so, what were your favorite moments of animation in 2015? Were they quiet and understated scenes serving a narrative purpose, or were they thrilling action sequences seeking visual spectacle? Let us know in the forums!Many Americans were upset earlier this week that a mall Santa had been fired without cause, but outcry over the incident has reportedly forced Tysons Corner Center, one of the biggest malls in Washington, D.C. area, to reverse course.
Michael Graham, who had played Santa there for 18 years, reached an agreement with the mall to get his job back, according to the Associated Press. The surprise in the article, however, is that Graham makes $175 per hour as Santa!
Cue the Gershwin hit, “Nice Work If You Can Get It.”
Graham’s hourly wage is 10 times the going rate, AP reports. Where is the Professional Santa Claus Impersonators Association to comment on this?
Of course, being Santa is hard work: The outfit is hot and itchy, the kids can be bratty and demanding, and their parents even more so. But if you’re good — and all accounts suggest that Michael Graham excels in the job — it could be the most lucrative seasonal job that doesn’t require much training.
If Graham’s Santa gig were full-time, year-round, the salary would put him in the top earning echelon, according to PayScale.com. Al Lee, PayScale.com’s director of quantitative analysis, notes that the average anesthesiologist salary is $270K per year, or $135/hour. The typical salary for a CEO of a 500-person company is even less, at $251K per year, or $125/hour.
Even year-round full-time contractors (with degrees) don’t make close to that kind of hourly wage. Contract recruiters in California make between $80 and $100 per hour, depending on years of experience, according to Bob Hancock, senior recruiter at Electronic Arts.Not sure this is what Commissioner Goodell had in mind when he emphasized community outreach. A pair of new videos showing several NFL players taunting fans, and screaming the “f-word” have been revealed.
The videos from last Monday’s game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Washington Redskins show Redskins player Terrell Pryor and Chiefs player Marcus Peters going off on fans who were yelling at them from the stands.
In the first video, Chiefs defensive back Marcus Peters responds to fans who were likely offering less than kind criticism after he gave up a 44-yard touchdown early in the game.
Peters is seen yelling out, “F**k you, b**ch,” and then slamming his helmet to the ground in anger:
RT if you agree @Chiefs player Marcus Peters should be suspended |
but in terms of physical injuries, it is not as bad as had initially been thought.
"His medical condition is the first priority and after that there will be a medical investigation as to what happened to him immediately before the incident."
Stacy Woods witnessed the crash.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The bus ended up on its side after the accident
"It was quite dramatic. I ran up right away just to see if I could help out," she said.
"A lot of people were there on the scene and helped out.
"A lot of people from the oncoming traffic just went over to help smash open the windows to get the people out. It was very public driven.
"The guy I took to hospital and his baby were ok, that was all that mattered."
Investigation
Mr Rogan said it was too early to say if the accident had been caused by mechanical failure or human error.
He said a full investigation was being led by the police.
"On the engineering side they have impounded the vehicle, the CCTV from inside the vehicle, so they will complete a full engineering investigation, assisted by ourselves," he said.A gang of highway robbers allegedly gang-raped four women in a field and shot dead a male relative trying to save them off the Yamuna Expressway in Uttar Pradesh’s Gautam Budh Nagar early on Thursday, police said.
Eight members of a family were travelling to Bulandshahr from Greater Noida’s Jewar when they were waylaid by the six-member gang at about 1.30am. The gang also looted near Rs 50,000 in cash and valuables, police said quoting the victims.
When the man, 38, tried to resist, he was shot dead.
Read | Greater Noida ‘gang rape’, murder: Death has haunted family for last 5 years
“We have registered a case of murder, abduction, gang rape and robbery... Three teams, including personnel from special operation group, crime branch and local police have been formed,” said Ram Kumar, inspector general of police, Meerut range. “We are also seeking the help of the special task force to investigate the matter.”
Uttar Pradesh, with the longest road network among all states, accounts for the highest number of highway crimes in India. National Crime Records Bureau’s data for 2014 show 80% of the 84,000 such cases across the country were recorded in the state.
Last July, a mother and her 13-year-old daughter were waylaid and gang-raped by a group of robbers, also in Bulandshahr.
The incident sparked a political blame-game ahead of the assembly elections, with the BJP accusing the then Samajwadi Party government of failing to protect the state’s “daughters and daughters-in-law”. The BJP swept to power two months ago promising better policing.
Like in last year’s incident, the robbers used a home-made device called ‘khadanja’ -- a thick piece of rubber with protuding iron nails – to puncture two wheels of the eight-seater vehicle, a Maruti Eeco.
Read | Noida woman, daughter raped near Bulandshahr highway, 15 detained
“They (the robbers) told us to get down and showed us pistols. We were asked to move towards the field. They tied the hands and legs of the men including me by using the dupattas of the women... we begged them to leave us, but no one listened,” said one of the victims. The men are ironsmith in Jewar.
He said when one of the men asked the robbers to leave the women, they fired a bullet near his feet and then shot him in his chest. “They told him, ‘tu kya kar lega (what will you do),” he said.
Read | I want to punish attackers with my own hands: Bulandshahr rape victim
The owner of the vehicle, who was informed about the punctures by the driver just before the robbers attacked, said he could hear women’s cries for help on the phone.
“I kept saying, ‘hello, hello,’ but there was no response from other side. It made me suspicious,” he said, adding he informed the dead man’s nephew about the phone call.
He later informed police and gave them the location the driver had mentioned.
Read | Three women gang-raped by robbers in Greater Noida
The Congress accused the Yogi Adityanath government of failing to contain “riot, arson, loot, murder and rape” A team lead by state Congress president Raj Babbar also visited the incident spot, around 100 kilometre from Delhi.
BJP minister Suresh Khanna denied the charges.
“Crime rate cannot be zero in society. Police cannot be deployed everywhere,” he said. “Unlike other regimes, our government will not shield or harbour criminals. We will nab the culprits...,” he added.
First Published: May 25, 2017 11:08 ISTIn response to Brian Hoyer's Wild Card Weekend meltdown, owner Bob McNair has made it clear that the Texans will be in the market for a quarterback upgrade this offseason.
While veteran options such as Robert Griffin III and Sam Bradford have been linked to Houston via the rumor mill, John McClain of the Houston Chronicle is convinced the team will look to the draft for its next franchise quarterback.
"They want to draft (a quarterback) in the first round. They're tired of using retreads," McClain told Tim McManus of Philadelphia Magazine. "They played five this year, started four. Last year they played four and started three. So they need a quarterback, and they want one that they can develop."
McNair has strongly suggested that this will indeed be his front office's approach, recently noting that the Texans "have a good chance" at selecting a quarterback prospect early in the 2016 NFL Draft.
Big names such as North Dakota State's Carson Wentz, Cal's Jared Goff and Memphis' Paxton Lynch are unlikely to be on the board when Houston picks at No. 22 overall, which could lead to a reunion between coach Bill O'Brien and one of his star recruits at Penn State.
"I think Christian Hackenberg is going to end up being reunited with Bill O'Brien," McClain offered. "I think that's going to be their quarterback. I think O'Brien loves the guy. I don't know that, but I just think he does based on what I've heard.
"People that think Bradford is coming here, chances are they're going to be mistaken."
It should be noted that McClain isn't reporting any news here. He's merely expressing an opinion based on multiple factors, including conversations with Texans sources.
We give extra weight to that opinion not only out of deference to McClain's 35 years covering the NFL, but also because he's adding context to the owner's comments strongly indicating a preference for a young quarterback over a reclamation project.This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Today, Vermont is set to become the first state in the nation to offer single-payer healthcare when Governor Peter Shumlin signs its healthcare reform bill into law.
The cost of healthcare has risen sharply in Vermont in recent years, as it has everywhere in the country. The Vermont plan, called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, will attempt to stem that rise and also provide universal coverage. Every Vermont resident will be eligible for coverage under the state-run health plan.
Earlier this year, Governor Shumlin explained to Democracy Now! why the state needs the change.
GOV. PETER SHUMLIN: Here’s our challenge. Our premiums go up 10, 15, 20 percent a year. This is true in the rest of the country, as well. They are killing small business. They’re killing middle-class Americans, who have been kicked in the teeth over the last several years. What our plan will do is create a single pool, get the insurance company profits, the pharmaceutical company profits, the other folks that are mining the system to make a lot of money on the backs of our illnesses, and ensure that we’re using those dollars to make Vermonters healthy.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Governor Shumlin has appointed a five-member board to determine payment rates for doctors and what benefits to cover. Given all the details that need to be worked out, the plan may not go into effect until 2017.
AMY GOODMAN: To discuss the signing of the bill into law and the details of the plan, we’re going to the capital of Vermont, Montpelier, where we’re joined by Dr. Deb Richter. She’s the president of Vermont Health Care for All. Dr. Richter moved from Buffalo, New York, to Vermont 12 years ago to advocate for universal, single-payer healthcare in Vermont. Governor Shumlin calls her the “backbone” of the grassroots effort that helped persuade the Democratic legislature to pass the bill this spring.
Dr. Richter, welcome to Democracy Now! This is an enormous day for you. You’re going from your house to the Capitol for the signing. Can you explain what this bill actually does?
DR. DEB RICHTER: Well, this bill really establishes a framework for a true healthcare system, which is lacking anywhere in the United States. And what it will do is put in place a board that will oversee the healthcare system, and the board will be nominated in July. And we’ll start working in October to look at how we can reduce cost in our system. And that will be sort of the first phase. And most Vermonters won’t feel too much then, except probable a slowing of the rate of increase of their premiums.
And then the second phase, if we can’t get a change in federal law, is we will build the exchange according to federal law. But we will heavily regulate the insurance companies within that exchange and try to also streamline the payments to providers by making them uniform, calling them “all payer rates.” So that’s sort of the second phase.
And then the third phase, if we get the waivers that we need in 2017, we hope to have a publicly financed single-payer healthcare — as close to a single-payer healthcare system as we can get.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And why the long wait, Dr. Richter, until 2017 for a full implementation? Is there any concern on your part that a change in the political climate, new people elected in Vermont, might attempt to roll that back in that period of time?
DR. DEB RICHTER: Well, we are not — we are not naive enough to think that we are not going to have significant challenges trying to get this bill in place. Our problem is really the federal law put restrictions on states that they couldn’t apply for waivers until 2017. What we’re hoping is that we can roll that back to 2014 and get our system in place before then.
And we’ve had — look, we’ve had struggles up 'til this point, and no one said we could get this far, and people were basically naysayers saying that you'll never get this far. And we’ve gotten this far. And I think the same energy that got us this far — we have a congressional delegation that is superb. We have a wonderful legislature; at this point, they’re all in — most of — the majority are in favor of single payer. And, of course, we have our governor, who campaigned on this issue, and a strong grassroots movement in the state of Vermont. And all of those together are really going to be needed to get us to where we need to go in 2017, or hopefully 2014.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Richter, did you actually move from Buffalo, New York, to Vermont for this purpose, to get one state in the nation to pass single payer? And why did you choose Vermont?
DR. DEB RICHTER: It was one of the major factors as to why we moved here. It’s also an absolutely beautiful state, wonderful schools, great place to raise children. We had two teenage kids at the time, and it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.
But the other reason was, I was trying to do advocacy to get a single-payer healthcare system in New York — very naive of me, I think — and realized I was spinning my wheels in New York. And I really, at that point, felt that it needed to happen in one state or several states, and I figured Vermont was a wonderful place. We have a citizen legislature. Within six months of moving here, I met the governor at the time, was Howard Dean. I met the speaker of the House, who called me up, after writing a letter to the editor. I met all of my key legislators, the heads of committees. They’re very — it’s a very open process. They don’t even have offices. In fact, all of the lobbying and education goes on in the cafeteria. So it’s very accessible. And there’s only 300,000 voters in Vermont. So it seemed like, why not? It seemed like the right thing to do.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And in terms of being able to win support among the public and among the politicians in Vermont, you often talked about your own experiences, the problems that you have dealing with all of the different insurance companies that a medical practice has to deal with. Could you talk about that and how that was able — you were able to use those arguments to convince people of the need for single payer?
DR. DEB RICHTER: Right. I mean, that’s what originally had sort of inspired me to look into how could we fix the healthcare system. I had, in Buffalo, 40 percent of my patients had no insurance, and many of them died young as a result of preventable illnesses, as a result of having been on and off insurance. And I had dozens of examples that — from my own practice, just me — if you multiply that times 700,000, you get an idea of how widespread this problem was.
And in addition, the amount of administrative burden and all of the bureaucracy that was — I’m a primary care physician, and all of the bureaucracy that we had — the hoops we had to jump through just to get patients the care they needed was ridiculous. And we know that 31 percent of the healthcare dollar is spent on administrative costs, transaction costs and paperwork. And just ask any primary care doctor, and they can tell you that they actually live that every single day.
So those are the things that I think resonated with people. I think people who had gone to the doctor 30 years ago and didn’t see all those people behind the counter just pushing paper, it’s something that they all felt. And we’re seeing this. More and more in the middle class is now experiencing what the poorer folks used to experience in terms of access. And I think that now that we have probably a majority of the population experiencing problems, this is something that’s resonating. And I do believe that that’s one of the major reasons that we got this legislation passed this year.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Richter, can you explain more who exactly is going to pay for this? Of course, that’s the argument that’s used all over the country. This is what we most understand as Medicare, but you just drop the age of eligibility to zero, to when — the day you’re born.
DR. DEB RICHTER: Well, I’d like to point out that we always ask this question: how are we going to pay for it? I think we should remind people that they’re paying — every penny of the healthcare dollar is coming from Americans. Right now we’re paying — 60 percent of it is financed through taxes, 20 percent out of pocket, and 20 percent for private insurance premiums. That’s all coming from us. We either give up higher wages, or we pay higher prices for goods, or we give up paving our roads. All of those things go into financing the healthcare system now.
What this bill will do — and we do not have a financing mechanism set up yet. We did have Dr. William Hsiao, who suggested an 11 percent payroll tax on employers and a three percent payroll tax on the employees could finance a very robust benefit package for all Vermonters. At the time, the Governor felt that we really needed to look into whether that was the best way. But it is — we have committed to broad-based taxes to finance the healthcare system, much like you described, a Medicare for all, which would be — you’d get it at birth rather than waiting 'til you're 65. More than likely, this will be some combination of a payroll tax, perhaps some income tax, perhaps some other taxes, but that will then be in place of premiums and out-of-pocket payments. So, we should keep in mind that what this does is it dedicates financing for the healthcare that we expect to be there for us.
AMY GOODMAN: I should just clarify something. When you said Dr. Hsiao, this very interesting Harvard economist who Vermont hired, who addressed a rare session, a joint session, of the Vermont legislature, with all three — the whole delegation from Congress, the two senators and the Congress member there, as well as the Governor, to lay out what the proposals are. Juan?
JUAN GONZALEZ: Yeah, I’d like to ask you about the response of the doctors of the state. And there’s obviously public support for it, but what about the medical community? What’s been their response to your efforts and to the new plan?
DR. DEB RICHTER: Well, we’ve had some opposition, but there was a public hearing for providers. This was — included hospitals. And what we found was, two to one were in favor of single payer. And that’s particularly true in the primary care specialty. Eighty percent, roughly 80 percent nationally and in other state polls have shown that primary care, 80 percent of them are in favor. And we — our American Academy of Family Physicians Vermont chapter endorsed it. Our Vermont Psychiatric Association endorsed it.
What we find is that there is opposition. Most of it is in the sub-specialties, and these are physicians that are very worried about their income. And that’s what they specified as one of their bigger concerns. And I would try to — you know, I tried to explain to them that if they read the bill, actually, the bill states that the payments for providers will be adequate to sustain their medical practices. And Dr. Hsiao specifically stated that doctors would see no net loss in income under the financing plan that he had worked out. So, I think, as physicians, we — it’s going to take time. They need to be educated. I think they need to get more comfortable with this. And we also want their input. I think if we can get the input of providers and patients, we can build a system that’s unique for Vermont.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, this is very interesting that this is going to happen today in Vermont. If you look at the example of Canada, it was Tommy Douglas, the premier of Saskatchewan, who — what — the poll was taken, calling him the greatest Canadian, who got it in Saskatchewan in the early '60s, when we were having our debate on Medicare in this country. And then it rapidly was adopted throughout Canada. And that's how they got what they call Medicare there, single payer for all there. Interestingly, his grandson is the actor Kiefer Sutherland. Are you thinking that Vermont will be the beginning, just the beginning?
DR. DEB RICHTER: Absolutely. I think Vermont tends to be first. We were the first to abolish slavery. We have many firsts in our state. And the attitude is, is we see a problem and we try to fix it. The idea of negative thinking is not so much a part of our DNA. So, I am very confident that we will certainly embark on this, and I do believe that we will see single payer in 2017.
AMY GOODMAN: And Bernie Sanders, the senator, and Congressman McDermott from Washington state have introduced the legislation for single-payer healthcare into Congress once again.
DR. DEB RICHTER: Right. And I think it’s important to point out also that being — the ultimate goal is a national single-payer, Medicare-for-all system. This is really — what our feeling is is that this is going to be the best way for us to show the rest of the nation that we actually can cover people for less money, but you need a single-payer system to do it.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And how do you respond to those who might say that Vermont is not representative of the rest of the country, it’s sort of the Berkeley of the East, the eastern part of the United States, and that the state is a small state of 600,000 that — without the disparities in wealth and income, without the extreme poverty that you might find in other parts of the country, that what’s workable there might not be workable in the rest of the country?
DR. DEB RICHTER: Well, I think the problems of costs are present everywhere, and those are going to worsen. In fact, they’re going to worsen in Vermont before we get this thing fixed. And I think we’re going to see a lot more converts if that starts to happen. And more and more people are giving up coverage and having problems with getting — accessing healthcare as a result. And as a result of that, I think this will become an offer that few of them will be able to refuse.
It probably will start with some of the blue states first, I think. I envision it as something that would probably happen in the New England states in the Northeast first, before we see it in Alabama or Mississippi. I think that’s way down the road. And certainly, a small state — I think the important thing to remember is, a larger state, that’s all the more reason to have simplified billing and administration and a simplified way of paying for healthcare. It actually argues to having that be more the reason why they should be doing this.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, the insurance industry and the drug lobby in Vermont, what happened with them?
DR. DEB RICHTER: Well, Blue Cross Blue Shield, which is our major insurer, they have the major percentage of the market, I believe 60 percent of the market. They actually were neutral on the bill. They said that they envision themselves as being the single payer — in other words, the single processor of claims — if we got our single-payer system in 2017. So they did not feel threatened by it. There’s another major insurer that has 15 percent of the market, MVP, that actually issued a statement opposing the bill. The others didn’t say a word. And I probably — I think they probably won’t, but they will find subterranean ways of trying to co-opt this by funding ads and campaigns to try to flip the legislature and convince the public that this is a bad thing to do.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we want to thank you very much for being with us, Dr. Deb Richter. And of course, we’ll cover the signing ceremony today. Vermont is poised today to become the first state to pass single-payer healthcare and will require a waiver from the government to be able to move forward. Interestingly, in Vermont, the governor is elected every two years, so, Juan, your point about changing climate and what will happen is very significant. Dr. Deb Richter, thanks for joining us, president of Vermont Health Care for All. She practices family medicine in Montpelier, Vermont, and is a past president of Physicians for a National Health Program.
When we come back, we’ll be joined by another Vermonter, not just talking about Vermont, but that’s the environmentalist Bill McKibben. The horrible tornadoes, the powerful tornadoes that are killing hundreds, we’ll talk about what their connection is to climate change, to global warming. Stay with us.Controversy
Shah had asked whether any protest led to “bursting of teargas and lathi-charges," the Mysuru MP claimed.
The controversy surrounding the arrest of Mysuru MP Pratap Simha took a fresh twist after a video clip surfaced on Monday, which showed Simha speaking about BJP National President Amit Shah asking the party’s Yuva Morcha in Karnataka to hold aggressive protests.
In the 37-second video clip that is being shared on WhatsApp and social media platforms, Simha discloses that he and other Yuva Morcha members had a discussion with Amit Shah where the veteran BJP leader asked whether the Yuva Morcha had held protests in the state.
When the Yuva Morcha members described the protests they had held, Shah reportedly urged them to hold more aggressive protests, by asking them whether any protest led to “bursting of teargas and lathi-charges."
Simha responded by saying that there had been no such protests in the state, to which Shah reportedly urged the Yuva Morcha members to up the ante. The video ends with Simha reassuring people that he would abide by these instructions
The clip appears to be part of a longer Facebook Live video published by Simha. When Simha was asked about the video clip at a press conference in Mysuru on Monday, the MP dismissed it as a ‘cut-and-paste’ job, reported The Hindu.
The video went viral following the controversial arrest of Simha before Hanuman Jayanti celebrations in Hunsuru. The police resorted to a lathi-charge after people gathered to celebrate the festival agitated against the arrest of BJP MP Pratap Simha. The MP had been taken into preventive custody when he was on his way to attend the festival celebrations, but was released on Sunday night.
Reacting to the video, state BJP president BS Yeddyurappa said that Simha had misunderstood the directions issued by Shah. "It seems that Pratap Simha has misunderstood the instructions of Shah. He (Shah) has only directed party members to take up public issues strongly and stage protests," Yeddyurappa said, speaking to The New Indian Express.
The video clip also drew sharp reactions from Congress party members with Chief Minister Siddaramaiah taking to Twitter to vent his ire at Simha.The firestorm engulfing the White House consumed Capitol Hill on Wednesday as the first Republicans publicly suggested that President Trump could be at risk of impeachment.
That development came as a handful of GOP lawmakers joined the calls for a special prosecutor or independent commission to investigate whether the Trump campaign had anything to do with Russia’s attempt to sway the 2016 presidential election and whether Trump tried to halt the FBI investigation into the matter.
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By the end of the day Wednesday, the Justice Department announced that former FBI Director Robert Mueller will serve as a special counsel to oversee the agency’s investigation of Russia’s attempts to influence the 2016 election.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said a special counsel “is necessary in order for the American people to have full confidence in the outcome.”
Both the House Oversight and Senate Intelligence committees on Wednesday also called on James Comey, the former FBI director fired by Trump last week, to testify before Congress and hand over memos about his meetings with the president.
Tempers on Capitol Hill were running hot as reporters and TV cameras swarmed GOP lawmakers at the Capitol Hill Club and near the Senate subway, causing Senate staff to warn news outlets that they may restrict access due to “large and aggressive” press groups. A veteran reporter and a Hill staffer got into a shouting match over access as reporters looked on.
The flurry of activity came on the first full day after The New York Times’s bombshell report that Trump urged Comey to halt his agency’s probe into former national security adviser Michael Flynn during a February Oval Office meeting that Comey reportedly documented in a memo.
When asked by The Hill if the allegations in the Comey memo could be grounds for impeachment if true, Rep. Justin Amash Justin Amash13 House Republicans who bucked Trump on emergency declaration House votes to overturn Trump's emergency declaration The Hill's 12:30 Report: First test for Trump emergency declaration MORE (R-Mich.) said yes. “But everybody gets a fair trial in this country,” he added.
Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.) has compared the allegations to the obstruction of justice cases that led to impeachment proceedings for former Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton William (Bill) Jefferson ClintonKasich fundraises off 2020 speculation Inviting Kim Jong Un to Washington Howard Schultz must run as a Democrat for chance in 2020 MORE. “Obstruction of justice is an impeachable offense,” Curbelo said in an interview Wednesday.
And Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.) told The Hill, “I think legal scholars will probably start giving the justification of whether the House should or should not move forward on impeachment.”
The three GOP lawmakers are all longtime Trump critics who’ve expressed alarm over his behavior during the 2016 campaign and his time so far in office.
Yet it’s clear that Republicans as a whole are disturbed by the latest Trump controversy — just days after he ousted Comey and The Washington Post reported he shared highly classified information with Russian officials — and are suggesting the president may have gone too far.
Ahead of the Justice Department’s announcement of a special counsel, centrist Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) said on CNN Wednesday morning that he was now open to appointing a special prosecutor or creating an independent commission to investigate Russia’s role in the election.
House Democrats initiated a procedure on Wednesday known as a “discharge petition” to try to force a vote on legislation to establish an independent commission. Jones, who endorsed the original bill, signed on to the long-shot effort.
“I think I understand the politics of the hesitation by the leadership. I understand that,” Jones said. “But if this continues to move forward... I think they would make a mistake if they don’t become more proactive.”
Idaho Rep. Mike Simpson urged GOP leaders to get on board with the idea.
“I don’t think the [Intelligence] Committee is going to do their job,” Simpson said, warning that the two parties could arrive at conflicting conclusions. “That’s why you need somebody independent. We’re too involved, frankly.”
Still, those voices calling for more congressional action are in the minority. The vast majority of House and Senate GOP lawmakers said they remain comfortable with the existing probes by the House and Senate Intelligence committees, as well as the ongoing FBI probe.
In the end, the Justice Department helped take some pressure off Republicans on Capitol Hill by announcing Mueller’s appointment.
But before the announcement, GOP lawmakers were wary of upping investigations into Trump’s ties to Russia.
“I have confidence in the two Intelligence committees and the hardworking professionals in the FBI,” said Rep. Leonard Lance (R-N.J.), who is expected to have a tough race in 2018 and voted against the House GOP’s healthcare bill. “This is a serious matter, and I want Director Comey to be able to come before the Congress as soon as possible, preferably in an open hearing, because we need to get to the bottom of this.”
Even Sen. Jeff Flake Jeffrey (Jeff) Lane FlakeBrexit and exit: A transatlantic comparison Poll: 33% of Kentucky voters approve of McConnell Trump suggests Heller lost reelection bid because he was 'hostile' during 2016 presidential campaign MORE (R-Ariz.), a vocal Trump critic facing reelection next year, said he wasn’t ready to call for an independent prosecutor or commission. “I’m not there,” he said.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley Charles (Chuck) Ernest GrassleyOvernight Health Care: Senators grill drug execs over high prices | Progressive Dems unveil Medicare for all bill | House Dems to subpoena Trump officials over family separations Senate confirms Trump court pick despite missing two 'blue slips' GOP lawmaker says panel to investigate drug company gaming of patent system MORE (R-Iowa) has demanded that the FBI turn over all of Comey’s memos about Trump but said chatter about impeachment across the Capitol is premature.
“I usually trust people until I find out they’re liars,” Grassley told reporters. Impeachment “is something that I haven’t seen any evidence [for] yet, but if there were evidence, a violation of law, then that’s very serious.”
Addressing reporters this week, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Addison (Mitch) Mitchell McConnellWhite House pleads with Senate GOP on emergency declaration Senate Dems seek to turn tables on GOP in climate change fight Pence meets with Senate GOP for 'robust' discussion on Trump declaration MORE (R-Ky.) and Speaker Paul Ryan Paul Davis RyanBrexit and exit: A transatlantic comparison Five takeaways from McCabe’s allegations against Trump The Hill's 12:30 Report: Sanders set to shake up 2020 race MORE (R-Wis.) rebuffed calls within their party for more congressional action, saying they both have absolute confidence in Trump and the existing Hill investigations.
Ryan cautioned against “rushing to judgment” amid swirling allegations about the president and questioned why Comey didn’t say something when Trump allegedly tried to quash the FBI probe.
“We need the facts. It is obvious there are some people out there who want to harm the president and that means before rushing to judgment we get all the pertinent information,” Ryan told reporters at Republican National Committee headquarters. “The Oversight and Government Reform Committee has appropriately requested this memo and I’m sure we’re going to want to hear from Mr. Comey about why, if this happened as he allegedly describes, why didn’t he take action at the time.”
“Our job is to be responsible, sober and focused only on gathering the facts,” he continued. “That is what Congress does in conducting oversight of the executive branch.”
Ryan delivered that same message earlier in the morning during a closed-door meeting with his rank-and-file members. But some Republicans emerging from that gathering complained that leadership wasn’t doing enough to develop a singular party message on how to respond to the constant drip of negative news stories related to Russia.
That lack of coordination has caused some Republicans to “go rogue.”
“A lot of them are saying, ‘Let’s wait and see, let’s work the process,’ ” said one GOP lawmaker frustrated with leadership. “But some members can’t wait. They’ve got to go out there and say something. They will do what they think is right and that’s go rogue.”
Jordain Carney contributed.Gen 1-4 United!!
Edit* This shall be my memorial for the first 4 generations.To everyone of these pokemonThank you for giving me alot of great memories that I will always treasure!!love you all!please click download to see the full view to enjoy the Craziness!Edit*: if you really enjoy this or Love it, Please check this: [link] out and leave a message! THank you!!!!!Edit2*: If you are interested in a print for 493Here is photos of the poster in real life and details about the price:Close up of certain parts of the drawingCHarizard:Legendary birds:Parent pokemon:others:AnyhowIT starts off a quick draw section idea, to become fallen in love to make it a projectand then a roller coaster ride of process.It was great doing the first two generations, then come the third and the fourthMan....I recognize all of them, but I really didn't know the new one have some tough cookies!Specially after drawing the two generations, hitting those one are quite a tough experience...Man... took me twice as much time as I draw the first two gen.... Guess I am too old school...HahahahaNOw here it is at the end of the line.Hope you all enjoy this.I am grateful for those who comments to support to drawing project.As I was drawing this, I realizes one big reason to do this drawing.Thanks to those wonderful people, I did this drawing NOWCause if you all think about it....THe new game is coming out....and before the new game there are 493 pokemonafter the next oneIt's going to be 600 or more!!!Imagine drawing that many!!!!I might as well jsut chop my hand off and kill myselfHahahaaa(well not that extreme...but you got the feeling...)SO thank you for those wonderful peopleTHis pokemon drawing is what kinda represent me... abitwell... no not really...HahahaHowever, this drawing isn`t just a number gamebut also if you take the time to look into itThere are alot of little stories in the drawing, bit and piecesI might post some close up of some funny one that I want to share with you all.SIGH...IT's finally done....Thanks for Checking it out!P.S This is not the highest quality, cause the original quality is way too bigNorth Korea's new rocket engine might help the country launch satellites to higher orbits, as the rogue nation claims — but the technology could also help North Korea's (possibly nuclear-armed) missiles fly farther, researchers said.
On Tuesday (Sept. 20), North Korea's state news agency reported a ground test "of a new type of high-power engine of a carrier rocket for the geostationary satellite." Geostationary satellites are located in circular orbits about 22,200 miles (35,8000 kilometers) above Earth's equator, and are often used for communications, weather and surveillance applications.
However, many observers outside North Korea see its space program as a way to develop technologies for long-range ballistic missiles. Such weapons could carry nuclear bombs, which North Korea has tested multiple times. [Images: North Korea's Rocket Program]
The new engine does advance both North Korea's civil and its military rocket efforts, said missile expert David Wright, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a science advocacy group in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Wright is co-director of the group's Global Security Program.
"This is the kind of thing you try and build to get more rocket capabilities, whether you're trying to build a ballistic missile or space-launch vehicle," Wright told Space.com.
This new rocket engine is larger than North Korea's previous efforts. In the test, the engine was strapped to a test stand, which is typical for tests of engines that are still in development, Wright said.
North Korea said the new engine produced 80 tons of thrust. If true, that is about 2.5 times as much thrust as the engine used in North Korea's Nodong missile, which produces about 30 tons of thrust and has a range of about 800 miles (1,300 km), Wright said. He noted that North Korea used a cluster of four Nodong engines to power the first stage of the country's Unha satellite launcher, which placed small satellites in orbit in 2012 and 2016.
North Korea has launched several rockets and missiles as part of budding space program. Here's how North Korea's Unha-3 rocket works (Image: © Karl Tate, SPACE.com Contributor)
"The Unha launcher can put maybe 100 kilograms [220 lbs.] into a pretty low orbit, maybe 400 or 500 kilometers [250 to 310 miles]" above the Earth's surface, Wright said. "By increasing the thrust, it allows North Korea to lift satellites to higher altitudes, or to carry a greater payload to |
in Syria, as has been so popular with the left. Document and identity thief Peter Gleick for example, argues in a paper “As described here, water and climatic conditions have played a direct role in the deterioration of Syria’s economic conditions.” Water, sure, climate not so much. For example, take the flag of Lebanon, note the cedar tree:
The Epic of Gilgamesh describes vast, unexplored cedar forests dominating the lands of the Mediterranean and Middle East. Now, deforestation makes scenes like this in Lebanon fairly common:
Now, with so many trees being cut for building, fuel, and export, there’s little remaining. A reforest Lebanon campaign hopes to reverse the problem.
In Syria’s case, the same thing is happening as this article from 2013 illustrates:
When armed political conflict occurs, the first causuality is stable supply lines. Any soldier, rebel, or general can tell you this. Yet climate crusading people like Gleick and Schellnhuber look for correlations, find what they are looking for, and discount the real human driven issue. Droughts start occurring when deforestation kills the local evapotranspiration – robbing the atmosphere and clouds of much needed moisture, resulting in less rainfall. It’s a age-old human pattern of land use abuse, and a textbook climate case of correlation is not causation.
At least, with increased CO2, the remaining trees can use water more efficiently.
Climate disasters increase risk of armed conflict in multi-ethnic countries
Climate disasters like heat-waves or droughts enhance the risk of armed conflicts in countries with high ethnic diversity
POTSDAM INSTITUTE FOR CLIMATE IMPACT RESEARCH (PIK)
This finding, to be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, can help in the design of security policies even more so since future global warming from human-made greenhouse-gas emissions will increase natural disasters and therefore likely also risks of conflicts and migration.
“Devastating climate-related natural disasters have a disruptive potential that seems to play out in ethnically fractionalized societies in a particularly tragic way,” says lead author Carl Schleussner from the Berlin think-tank Climate Analytics and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). Almost one quarter of conflicts in ethnically divided countries coincide with climatic calamities, the scientists found; importantly, this is even without taking climate change into account. “Climate disasters are not directly triggering conflict outbreak, but may enhance the risk of a conflict breaking out which is rooted in context-specific circumstances. As intuitive as this might seem, we can now show this in a scientifically sound way,” says Schleussner, who has also been a research fellow at Humboldt University, Berlin, at the Integrative Research Institute on Transformations of Human-Environment Systems (IRITHESys).
“We’ve been surprised to which extent results stick out compared to e.g. inequality”
Previous research often either focused on climatic variables such as temperature increase that cannot be directly translated into societal impacts, or has been limited to case studies. The new study moves beyond that by focusing directly on natural disaster-related economic damage data, collected by the international reinsurance market leader Munich Re. Using the mathematical method of event coincidence analysis, this is combined with a conflict dataset established by security research, and a common index for ethnical fractionalization. The study looks at the period 1980-2010.
“We’ve been surprised by the extent that results for ethnic fractionalized countries stick out compared to other country features such as conflict history, poverty, or inequality,” says co-author Jonathan Donges, co-head of PIK’s flagship project on co-evolutionay pathways COPAN. “We think that ethnic divides may serve as a predetermined conflict line when additional stressors like natural disasters kick in, making multi-ethnic countries particularly vulnerable to the effect of such disasters”
“A very special co-benefit of climate stabilization: peace”
The study cannot provide a risk assessment for specific states. Since armed conflicts and natural disasters are fortunately rare events, data from single countries is necessarily limited and does not suffice for statistical analyses.
“Armed conflicts are among the biggest threats to people, killing some and forcing others to leave their home and maybe flee to far-away countries. Hence identifying ethnic divide and natural disasters as enhancing destabilization risks is potentially quite relevant,” says co-author Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. “Human-made climate change will clearly boost heatwaves and regional droughts. Our observations combined with what we know about increasing climate-change impacts can help security policy to focus on risk regions.” Several of the world’s most conflict-prone regions, including North and Central Africa as well as Central Asia, are both exceptionally vulnerable to human-made climate change and characterized by deep ethnic divides. “So our study adds evidence,” Schellnhuber concludes, “of a very special co-benefit of climate stabilization: peace.”
###
Article: Schleussner, C.-F., Donges, J.F., Donner, R.V., Schellnhuber, H.J. (2016): Armed-conflict risks enhanced by climate-related disasters in ethnically fractionalized countries. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Early Edition, EE) [DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1601611113]
Weblink to the article once it is published: http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1601611113
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RedditCliff Bleszinski calls North Carolina Governor 'a bit of an idiot' over controversial LGBT laws Boss Key co-founder Cliff Bleszinski wants to make North Carolina an appealing place for game devs 'in spite of recent laws.'
Boss Key CEO Cliff Bleszinski has called out the Governor of North Carolina, Pat McCrory, in a recent interview with us on his upcoming title, Lawbreakers.
In our interview, Bleszinski discusses wanting to be part of the movement that helps push North Carolina towards a more progressive future, especially the downtown Raleigh area where Boss Key’s studio is located. His hope is to make the area a more appealing place to work “in spite of recent laws.”
"They call it a purple state," he said. "There are those of us who are trying to make it the new south--and are trolling Governor McCrory on Twitter on a regular basis because he's a bit of an idiot."
Bleszinski is referencing the controversial law that invalidates local anti-discrimination measures that were put in place to protect gay and transgender people in our interview. The law also requires people to use public toilets that correspond to the sex listed on their birth certificates. Shortly after the bill was passed, several major companies, including Apple, have criticized the law with others, such as PayPal, going as far as saying it would curtail its business in North Carolina because of it.
The controversial law has also been met with opposition from celebrities as several musicians, including Bruce Springsteen, Nick Jonas, Pearl Jam, and Demi Lovato, have recently cancelled their upcoming shows as a sign of protest against it.
Bleszinski obviously appears to be opposed to the controversial law, and calling out his state’s governor in public is one way to air his concerns. Hopefully he and other notable developers in the area can help drive the industry forward.Surprise! Redbox Instant by Verizon(s VZ) officially launched to the public Thursday, just as I had predicted in an earlier story. The launch comes after a three-month-long closed beta test that Redbox Instant CEO Shawn Strickland characterized as a great learning opportunity during a phone conversation Thursday morning. “Now we are open for business,” he added.
Redbox Instant currently offers its subscribers access to 4,600 subscription titles and four Redbox DVD rentals for $8 a month. Customers can also digitally rent or buy around 4,000 movies for a fee to augment their subscriptions with newer fare. Strickland told me that the service saw interest from “hundreds of thousands” of consumers who signed up to join the closed beta test. Tens of thousands not only joined for a free trial, but stayed around to become paying customers after their trial period ended.
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So who are those Redbox Instant customers? Strickland said that the beta test confirmed the company’s belief that it was primarily catering to people who still value physical rentals. “It’s a disc plus offering,” he said, with streaming supplementing DVD rentals. That’s also reflected in the type of content the company is making available for streaming. “It clearly starts with movies,” said Strickland, adding that the focus might evolve over time.
That approach is very different from Netflix, (s NFLX) which also started out with a movie-focused DVD service, but now invests heavily in TV content. Does that mean Netflix and Redbox are going to be complementary, as opposed to arch-enemies? My conversation with Strickland left me with the impression that he would be okay with that — as long as people are paying for his company’s service as well.
“We think that the over-the-top space will evolve very similarly to the cable and network space,” he said. Meaning: You might get your content from more than one streaming provider in the future, just like you get it from more than one cable network.
Of course, a large part of the rise of cable networks like HBO(s TWX) or even AMC has been the production of original content, something that has been an increasing focus of Netflix and Hulu as well. CAA agent Peter Micelli speculated a few days ago that Redbox Instant may venture into original content as well. Strickland called this kind of talk “really premature,” explaining that Redbox Instant doesn’t even have enough insights into what kind of exclusive content its subscribers could be interested in yet. But he added: “From an industry perspective, there is a clear force in that direction.”Following the buzz that accompanied Vici Gaming's acquisition of ex-SK Telecom T1 mid laner Lee "Easyhoon" Jihoon, Vici Gaming CEO Lu "HunTeR" Wenjun dismissed the fomos report that claimed Easyhoon would make more than $860,000 USD in 2016. HunTeR also informed fans that ex-Unlimited Potential support Lee "Heart" Gwanhyung, will play in the LPL next year but on a different team.
"Rumors of 5.5 million [RMB ($860,000 USD)]!" HunTeR's statement began, "South Korean media broke the news yesterday after we signed Easyhoon. I want to say that we did not spend so much money to contract Easyhoon. The price is much lower this year than it would have been last year. Many South Korean teams asked me about it, and I'm making this clarification."
HunTeR then went on to say that his negotiations with Easyhoon and SK Telecom T1 were conducted quietly, and Easyhoon himself turned down other offers.
"Easyhoon did not come to China for the money as other clubs quoted higher prices," HunTeR said.
Aside from Easyhoon's salary, fans have been asking about Unlimited Potential's support, Heart. Heart originally came to China as a support player for LSPL team Vici Gaming Potential, a team that became Unlimited Potential when they qualified forthe LPL.
After Unlimited Potential was relegated this summer, many wondered if Heart, who's now 27, would retire. Curiosity increased when Heart did not play in the recent National Electronic Esports Open or National Electronic Esports Tournament, and jungler Xei "Eimy" Dan took up the support role.
HunTeR assured fans that Heart wanted to continue to play and that Vici Gaming helped him find an LPL team.
"My personal relationship with Heart is very good," HunTeR said in his statement. "Because UP was demoted, but Heart wanted to stay in LPL, Vici Gaming has been looking for a new team for him. I can confirm this year he will go to a very good LPL team."
Speculation has already begun as to which LPL team has signed Heart, who performed well in the LPL this summer despite Unlimited Potential's relegation.
Kelsey Moser is a staff writer for theScore eSports. You can follow her on Twitter.Chinese companies invested $18.4 billion in the U.S. in the first half of this year, more than triple the amount invested in the first half of 2015, according to Rhodium Group.
To compare, Chinese companies invested $6.4 billion during the same period a year ago and $15.3 billion in all of 2015, the report said.
The increase was largely driven by private sector acquisitions – there were more than 55 completed deals - in services, technology and consumer-oriented assets as well as greenfield projects in real estate and manufacturing, the report said.
Though some are interpreting the recent surge in outbound FDI from China as capital flight in response to uncertainty about exchange rates as well as gloomy economic and political outlook in China, “more than 80% of all Chinese FDI transactions in the U.S. in the first half of 2015 can be characterized as strategic investments,” analysts Thilo Hanemann and Cassie Gao wrote in the report.
The largest Chinese acquisition so far this year was Haier’s $5.6 billion acquisition of General Electric’s appliance division. The acquisition closed in June. In January, Dalian Wanda agreed to acquire Legendary Entertainment for $3.5 billion. Omnivision Technologies was acquired by a consortium of Chinese private equity firms including CITIC Capital Holdings, Hua Capital Management and Goldstone Investment Co. for $1.9 billion earlier this year. In February, Ningbo Joyson Electric Corp. bought Key Safety Systems, an air-bag maker, for $920 million.
There are currently $23 billion in pending mergers & acquisitions, Rhodium Group said. Among those deals are Chinese aviation and shipping conglomerate HNA Group’s $6 billion bid for tech firm Ingram Micro. Also Anbang Insurance Group’s $6.5 billion bid to acquire Strategic Hotels.
The surge in outbound investments from China have not gone unnoticed by regulators. In China, regulators are increasing scrutiny on outbound investment transactions, the report said, with SAFE and other regulators taking some informal steps to “manage” the flow and consequently slowing or derailing a few transactions. This has “increased anxiety in the marketplace about the ability of Chinese companies to close deals, driving up risk premiums and reverse break fees for Chinese buyers,” the analysts wrote.“How to build a ruby Gem” tutorial by our Scrum Master Chris Young.
This weekend I built my first ruby gem. The stuff out there on the internet is pretty confusing so hopefully this post will make it exceedingly clear. The most complete source I found was the Railscast, “Making a gem”
Here are the steps I took:
1. Create the library
2. Use the echoe gem to create a rake file that will generate your gem spec
3. Use rake to create the manifest and gemspec
4. Install your gem locally
5. Create a self-signed certificate
6. Update the gemspec with the certificate information
7. Use ‘gem build’ to create the gem
8. Add your project to github
9. Use the gemcutter gem to host your gem on gemcutter
Create the library
Our library will have one method HelloWorld.say_hello that will write out ‘hello world’ when called. We’ll store the method in a module called “HelloWorld”, as suggested in the screencast.
1. > mkdir -p hello_world/lib
2. > touch hello_world/lib/hello_world.rb
2. Add this code to hello_world/lib/hello_world.rb:
module HelloWorld def self.say_hello puts 'hello world' end end
Create a rake file using echoe
There are a lot of gems out there that are made to make gem building easy. I went with what was recommended in the screencast and tried out the “echoe” gem.
1. > gem install echoe
2. > touch hello_world/Rakefile
3. Add this code to hello_world/Rakefile
require 'rubygems' require 'rake' require 'echoe' Echoe.new('helloworld', '0.0.1') do |p| p.description = "A gem that illustrates how to build a gem" p.url = "http://github.com/tombombadil/hello_world" p.author = "Chris Young" p.email = "beesucker @nospam@ gmail.com" p.ignore_pattern = ["tmp/*", "script/*"] p.development_dependencies = [] end
Now you can type rake -T and get a bunch of tasks to help you manage your gem.
Create a manifest and gemspec
A manifest just lists which files should be included in your gem and the gemspec has everything gem needs to manage versioning. Echoe is partial to rubyforge, but this didn’t keep me from being able to use it with github.
1. > cd hello_world
2. > rake manifest
3. > rake build_gemspec
Install your gem locally
Let’s make sure the gem works. Running this command will install your gem on your computer so you can test it.
1. > rake install helloworld.gemspec
2. start irb and test
>> irb > require 'rubygems' > require 'hello_world' > HelloWorld.say_hello hello world
It works!
Create a certificate
We’ll sign the gem with a self-signed certificate.
For some reason, the install moved the gemspec to the pkg directory. Let’s create it again.
1. > rake build_gemspec
2. > gem cert –build youremail@example.com
3. Important! Move the gem-private_key.pem file to a secure location
Update the gemspec with the certificate information
Add this code to hello_world.gemspec (use your own paths, of course):
s.signing_key = '/Volumes/Secure/Certificates/gem-private_key.pem' s.cert_chain = ['gem-public_cert.pem']
Create the gem
Now we’re getting close. This command will build the gem with your certificate.
> gem build hello_world.gemspec
Add the project to git
1. create the repository on github
2. > git init
3. > git add.
4. > git commit -m “initial commit”
5. > git remote add origin git@github.com:tombombadil/hello_world_gem.git
6. > git push origin master
Host your gem on gemcutter
1. Create a gemcutter account
2. > gem install gemcutter
3. > gem push hello_world-0.0.1.gemLooking for news you can trust?
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Jamelle Bouie points me toward the very conservative John Podhoretz today, who warns his fellow conservatives against their peculiar preoccupation with the idea that Barack Obama is an empty suit:
The weird condescension his opponents display toward him is ludicrously wrongheaded. They seem eager to believe he is a lightweight, and he is not. Obama is very possibly a world-historical political figure, and until those who oppose him come to grips with this fact, they will get him wrong every time. ….It’s not just the comforting delusion that he’s a golf-mad dilettante, but also the reverse-negative image of that delusion—that Obama is a not-so-secret Marxist Kenyan with dictatorial ambitions and a nearly limitless appetite for power. That caricature makes it far too easy for Obama to laugh off the legitimate criticisms of the kind of political leader he really is: a conventional post-1960s left-liberal with limited interest in the private sector and the gut sense that government must and should do more, whatever “more” might mean at any given moment.
This is related to the “continuing parade of weirdly invented, personality-driven scandalettes” that I mentioned yesterday. It’s not as if I’m surprised that conservatives routinely try to attack Obama. Sure, I happen to think that issues like Benghazi, Solyndra, and Fast & Furious are hopeless nothingburgers, but they’re perfectly understandable, routine kinds of political attacks. Every president is on the receiving end of this kind of stuff, and some of it sticks and some of it doesn’t.
But then there’s the completely mysterious stuff. Obama was too dumb to write his own autobiography. Obama was an affirmative action baby at Harvard Law. Obama can barely string three words together without a teleprompter. Obama is too lazy to attend national security briefings. Obama gives soaring speeches but there’s nothing behind them. Obama lives a life of sybaritic ease punctuated mostly by golf dates and basketball games.
It’s just bizarre. Normally, the opposition exaggerates the actual character of the president. Bush was incurious, so liberals called him dumb. Clinton was a child of the sixties, so he became a coke-snorting drug lord running dope out of Mena airfield. Reagan was personable and a little hazy on facts, so he became a doddering grandfather. Etc.
In Obama’s case, he’s pretty plainly a very smart, studious, and serious policy guy. So the obvious caricature of him would be as an aloof, Harvard egghead. There are occasional stabs at that, usually when conservatives try to portray him as arrogant, but it’s fleeting. Mostly, the tea partiers are convinced he’s dumb, lazy, and tyrannical. The problem is that this is so risibly wrong that (a) they have a hard time fighting back because they flatly don’t understand what they’re up against, and (b) it makes them look moronic. Nobody in their right mind thinks that Obama is dumb and lazy.
So where did this come from? One obvious possibility is that it’s race related: a lot of conservatives are so thoroughly steeped in resentment against affirmative action that they just can’t believe Obama got where he did on his merits. This is probably part of it, but it doesn’t ring entirely true to me. In a way, it seems like this is really more a product of his phenomenal speaking skills. His speeches elate liberals, but they drive conservatives crazy. They simply can’t believe that anyone actually falls for this stuff unless they’ve been hypnotized by a con man, so that’s what Obama becomes: a slick but basically empty hustler.
Or something. Obviously my ability to fathom the tea party mind is pretty limited. Feel free to adduce your own theories in comments.NASA / AFP / Getty Images NASA graphic depicts the Earth flyby of asteroid 2012 DA14.
This week, a hunk of space rock half the size of a football field will pass historically close to us, between Earth and our communication satellites. Scientists are certain the asteroid, dubbed 2012 DA14, will not hit Earth. If it did, the resulting explosion would equal around 180 Hiroshima atom bombs.
Asteroids have played an immense role in the history of the earth. They may have seeded the earth with organic elements; they wiped out the dinosaurs (which eventually made evolutionary room for humankind); they may even have brought water to the planet.
While nothing is guaranteed, a collision with something like 2012 DA14 isn’t uncommon. Space is like a three-dimensional pool table, with hunks of rock, ice and metal zipping around us all the time. Half a million objects are estimated to inhabit near earth’s orbit alone.
Our generation of humanity is the first to be able to identify an incoming threat in advance.That new capability poses unprecedented and fascinating moral, philosophical, political and practical questions. Scientists can tell us, with increasing degrees of certainty, whether an object will hit the planet tomorrow, or, in 200 years. They can even predict whether it will land in the ocean or hit New York.
(MORE: Duck! Close Shave with an Asteroid Coming)
But they can’t do much about it – yet. If they were to identify an incoming civilization-ender 200 years out, what do we owe future generations in terms of R and D to save the planet? And what do the nations owe each other if, say, an incoming object is aimed at a a particular nation?
Enter the planetary defenders, a group of astronomers, physicists and aerospace engineers who have since the early 1990s been locating flying space rocks, painstakingly plotting their orbits, and thinking of ingenious schemes to drag them off course or blow them up should they be on a trajectory toward us. Finally, they have been imagining how the fractious family of man might come together with a contingency plan to literally save the planet, like Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck in Hollywood’s Armageddon.
NASA has identified 94% of the huge, potentially civilization-ending asteroids nearby (none of which is on an earth-trajectory for now). But only about 1 percent of the 500,000 Near Earth Objects around the size of 2012 DA14 orbiting near earth’s orbit have been tracked.
The space agency’s global Spaceguard program connects professional and amateur telescopes looking for smaller NEOs. A telescope in Spain picked 2012 DA14 when it was 2.7 million miles away, and reported it to the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge. Later,scientists calculated its trajectory, based on a few plot points of its movement.
Orbit trackers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab have been right on the money so far – often with very little advance notice. One night in October 2008, the Minor Planet center spotted a small object hurtling toward earth. NASA’s scientists plugged the rock’s coordinates into a computer and predicted an impact time and location –20 hours hence, somewhere in the Middle East.
NASA officials called the State Department, concerned that Middle Eastern governments understood that the streaking object they would soon see overhead wasn’t a missile. “For a while, we had it predicted heading toward Mecca,” one NASA official said. “And that was a concern.”
(MORE: How to Weigh an Asteroid — and Why You Should Care)
The object landed near a fly-specked train station outpost deep in the Sudanese desert, close to where NASA’s scientists had predicted impact. A few months later, students from Khartoum, following NASA’s map, located the object’s remnants in the sand.
In 2002, Apollo astronaut Russell Schweickart and others founded the B612 Foundation, (named after the asteroid in Antoine St. Exupery’s story The Little Prince). Schweickart became a leading proponent of the foundation’s “audacious project” of saving the earth, after hearing a geologist give a public lecture about how an asteroid impact had once boiled the oceans. A New Jersey farmer’s son with degrees in aeronautics from MIT, and a New Age philosophical bent, Schweickart has been proselytizing about the need for planetary defense ever since.
“I got interested number one, just as a human being, if you can predict a disaster coming and you can prevent it there is a kind of obligation that you ought to do that,” he said.
The B612 Foundation plans to launch a satellite telescope into the orbit of Venus to add another eye in outer space to the Spaceguard program.
In 1995, Congress—thanks in part to Schweickart and other planetary defenders–got NASA to take asteroids seriously. But the global financial situation and the fractious family of man, do not bode well for the larger aims of planetary defense. Designs for ingenious machines and methods to protect the planet – from nuking incoming NEOs to launching giant magnets to drag them off their orbits – are on paper, but have never been tested. (An additional problem: magnets are useless against the overwhelming share of asteroids, which are silicate, not metal.) One of the proposals at the last international conference of Planetary Defenders was a dual spacecraft kinetic impactor to nudge an incoming rock off course. Designed by a young team of physicists and engineers at the European Space Agency, it was called the Don Quixote project. The reference to literature’s most famous windmill-tilter needed no explanation.
This month in Vienna, the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee of the U.N’s Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space will finalize formal recommendations on international asteroid defense coordination. The recommendations go before the full UN General Assembly this fall.
Schweickart has been pushing for such a plan at the U.N. for years. But he told TIME he doesn’t think most world leaders will pay attention until an actual object is incoming, anyway. “The first time a threat arises is the earliest time that most countries will become aware of this work, despite the fact that their representatives probably were part of the approval process. My personal guess is that many, many issues will be debated that should have been anticipated and simulated well ahead of time. It would not surprise me at all that this debating will continue, until it is too late to act.”
MORE: Architects and European Space Agency Team Up to Design 3D-printed Lunar BasesAfter 7 (!) Thanksgivings spent on the couch with a pile of kitties, a pile of movies, a warm, fluffy blanket, and a pile of turkey and cranberry sauce sandwiches, Thanksgiving 2014 took a bit of a U-turn. Yep. It’s true. There was more than one human in the house on Turkey Day this year. Wild. Wildman to be precise. And there was also Loaded Twice Baked Cauliflower.
Like me, Wildman has no family anywhere close by except for his outrageously funny mother who is in her nineties and lives in a delightful retirement community just down the road. Given that she has the capacity for not much more than an hour of exciting activity at a time, that left Wildman with about 12 hours to kill while most people were cooking up a storm with family and friends. Being the good friend that I strive to be, I invited him to hang out – with the couch, the kitties, the movies, the warm, fluffy blanket, but without the pile of turkey and cranberry sauce sandwiches. Wildman is embarking on his own adventure towards a healthier lifestyle, so I didn’t want to encourage him to derail just because it was a holiday.
Given that he would be having a turkey-fest with his mother mid-afternoon, I really only needed to provide one hearty dish of comfort food that could be consumed while movie-watching. I remembered Wildman mentioning – while we were on a label-reading training session at Trader Joe’s the previous week – that he had never bought a cauliflower. In his life. I am sure you can imagine the reaction that he got from the girl that “favors strange vegetables”.
Thus it was an obvious choice when determining what to make to fuel the movie-fest. It had to be cauliflower. However, I had to ensure that his first foray into the world of white cruciferousness was a winner if he was to be encouraged to dabble in those waters a second time.
I’d seen several recipes for variations of twice-baked cauliflower floating around the interwebs, and it seemed like that might be a good entry point into the world of cauliflower. So here’s my version. I made it ‘loaded’ because in my experience anything with sour cream, cheese, bacon, and scallions added cannot possibly be bad.
It’s heavy on the fat – because we’re not afraid of fat over here – but if that bothers you feel free to use low-fat cream cheese and non-fat sour cream instead of the full-fat varieties.
The verdict? Wildman ate 1 lb. of cauliflower on Thanksgiving.
Loaded Twice Baked Cauliflower
Author: Carrie Brown | Prep time: 15 mins | Cook time: 45 mins | Total time: 1 hour | Serves: 6 – 8
What You Need
2 lb. / 900g cauliflower
6 oz. 170g cream cheese, softened
6 oz. / 170g sour cream
6 oz. / 170g mozzarella cheese, grated
6 oz. / 170g smoked Gouda cheese, grated
3 oz. / 85g scallions (green onions / spring onions), thinly sliced
4 slices of bacon, cooked and cut into small pieces
Sea salt & black pepper to taste
Coconut oil spray
2 oz. / 55g sharp Cheddar cheese, grated
What You Do
Break the cauliflower into very small florets and cut the big florets into smaller pieces. Steam the cauliflower until barely tender and drain really well. Leave to get cold. Cream together the cream cheese and sour cream until completely combined. Add the mozzarella, gouda, scallions, and bacon and mix well. Season with sea salt and ground black pepper. Gently stir in the cold cauliflower florets until mixed through the cheese mixture. Spray a casserole dish with coconut oil and spoon the cauliflower mixture evenly into it. Scatter the Cheddar evenly over the top. Place in the center of the oven and bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes – until the top is golden brown and bubbling.
Top Recipe Tips
Leave the cream cheese (still in its packet) out of the ‘fridge overnight. This will make it much easier to use the next day.
Cook the cauliflower and bacon ahead of time and keep in the ‘fridge. This makes assembling the dish really fast the day that you need it.
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Like this: Like Loading...Raped by the director when she was 13-years old, Samantha Geimer has long said she wants the case over. However, this will be the first time that she will give testimony to that effect.
Roman Polanski now and then. (TRT World and Agencies)
The victim of Roman Polanski's sex assault 40 years ago is going to appeal directly to a judge to end the long-running case against the fugitive director, his lawyer said Thursday.
Samantha Geimer, 13 at the time of the crime, has long supported Polanski's efforts to end the legal saga that limits his freedom, but Friday will be the first time she's appeared in Los Angeles Superior Court on his behalf, attorney Harland Braun said.
"She's tired of this case," Braun said. "The judge is just playing games with him."
The Oscar-winner has been a fugitive since he fled to France in 1978 on the eve of sentencing for the crime of having unlawful sex with a minor. Prosecutors dropped charges that he drugged, raped and sodomized the girl.
Polanski feared the judge was going to renege on a plea agreement and send him away for more time than the six weeks he served in prison during a psychiatric evaluation prior to sentencing.
Fighting for years
His lawyers have been fighting for years to end the case and lift an international arrest warrant that confined him to his native France, Switzerland and Poland, where he fled the Holocaust.
The warrant prevented Polanski from collecting his Academy Award for best director for his 2002 film "The Pianist." He was also nominated for 1974's "Chinatown" and 1979's "Tess."
Polanski, 83, is trying to get the Interpol warrant lifted so he can move freely among nearly 190 countries in the global policing network. If that happened, the California warrant would still be valid.
Polanski contends he is the victim of judicial misconduct because the now-deceased judge who handled the case suggested in private remarks that he would not honor a plea bargain agreement. It called for no more time behind bars for the director after he spent 42 days in a prison undergoing a diagnostic screening.
The hearing Friday is an effort by Braun to get the court to unseal testimony by the now-deceased prosecutor in the case, who is believed to have testified in a closed session about backroom sentencing discussions.
Transcripts show time served
Braun wants to use the transcript to show Polanski has served his time so the international warrant is dropped. Braun also argues that Polanski served an additional 10 months under house arrest during a failed extradition effort from Switzerland in 2010.
Deputy District Attorney Michele Hanisee wouldn't comment on the case Thursday but was expected to file a response to Polanski's brief.
Prosecutors have vigorously opposed any efforts to end the case without Polanski appearing in court — a position upheld by a state appeals court.
Judge Scott Gordon has rejected Polanski's efforts to resolve the case in the director's absence or with a promise that he wouldn't be sentenced to more time or be arrested if he voluntarily returned for a sentencing hearing.
Polanski forgiven by Geimer
Geimer has previously said she forgives Polanski for the assault that happened at Jack Nicholson's compound in the Hollywood hills during a March 1977 photo shoot.
Polanski plied the girl with champagne and part of a sedative pill before raping her, according to grand jury transcripts. Nicholson was not home at the time.
In addition to the criminal charges, Geimer sued her assailant and reached a settlement. Her longtime lawyer Lawrence Silver did not return phone and email messages seeking comment.
Victims of sex abuse are not typically named, but Geimer went public years ago. She wrote memoir titled "The Girl: A Life in the Shadow of Roman Polanski" four years ago. The cover features a photo shot by Polanski.
Source: TRTWorld and agenciesPylinting with PyCharm
Kiran Koduru • May 6, 2017 • 1 minutes to read
If you have worked with PyCharm, you will have noticed the inspections plugin which performs static analysis on your code is very effective in finding PEP-8 errors. But it fails in some places and can be replaced by pylint. This tutorial will guide you through a step by step walkthrough of setting up pylint in PyCharm.
1. Locate your pylint installation
To find out where is pylint on most unix OS you can type the following in your command line.
$ which pylint /usr/local/bin/pylint
If you don’t have pylint installed then try the command abover after installing pylint via pip.
$ pip install pylint
You can find the External Tools options from the
File -> Settings Typing External Tools in the search bar
or
Pressing Ctrl + Alt + S on your keyboard Typing External Tools in the search bar
You can read more about External Tools here.
Click the + icon in the External Tools window and configure using the following information. Make sure that Program value is set to the output from Step 1.
4. Finally run pylint
Run pylint from External Tools via Tools -> External Tools -> pylint dropdown.
5. View your output in PyCharm console
After your run from Step 4, you can view your pylint score in your PyCharm console.This column has been updated.
Last weekend in Berkeley, Calif., a group of neo-communist antifa — “anti-f |
Rebel so successfully did previously, Truy Sát also brings in a number of overseas based Vietnamese talent, here in the form of Australians Maria Tran, Trung Ly, and Thien Nguyen.
Tran has featured in a number of action shorts, most notably the entertainingly hyper-violent Hit Girls (which she also wrote and co-directed) alongside JuJu Chan, as well as starring in full length features, such as Anthony Szeto’s Fist of the Dragon (which also features Chan), for which she won the Female Action Performer of the Year award at the 2016 MartialCon. Tran and Ly are frequent collaborators, and as a master of Shaolin kung-fu, Vovinam (Vietnamese martial arts), and Hapkido – it’s safe to say that as an action director, he brings an impressive amount of talent to the table. Rounding out the trio from down under is Nguyen, who as a fellow member of the tightly knit Australian action community, can also be seen in many of Tran and Ly’s previous projects.
In many ways Truy Sát feels like a distant cousin of the early 90’s Girls with Guns genre from Hong Kong, with Anh’s no nonsense police woman echoing the likes of Michelle Yeoh and Cynthia Khan’s characters from the In the Line of Duty series. Before the opening credits have finished rolling she’s already elbowed one guy in the face, and taken a whole room out via some double fisted handgun action, followed by the standard warning from her superior that she shouldn’t act alone. It’s a familiar setup, but it’s a welcome familiarity. The opening scene of Anh on the beach decked out in combat drill uniform, while instructing a group of male officers on the likes of how to disarm an attacker, is a reminder of just how long it’s been since we’ve had a female driven Asian action movie.
The plot kicks into gear when a tip-off is received that the Wolf Gang is going to attempt to steal an antique at a high profile auction. Sure enough, Anh is able to intercept the thief mid-heist, getting into a nicely shot fight which sees him falling to his death, through possibly the thinnest glass window ever featured in a movie. But this is an action flick, it doesn’t matter. The thief happened to be the fiance of Maria Tran’s character, and capturing a glimpse of Anh, she becomes consumed with revenge, despite the warnings from her gang leader brother to let his death go. Proceedings are setup to revolve around the rage filled widow seeking vengeance against the police woman that killed her husband-to-be, and the thought of an Anh versus Tran finale recalls the days of the Moon Lee versus Yukari Oshima era.
Indeed the two femme fatale’s do get to face off in a couple of confrontations during the runtime, including one which has Tran running down the street with a shotgun so big it wouldn’t be out of place in Heat. However the driver for the plot changes mid-way through to focus back on taking down the gang as a whole, and while this isn’t detrimental as such, a part of me still wishes it had stuck to being about Tran’s character seeking vengeance for her husband’s death. Ironically, Tran revealed in an interview with Mike Leeder that her character was a very small part in the original script, however once she came on-board, it was fleshed out considerably to include more scenes that highlight her impressive martial arts talents.
Speaking of Mike Leeder, the IFD films stalwart and occasional Hong Kong actor further adds to the HK feel that Truy Sát often evokes, by taking on a small part as a drug cartel leader. What true Asian action movie isn’t complete without a gweilo in its midst? While some may claim Truy Sát is far from original, it arguably does what it sets out to do with a lot of energy and commitment from its performers. We get a fight that takes place on motorbikes, which is clearly influenced by the similar confrontation from In the Line of Duty 4, just minus Donnie Yen. At its most blatant, we get a shot-for-shot scene from A Bittersweet Life, when Lee Byung-hun is on his knees in the rain facing a group of umbrella wielding gang members, only in Truy Sát it reverses the gender to be Anh. However despite the obvious source material for such scenes, they’re handled with a sense of sincerity, which stops Truy Sát from ever feeling derogatory.
The action also comes at enough frequent intervals during the compact 90 minute runtime, that you never have enough time to give much thought to any particular scene before the next round of fights begin. Even Anh’s young brother, who has a mental disability, ultimately only serves as a plot device to be kidnapped, so as to give her an excuse to spring into action. It’s a move by the bad guys that reminds us that, when it comes to this type of plot, you should never make things personal. Despite the only cast members with a significant amount of screen fighting experience being Tran, Ly, and Nguyen, the rest of the cast, particularly Anh, do a great job at selling their fight scenes, which should also be credited to Ly’s action direction and the lensing of Ross W. Clarkson. Another Australian, Clarkson is a frequent collaborator with Isaac Florentine and Scott Adkins, being the man behind the camera for both Undisputed sequels, and also the Ninja series.
Director Cuong Ngo may only have a handful of movies under his belt, including a gangster flick entitled Huong Ga – Rise (which also features Ahn in the lead role), but if he continues to partner with the likes of Tran, Ly, and Nguyen, there could be a bright future ahead for the Vietnamese action movie. As for Truy Sát, throw in a bare chested training montage (note: not from Anh or Tran), a John Woo style showdown in a container park, and a finale that involves katanas, archery, and plenty of fisticuffs, what you’re left with may not be perfect, but it’s never anything less than entertaining.
Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 7.5/10Can a Graduate get an Investment Banking Job? (Engineers/Freshers)
Can a graduate or an engineer or any fresher get an entry level Investment Banking job? Yes…No…Maybe!
You may think why to waste the degree and move into Investment Banking field altogether. Don’t be shocked, “Change is the constant new”. I am from a non-finance background and moved into the Investment Banking industry. The journey was not easy for me, but I bet it is not impossible. 🙂
If you want to learn what is Investment Banking, you may take advantage of this Free Investment Banking Courses.
So I thought it would be interesting to write an article on Engineering graduates who want to get an entry level Investment Banking Job. However, please note that it applies to all set of graduates or freshers.
Getting an entry level Investment Banking Job may be difficult for engineering graduates, but not impossible! So what are the ingredients you need for the Perfect Recipe?
Can a Graduate Engineer get an Investment Banking Job?
Here is a quick infographics on the steps that you can take to move into Investment Banking.
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Top 8 Points to get an Investment Banking Job as a graduate
#1 Don’t doubt yourself, you have not made the wrong decision.
When you are entering into the world of Investment Banking as a graduate, it is ok to feel lost at first. But it is definitely not OK to feel sorry for yourself. Do not think that you have made the stupidest decision. Remember that you will not learn all the Finance Jargons in one go and become a PRO. Hard work is definitely the key that will bring you in focus.
When you feel a little low at the initial stage I would recommend you to think about the Three People listed below and get motivated.
K Rowling – Twelve publishers rejected her Harry Potter manuscript. Imagine if she stopped at the first rejection? The fifth? Or the tenth? Steve Jobs – Even though his company became successful at a young age he was kicked out of it and had to start over. He managed to become successful once again in his mid-thirties. Frederick Henry Royce – Multimillionaire co-founder of Rolls-Royce. Dropped out of elementary school.
These examples are just to let you know that anything and everything is possible. There are CEO’s of Finance companies who are from an engineering background. So getting Investment Banking job for an Engineering graduate is definitely not a hard nut to crack.
#2 If you are short of time, you can take up some Online Finance Training.
Is getting a Master’s degree in Finance is the only way? Yes, I agree that you can get into the field of finance by either completing your MBA or CFA. These are some of the well-known and the traditional ways of getting into finance field, but definitely not the only ones. Other options could be –
Skilled Based Organizations – There are various training organizations which are all equipped to provide with some excellent training in finance.
– There are various training organizations which are all equipped to provide with some excellent training in finance. Practical Applications- The training provided by these organizations is not just theoretical, it comes with all the practical applications of finance.
The training provided by these organizations is not just theoretical, it comes with all the practical applications of finance. Industry-Based Training- Here you are ought to get some value-added industry-based training through various courses in Investment banking, Equity research, Financial modeling and many more. You definitely can get into one of such courses to sharpen your financial skills.
#3 You can complete your Post-Graduation in Finance
Giving the Competitive Exams- If you are opting for MBA, you need to have a graduation degree for entering into MBA finance. You will have to give the competitive exams to make yourself eligible for entering a good MBA college. Candidates can begin preparation during the third year by enrolling in training institutions and gain some knowledge. Also, have a look at CFA or MBA
If you are opting for MBA, you need to have a graduation degree for entering into MBA finance. You will have to give the competitive exams to make yourself eligible for entering a good MBA college. Candidates can begin preparation during the third year by enrolling in training institutions and gain some knowledge. Also, have a look at CFA or MBA Academic Performance Helps- One needs to complete engineering with at least 50% marks. The candidate’s performance in their engineering academics will help in the later stages of selection process. Hence, candidate needs to focus on performing well in both, engineering semesters as well entrance exams.
One needs to complete engineering with at least 50% marks. The candidate’s performance in their engineering academics will help in the later stages of selection process. Hence, candidate needs to focus on performing well in both, engineering semesters as well entrance exams. Figure out what you want- Prior to considering finance after engineering, one needs to figure out why they want to do MBA or get into finance. Hence, one should not get into Finance merely to become a manager in a reputed organization.
Prior to considering finance after engineering, one needs to figure out why they want to do MBA or get into finance. Hence, one should not get into Finance merely to become a manager in a reputed organization. Career Prospects- Getting a finance job after engineering definitely improves career prospects. However, before becoming a manager, you can gain some work experience and understand the way businesses function.
Getting a finance job after engineering definitely improves career prospects. However, before becoming a manager, you can gain some work experience and understand the way businesses function. Understand the Difference- If the you want to shift from engineering towards finance, you need to understand the difference between the two fields and needs to have passion for Investment Banking. Some self-examination combined with some amount of research on finance will help in determining the goal.
If the you want to shift from engineering towards finance, you need to understand the difference between the two fields and needs to have passion for Investment Banking. Some self-examination combined with some amount of research on finance will help in determining the goal. Experience helps?- If you pursue MBA or any other degree in finance after gaining some work experience, you will be in a better position to grasp the course contents and apply them appropriately to your work.
#4 Craft a Winning resume for your interview!
Prepare keeping in mind that the interviewer is going to have a good fun while interviewing you. This is what I kept in mind during my Interview and it helped me prepare for the stress interview. So to prepare yourself you can start first by having a Winning Resume. Here’s how you can do that:
Step 1 – Use Resume Templates- Use some investment banking resume templates if you are unsure about how to structure the perfect resume. All the templates are available online, you can select the one which best suits you and get it to download.
Use some investment banking resume templates if you are unsure about how to structure the perfect resume. All the templates are available online, you can select the one which best suits you and get it to download. Step 2 – Highlight you Experiences- Pick some experiences that you would like to highlight the most. These may include what you’ve done during the entire finance course, summer internship projects, Business competitions or any other major activities where you have displayed your leadership quality.
Pick some experiences that you would like to highlight the most. These may include what you’ve done during the entire finance course, summer internship projects, Business competitions or any other major activities where you have displayed your leadership quality. Step 3 – Rephrase your Resume in finance Terms- It is best that you rephrase your resume in business and finance terms rather than using big jargons or some engineering lingo.
#5 Be confident while answering Tricky Questions
What I mean by Tricky questions is: Your mischievous neighbor pouring cold icy water on you on a 5 degree night.
Interviewers can shoot some similar questions like:
Are you genuinely interested in Investment Banking?
Why Investment Banking after graduate degree?
Don’t you feel that you have wasted “Four Years of Engineering graduation”?
Have you learned enough about accounting and finance to compete with commerce students?
Do you have the stamina and passion to work 100-hour weeks?
Do you like to communicate with people?
Here’s how you can answer these questions with Confidence-
Talk about Projects & lab Work- The 100-hour of work question can be answered easily. You may talk about all the lab work you had to do during your engineering degree. Focus on all the last-minute projects you have worked on or the experience that you gained during your summer internship or full time job if you have previous work experience.
The 100-hour of work question can be answered easily. You may talk about all the lab work you had to do during your engineering degree. Focus on all the last-minute projects you have worked on or the experience that you gained during your summer internship or full time job if you have previous work experience. Talk about Interesting Firms- You may talk about some interesting companies or IPO’s or stocks to prove your interest in finance. You may stick to some unusual companies or success stories rather than opting to talk about common companies, as everyone is bound to do the same. Talk about any investing you’ve done or any recent market news, which displays your market awareness.
You may talk about some interesting companies or IPO’s or stocks to prove your interest in finance. You may stick to some unusual companies or success stories rather than opting to talk about common companies, as everyone is bound to do the same. Talk about any investing you’ve done or any recent market news, which displays your market awareness. Interview guides & Programs- To answer technical questions, you can get access to some interview guides or you can also join financial modeling programs that will teach you everything you need to know.
To answer technical questions, you can get access to some interview guides or you can also join financial modeling programs that will teach you everything you need to know. Mock Interviews Helps- To answer the questions related to your interpersonal skills you must be absolutely polished and well prepared. Do not hesitate or get confused while answering such questions. The best way to get good at this is to practice with any friends who are smooth talkers.
To answer the questions related to your interpersonal skills you must be absolutely polished and well prepared. Do not hesitate or get confused while answering such questions. The best way to get good at this is to practice with any friends who are smooth talkers. Be Crisp & Clear- Make sure that all your answers are crisp and to the point. Do not run around the same bush again and again.
“In Your Favor points” for engineering students during the Investment Banking Questions!
Employers won’t doubt your quantitative skills or your attention to detail.
Depending on your experience, you can convince the employer that you can work long hours relatively easily.
Also, you have options outside of investment banking that lawyers and accountants don’t have access to.
#6 Prepare for the Finance Technical Round like a Pro
Don’t Ignore- Since you do not have a finance background, employers may have lower expectations when it comes to technical questions. But this does not mean that you just ignore them.
Since you do not have a finance background, employers may have lower expectations when it comes to technical questions. But this does not mean that you just ignore them. Strengthen the Basic concepts- You must know all the basic concepts, for example, fundamental accounting and valuation questions.
You must know all the basic concepts, for example, fundamental accounting and valuation questions. Get Financial Statements on your Tips- Be thorough with all the three financial statements, financial statement analysis, how they are linked together, how to walk through changes to the financial statements, and how to value a company.
Be thorough with all the three financial statements, financial statement analysis, how they are linked together, how to walk through changes to the financial statements, and how to value a company. Prepare for Advanced Topics- You can also prepare questions on advanced topics like merger and Acquisitions, Credit rating and Leveraged Buyouts. At the same time stick to basics of these topics, you do not have to know all the absolute and intricate details of the topics at the initial steps.
#7 Smart people always have a alternate plan and remember you are Smart 😉
You prepared your story, crafted an excellent resume and have gone through all the technicalities of finance, but what if you do not get job in the desired investment bank? You came out of the interview room with no offers. Are you already thinking that Getting a finance job from engineering is indeed difficult? Do not panic and don’t get depressed. It’s not the end of the world for you. Keep other options open as well. Also, consider Finance Roles Outside of Investment Banking.
Some of the other options are as follows:
Corporate Finance – Corporate finance jobs include working for a company and managing the capital necessary to run the enterprise.
– Corporate finance jobs include working for a company and managing the capital necessary to run the enterprise. Commercial Banking – A career option available in commercial banking includes bank tellers, loan officers, operations, marketing and branch managers. (also look at Investment Banking vs Commercial Banking)
– A career option available in commercial banking includes bank tellers, loan officers, operations, marketing and branch managers. (also look at Investment Banking vs Commercial Banking) Hedge Funds – Hedge funds are private investment funds whose managers can buy or sell array of assets and financial products. Because of the mystery that surrounds them, Hedge-fund jobs are considered by many to be glamorous. (also look at Investment Banking vs Hedge Fund)
– Hedge funds are private investment funds whose managers can buy or sell array of assets and financial products. Because of the mystery that surrounds them, Hedge-fund jobs are considered by many to be glamorous. (also look at Investment Banking vs Hedge Fund) Private Equity – Private equity job includes helping businesses find capital for expansion and current operations. It also includes providing financing for corporate business transactions like buyouts and restructurings. (also look at Investment Banking vs Private Equity)
– Private equity job includes helping businesses find capital for expansion and current operations. It also includes providing financing for corporate business transactions like buyouts and restructurings. (also look at Investment Banking vs Private Equity) Venture Capital – Venture-capital job includes evaluating pitches by founders and small-company leaders to determine if the venture capital firm will make an investment in such businesses.
– Venture-capital job includes evaluating pitches by founders and small-company leaders to determine if the venture capital firm will make an investment in such businesses. Financial Planning – Financial planning job includes helping individuals develop plans to ensure their present and future financial stability.
– Financial planning job includes helping individuals develop plans to ensure their present and future financial stability. Insurance– Finance jobs in the insurance involves aiding businesses and individuals anticipate their potential risks and protect themselves from losses.
#8 Choosing the Right Direction is the Key to a Happy Carrier Life!
Focus on your Skills- Different finance jobs require different skills and portray different work environments. And this is why it is wise to select your job that aligns with your long-term interests and abilities.
Different finance jobs require different skills and portray different work environments. And this is why it is wise to select your job that aligns with your long-term interests and abilities. Get to know where you Stand- For example, someone with good interpersonal skills can do well as a financial advisor, while on the other hand someone who enjoys working with numbers might do better in accounting.
For example, someone with good interpersonal skills can do well as a financial advisor, while on the other hand someone who enjoys working with numbers might do better in accounting. Do your Research- It is wise to do the research first to discover your options.
Conclusion
Getting an entry level Investment Banking job after engineering graduation may seem tough, but definitely not impossible! It is important you get some knowledge of finance before you apply to Investment Banking. Appearing for CFA or taking a short-term course in Investment Banking can surely help. Additionally, be sure to be well prepared for all the tricky nonfinance questions that you may face.
Remember that if you are detail-oriented, Hardworking, analytical and trained in systematic problem-solving nothing can stop you!
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This has been a guide to Investment Banking Jobs for Graduates like Engineers or any other freshers. Here we discuss how a graduate can get an Investment Banking job. We provide you with the top 8 must-know tips for crafting a great resume, preparing for your technical interview rounds and more. You can learn more about Investment Banking form the following articles –Genoa-based design research collaborative Space Caviar, in cooperation with Bolzano’s storage and organization company Prokoss-Mobilrot, have made a space whose architecture serves as a nod to the curtain of the future. The RAM House is capable of filtering out electronic signals, the type necessary in our visions for the connected home.
As homes become increasingly saturated with smart devices that connect to the Internet and each other, “the role of the domestic envelope as a shield from an external gaze becomes irrelevant: it is the home itself that is observing us.” By these means, the RAM House is a contrasting proposal from the technological cohabitation of the modern day, that is, the space seeks to reinstall the ‘off’ switch as a means of privacy from all things smart.All You Need to Know About Caskets, caskets, caskets
All You Need To Know About Caskets
Reduced to its simplest terms, a casket is the box which holds the body and a burial vault or grave liner is the "box which holds the box". For sales purposes they will be called everything but these simplisitic terms. You'll hear caskets referred to in gaudy terms such as interment vessels, while the vault or liner is the outer container. If you can be savvy enough to see past these embellishments you'll be ahead of the game.
Mankind first began burying its dead for very practical reasons. There were plenty of predators about and the last thing ancient man wanted was for them to develop a taste for humans. Later, burial and cremation were ways of disposing of the dead without risking horrible plagues such as cholera. In the Middle Ages, when superstition was religion (and vice-versa), the dead's legs were broken and large stones placed atop the grave, to keep the dead from "wandering". The tombstone is a holdover from this custom.
Last century a death in the family meant contacting the local cabinetmaker or carpenter who would construct a simple box, getting friends and family to dig the grave in the family, church, or community cemetery, have a minister say a few words, then adjourning to care for the survivors. The total outlay? Maybe twenty dollars. Today a casket can cost tens of thousands of dollars. IF you let it.
The First Lie
Of the somewhat meaningless figure the NFDA cites as their average funeral cost, an unrealistic $5,300 or so for 1999, the industry claims the casket only accounts for about 14%. Two things are wrong with these figures ; the total figure is the average of all funerals, including direct burials, indigent burials, and cremations, and does NOT include the costs of burial plots, fees for opening and closing the grave, burial vaults, or monuments, AND the 14% figure is from an NFDA report published in the early 1970s! IF the NFDA figures were correct, your average casket would cost only $750 (14% of $5300) instead of the nearly $2,200 figure current surveys reveal. This is just the surface of untruths the industry puts forth about caskets.
Materials and Construction
Caskets come in a wide range of materials, each of which has its selling points. I can't say each has its advantages, because this is simply untrue. In fact, the Funeral Rule is specific in its language regarding supposed benefits of caskets, which is summarized as follows:
No casket or outer burial container shall be held forth as offering superior 'protection' of the remains from water, moisture, biological invasion (insects, grubs, etc...), or roots, when it ISN'T TRUE. Nor shall claims of indefinite preservation be made. Furthermore, NO FUNERAL HOME CAN CHARGE A FEE FOR THE CUSTOMER USING A CASKET BOUGHT ELSEWHERE THROUGH AN ALTERNATE SOURCE, NOR REQUIRE A FAMILY MEMBER BE PRESENT FOR ITS DELIVERY, NOR MAKE A FUNERAL SERVICES PACKAGE CONTINGIENT UPON THE PURCHASE OF A CASKET OR OUTER CONTAINER..
In short, no matter what the materials or construction of the container, the body WILL return to nature. That said, here's what you'll have to choose from.
Metal
This supposedly means STEEL, but the truth is there are several popular alloys used which are cheaper and lighter than steel, and lend themselves more-readily to the construction process. This is by far the most popular material in use today, and also one of the highest mark-ups. On a visit to a casket factory in August of 1997, I was told by the manufacturer that their average metal casket cost them $64 in materials and labor, and wholesaled to the funeral director for $264, which included packaging and delivery. Similar units to this routinely sell for $1,795 - $2,695 in funeral homes. You can do the math on the mark-up for yourself.
Metal caskets are listed by the thickness of the material as stated in gauges, such as 20-gauge, 16-gauge, etc..., which is similar to the way shotguns are classified by the thickness of their barrels. The insinuation is that the thicker the material, the longer-lasting or more protective the casket. This isn't the case, of course, since even the lowest gauge casket will likely outlast the body inside it. Average price for a metal unit from a funeral home runs $1,350-$3,750, while our alternative sources start as low as $450 for a perfectly acceptable unit. The average difference in price between a 16-gage and a 20-gage unit? Try about $1,000.
Semiprecious Metals
This somewhat fanciful category includes Bronze, Copper, and Stainless Steel. Bronze has been around for a long time. It has a reputation for durability born in the Bronze Age, and a price tag similar to an automobile. The highest-priced unit we found was a bronze casket which, on the East Coast at least, had a range from $15,000 to an unbelievable $70,000. They are durable, and pretty, and the top of the line for snob appeal, but all too often they are merely a plated alloy and the bottom may well be thin metal of another type which can and will deteriorate much sooner than the sides and top.
Bronze and copper are listed in weight per square foot of material, usually cited as 32 oz., or 34 oz.. Average cost from a funeral home, $5,700 - $10,000 and UP. Cost from our alternative sources, under $3,000. Copper holds up well and, of the two, is probably the better buy. The same problems as cited for bronze apply. Average cost from a funeral home, $3,900-$8,700 and UP. From our alternate sources, under $2,000.
Stainless Steel is included among the'semiprecious metals' to differentiate it from the regular metal caskets. The durability of stainless steel is well known, with the caveat that there is no guarantee the bottom isn't made from some other metal. Average funeral home price, $3,000 and up. Alternative prices, under $1500.
Hardwood
Many nice caskets are fashioned from oak, cherry, walnut, mahogany, and poplar. There are also some very nice models of pine, but you're not likely to be shown those unless you ask. These are works of art, but without even the facade of protective qualities touted in the metal lines. If you bought one of these, I'll almost guarantee you were given a strong pitch to buy an upscale burial vault to 'protect' it. Average price from a funeral home, $2,000 - $20,000. From alternative sources, $795 - $3,000
Cloth-covered and Plain Wood
Many of these are available for under $500, even from a funeral home, and can be dressed-up with a flag, floral arrangements, or alternate hardware to good advantage. Some are nicely finished and perfect for viewing prior to cremation. A recent wrinkle is getting a white cloth-covered casket, and having friends and families 'autograph' it with their thoughts and remembrances. This is particularly apt for the young, as it affords the survivors an act of 'closeure' prior to the funeral.
There are a range of 'tricks' funeral homes use to make purchasing such a unit distasteful. They may refer to them, or any other reasonably-priced casket, as a Morgue Box, or even as a Welfare Box. They may keep them in an out-of-the-way corner, basement, or hallway, and have their display models in unflattering color combinations. (Note: I've actually seen one of these in an ARMY GREEN color, with a PUTTY colored lining!) These units come in literally hundreds of models and color combinations. Average price from a funeral home, $495 - $995. From our alternative sources, $295- $450.
Other Materials
Relative newcomers to the industry are the highly durable fibreglass and space-age plastic caskets. For durability it would be hard to beat these materials. The plastic casket manufacturer, for instance, warrants materials for 500 years. The EPA, which has studied the same material in our landfills the past several decades, cites 2,000+ years as a more-likely duration! Both units look similar to their metal counterparts, and retail from a funeral home at $2,500-3,900. From our alternate sources they are available for $1,350-1,900. If a long-lived material is desired, consider this: the poly-foam used in making soft drink coolers will outlast virtually any material currently used in the casket business!
Summary
The funeral industry routinely marks-up caskets 400%-1500% of their cost. The fancy hardware and plush interior will matter little to the 'guest of honor'. No casket made will halt either the natural deterioration of the body (though some will accellerate it!), nor penetration by roots or water. Ask, no DEMAND!, to be shown models within your price range. There are dozens of caskets under $1,000 readily available, so don't just choose from what the funeral director shows how or has on the display floor; virtually any model can be available within hours in any color combination you choose. Don't be'shamed' into anything.
The book and planning program offer dozens of tips on how to save money while providing the dignity and reverence your loved one deserves. Primarily this is covered under the heading Popular Sales Ploys and Out-Right SCAMS, some of which will sound familiar if you have arranged a funeral the past thirty years, since they are commonplace. Some of these will likely anger you, and should. This is particularly true in the case of the claims offered about protective or sealing caskets.
If you'd like an alternative price quote on a particular unit, anywhere in North America, phone 1-757-427-0220 during the hours 8 am - 11 pm. A lady in Los Angeles County did so recently, and got the same casket her funeral home had priced at $6,200... for $650, delivered within four hours. It's worth the effort.
CLICK to visit our Online Catalog of Affordable Caskets
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Cemetery Shopping ~ Monuments ~ Funeral Brokers, etc ~ Suggested Links ~ Make a Donation ~ Download Software ~ Order Book ~ E-mail us your questions/commentsIn mid-April, a spokesperson for the Ugandan government admitted that the country’s only functioning cancer treatment machine had broken earlier that month. The radiotherapy machine, donated by China to Uganda in 1995 and housed at Mulago Hospital in Kampala, is now considered beyond repair. While the government did acquire a second radiotherapy machine in 2013, it has not been operational because of delays in allocating 30 billion shillings—just shy of $9 million—to construct a new building to house it. The funding delay has lifted, but the machine won’t be up and running for at least six months. The government has announced plans to airlift some cancer patients to Nairobi for treatment, but that plan will only accommodate 400 of the estimated 17,000 to 33,000 cancer patients who need treatment annually in Uganda.
This breakdown of technology is a human tragedy for the cancer patients from Uganda as well as elsewhere in East Africa that the radiotherapy machine helped treat. Beyond the personal level, though, the episode illustrates a larger shortcoming in global health. Total annual development assistance for health is approximately $36 billion, but that funding is overwhelmingly concentrated on specific infectious diseases. Noncommunicable diseases like cancer receive relatively little international funding—only 1.3 percent in 2015, and the dollar amount has declined since 2013. Funds to strengthen health systems, geared toward building and supporting a resilient health care system, are similarly low, making up only 7.3 percent of development assistance in 2015. Noncommunicable diseases kill more people every year than infectious diseases and accidents do, but this balance is not reflected in global health spending....Peter Chiarelli is looking for a dancing partner to finally get the Oilers showing tangible signs of improvement. Chuck Fletcher is attempting to prove to fans and ownership that the Wild aren’t a team caught in permanent limbo.
The fourth overall draft pick at the 2016 draft might be an occasion for both GMs to take steps toward their goals.
Chiarelli has said that there’s a “legitimate chance” the Oilers trade down. He’s also said that he’s fielded calls already from teams inquiring about the pick. “I’ve made it known we would look to trade down if the right deal is there,” he said Monday on Edmonton’s “Oilers Now” radio show.
Edmonton has had plenty of top picks over the years — this will be only the second time in six seasons that they pick outside the top three — but the prospect of selecting fourth overall almost doesn’t work for them, knowing what they may be able to get for the pick.
Getting a good player is always, well, good, but the team’s clear weakness is defense. On most team’s draft boards, the best player at fourth overall is almost guaranteed to be a forward. Selecting a defenseman with the fourth overall pick may be going off the board a bit. Jacob Chychrun has been ranked that high, but if he’s Edmonton’s prize, they can probably trade down a few slots and still get him. If they’re happy with other top defensemen Olli Juolevi and Mikhail Sergachev, they may be able to trade down even further.
http://gty.im/483323857
If Edmonton’s weakness is defense, trading down to pick a defenseman and get a defenseman in a trade makes sense if it can be made to work, and that’s what Chiarelli has said he’s looking to do.
Enter: Fletcher and the Wild. A team that could use a prospect pool boost and is one of a handful of teams with the defensive depth to make a move like this and not decimate their blue line for the coming season.
Who Is Available?
The class of 2016’s top group consists of three players, Auston Matthews, Patrik Laine and Jesse Puljujarvi. The next best players are widely considered to be a step below that trinity, making it a near certainty that those are the three off the board when the fourth selection is announced.
That gives the team picking fourth a clear picture of who should be available. There will be very little guess work involved.
The Wild’s two biggest organizational needs are at center, where they have a couple prospects of interest, but few destined for a top six role are a natural center. The other need is an elite scoring threat, something missing since the days of Marian Gaborik.
The team has the potential to fulfill one or both of these needs with Edmonton’s pick.
http://gty.im/507983118
While defenseman Jacob Chychrun pops up on some rankings into the four-five-six range, the three players that are widely considered to be the heart of that next class are Pierre-Luc Dubois, Matthew Tkachuk and Alexander Nylander.
That’s a nice platter for Fletcher and his scouting staff to choose from. Three high-scoring forwards, who all bring a little something different to the table.
Tkachuk can play a gritty two-way game, is a hard worker and is more than capable of putting up some points. He fits the mold that the Wild are currently working with. He’s a left wing — where they aren’t particularly weak — who has his Dad’s mean streak and nose for the net.
The 17-year-old Dubois is a late birthday (that matters) power forward, who is a strong skater and an offensive threat. He’s good defensively, and a strong, physical presence on the ice. Importantly, he can play center. That’s significant. He ticks two boxes on the “does he meet our |
There are really good companies here (and) we have about $75 million deployed so were on track.
We do venture debt, which is early stage debt for companies that are scaling rapidly, right the way through the spectrum to later-stage, profitable businesses. Most of our funding is in that gap and there has been a gap there in Ireland that weve seen.
The ISIF did not say how much it is investing in the new $100 million fund. Director Eugene OCallaghan said yesterday that the final amount has not been fully settled on yet.
The specifics are not finalised yet so we are not able to publicise the number, but our commitment to the relationship includes investing alongside the bank in whatever opportunities may emerge, he said.
The ISIF recently revealed it was likely to speed up the rate of its investments over the next four years in order to have its full resources committed by 2020.
Fora is a new online publication for Irish startups and SMEs.So apparently Wednesday is the favorite day to drop anti-gay bills. Last Wednesday it was state Rep. Kevin Tanner (R-Dawsonville) introducing both a Pastor’s Protection Act, which solidifies something that’s already part of the law although some see parts of it as being too broad, and a bill that would allow businesses to cite religious beliefs in refusing services for same-sex weddings.
And today? State. Sen. Greg Kirk (R-Americus) dropped the bill he hinted at in December, and if reaction from LGBT pundits not only locally but across the country is any indication, it’s worse than people thought it would be. It’s a state version of a proposed federal measure called the First Amendment Defense Act, which would protect businesses and public employees who object to same-sex marriage on religious grounds.
But Kirk’s bill is reportedly broader than that and would allow government employees to disregard federal law and deny services to legally married same-sex couples and their families.
The reaction from Georgia Equality executive director Jeff Graham:
“Sen. Kirk’s legislation flouts the rule of law, and I believe all Georgians understand how important it is that we acknowledge and follow the laws that govern our society. This legislation sets a dangerous precedent – we can’t pick and choose which laws we want to follow based on our personal beliefs. Government officials can’t deny services to legally married couples simply because they don’t approve of their marriage. “This bill not only exposes married same-sex couples and their children in Georgia to harm, but it risks imperiling our state’s economy. The Metro Atlanta Chamber warned last month that bills opening up gay and transgender people to discrimination could harm our state’s economy by $1 billion dollars. And just today, a new report out of Indiana illustrated the damage done to the state’s reputation following the enactment of an overly broad exemptions bill there last year. “This isn’t a bill that Georgia needs right now – it’s bad for our families and it’s bad for our businesses. It’s time for us to talk about how we can respect and protect all Georgians – including both people of faith and gay and transgender people.”
Constitutional scholar Anthony Kreis called the bill “RFRA on steroids” and had the following analysis on Twitter:
3) it'd permit clerks to discriminate against same-sex couples 4) it'd allow taxpayer money to subsidize discriminatory practices #gapol — Anthony M. Kreis (@AnthonyMKreis) January 20, 2016
6) it'd allow state contractors to turn away LGBT people & those having sex outside of marriage from services subsidized by public $ #gapol — Anthony M. Kreis (@AnthonyMKreis) January 20, 2016
The Human Rights Campaign quickly jumped in with a statement of their own:
“Freedom of religion is important. That’s why it is already fully protected under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution,” said HRC Legal Director Sarah Warbelow. “Fair-minded Georgians must not be fooled by Rep. Kirk’s despicable attempt to mask discrimination against LGBT Georgians and their families with religious freedom. This reckless legislation would have dangerous and far reaching consequences by allowing state government officials to discriminate against same-sex couples and their families.”
And Freedom For All Americans, a national group with a focus on LGBT employment discrimination, sounded off as well:
“Americans overwhelmingly agree that we must respect the rule of law,” said Matt McTighe, executive director of Freedom for All Americans. “The freedom of religion is one of our fundamental values, and no one is trying to change that. But if you are a government employee or a government contractor, you have to follow the law. That means providing services to all Georgians, no matter who they are. It’s a dangerous precedent to allow individuals or organizations to simply pick and choose which laws they want to follow.”
Can’t wait till next Wednesday.
UPDATE 6:03 p.m.: The Democratic Party of Georgia weighed in on the bill. Per party spokesman Michael Smith:
“Religious freedom is already guaranteed under the US Constitution. With this bill, Kirk’s anti-LGBTQ agenda is so transparent, I wouldn’t be surprised if he drafted it on cellophane. This dangerous bill doesn’t just target our community—it’s a broad, poorly written piece of legislation that could have dire ramifications for single parents, unmarried couples, women who are pregnant, and so many other Georgians. “Instead of serving the best interests of his constituents and the rest of the state, Kirk would obviously rather play the politics of fear. Georgia families are counting on our elected leaders to find real solutions to grow the middle class and ensure that everyone has a fair shot. Democrats from both chambers have filed legislation to do just that—move our state forward. And now it’s clear that Kirk wants to move us backward.”
UPDATE 6:10 p.m.: LGBT legal organization Lambda Legal issued a statement on the bill. Per senior attorney Beth Littrell:No useful SXSW torrents this year. Hooray. sxswtorrent.com writes:
The bad news: Starting this year SXSW is replacing the sample tracks they have provided for years with links to Soundcloud pages. While there are certainly known ways to download those samples, Soundcloud goes through considerable trouble to prevent that from happening. Since these torrents have always been about providing easier access to otherwise readily downloadable samples instead of outright piracy, this regrettably means that, if SXSW sticks with this new design, we will be unable to provide torrents in the future. The good news: Since this is a very recent change, we do have a partial set of sample tracks that were released for 2014. It should be on the order of 700-800 songs; however there will likely not be a Part 2. We were not expecting this change, so please be patient as we get our process updated and get a release built. We're hoping to be ready first thing next week (2/24).
So basically, SXSW has made it impossible for me to do my usual prep -- listen to 1500 tracks, decide which ones I like, and then use that list to decide which shows to attend. Without doing that prep, there's really no reason for me to attend at all, because the chance that I'm going to see something I care about drops to basically zero. I'll end up seeing 3 bands a day instead of 14. I wouldn't have bought a ticket, hotel and flight if I'd known I was going to have to go in cold.
Thanks, SXSW. Your attendee-hostility grows every year. It's like you're using Burning Man as your customer service model.
They used to provide full torrents themselves. Then they stopped. Then they used to provide MP3s. Now they've stopped. Next year maybe they won't even bother telling us who's playing!
Meanwhile:
I guess it's time to update my scrape-sxsw.pl script to try and rip all the music from their site on my own. Anyone got a pointer to a simple, effective and functional Soundcloud downloader? Perl preferred, but anything I can run from the command line is fine.
Update: The torrent is up now, but contains only 783 tracks.The Italian funeral doom quartet of Fuoco Fatuo is primed for their debut on Profound Lore Records come April 7, and it's a corker. Since their 2011 inception, the Varese-based band have come out with a few smaller releases and a 2014 full-length, The Viper Slithers in the Ashes of What Remains. Now, nearly three years later, the occult death doom entity turned funerary force has returned with an oppressive new album named Backwater.
"Backwater stands for a forgotten place, to which nobody has physical access anymore. Imagine a vast swampland filled with smoke, dead trees, and putrid water—no living creature, no hope. You can explore it just through your mind, feeling the isolation of this gloomy land until you can breathe its oppressive air. That is kind of what we imagine when playing Backwater's tracks," guitarist Giovanni Piazza told Noisey. "As the oil painting on the cover suggests, cold and abstractness are the rulers of this journey through oblivion. More in particular, the painting represents our vision of the magma inside the Earth, slowly cooling down without losing its destroying firmness. We have to thank Raoul of View from the Coffin for perfectly catching it. The feeling behind the composing process was very figurative: through it, we aim to lead the listener into the abyss—if they can handle it, of course."
Funeral doom's inherent heaviness arises from an overwhelming emotional weight, and the most successful bands are able to bend this weight to their will. Fuoco Fatuo's new hour-long endeavor capitalizes on this and other hallmark traits of funeral and death doom, which—combined with a suffocating aesthetic—makes for a truly ominous record.
The quartet also opts to continuously bury a listener in sound instead of offering respite through atmospheric dirge, like Mournful Congregation or Funeral Moth typically do. Take "Perpetual Apochaos" for example; much of the album's third song is built on colossal walls of droning riffs that pour out of the guitars and continue throughout the track's entirety, ultimately providing a strong build-up to what is perhaps Backwater's greatest moment, "Nemesis." The 17-minute track is a harrowing conclusion to Fuoco Fatuo's opus, where the drone of the guitars is met with a greater sense of urgency from Davide Bacchetta's crash cymbals and the deathly growl of Milo Angeloni. The surmounting abyssal of instrumentation makes for a gripping finish.
Listen to the album below. Backwater is officially out this Friday, April 7. Order the album through Profound Lore's website (CAN) and MerchTable (USA/RoW) now.
Cody Davis is huffing sulphur on Twitter.An Indonesia driver took a minute to send a text after he killed a pedestrian and wrecked his Lamborghini during a wild race against a Ferrari.
Wiyang Lautner was arrested Sunday after the fatal joyride in East Java, the Jakarta Post reported. Video from the scene of the wreck showed the 24-year-old leaning out of his totaled luxury car’s window, casually texting on his cell phone.
Police said Lautner plowed into a middle-aged couple and a street vendor during the dangerous drag race, killing the husband and injuring the wife and the roadside merchant.
CALIF. 'HOT COP' ARRESTED FOR HIT-AND-RUN: AUTHORITIES
Police said a Lamborghini driver casually texted from his wrecked car's window after he plowed into three people, killing one. (via Facebook)
Kuswanto, 51, and his wife Srikanti, 41, were at the road stand buying milk from 44-year-old Mujianto when the Lamborghini crashed into the cart.
Kuswanto died on impact, local newspaper Kompas reported. The car dragged his body several yards before it crashed into a tree.
Srikanti and Mujianto both suffered broken legs and other serious injuries in the wreck, local media reported.
The wild drive hit a married couple and a street vendor, police said. (BuleBritish/via YouTube)
After he slammed his luxury car into a tree, Lautner began to crawl out of the window, an onlooker’s video showed. As he leaned halfway out of the smoking vehicle, he whipped out his cellphone and started texting.
It’s not clear if he was messaging for help.
Police took Lautner into custody after the horrific wreck. It’s not clear if he has been charged in the crash.
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Did you find this article helpful? If so, please share it using the "Join the Conversation" buttons below, and thank you for visiting Daily News Autos.Several weeks ago, we received a tip that alternative Android app distributor SlideME would come pre-loaded onto HTC devices in Asia. Then Malaysian website Mobile88 noted in its review of the HTC Magic that the phone ships with SlideME rather than the Android Market. This is no fluke.
More HTC handsets are shipping with SlideME Application Manager (SAM) pre-installed, including the just launched HTC Magic on Vodafone Egypt. Possibly as a result of Google’s slow distribution of paid apps in other countries, SlideME is being preloaded on new HTC phones released in Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
Billing and partnership issues may have created roadblocks for Google and the Android Market, but people can’t wait around forever. HTC’s decision to support SlideME spells out the desire to address this issue quickly. The obvious downside to this solution is that SlideME doesn’t have nearly as many apps as the more than 10,000 offerings in the Android Market. Being preloaded onto new devices may help change that as this will be a huge boost to SlideME. Though it is a smaller alternative market, SlideME will become the default market for many users in the most-populated region of the world. That may encourage more developers to post their creations in the SlideME store.The Bloor Street Bike Lane Pilot Project was approved by City Council in May 2016.
The installation of the separated bike lanes (cycle tracks) on Bloor Street West from Shaw Street (east of Ossington Avenue) to Avenue Road was completed in late August 2016.
The pilot project will allow us to demonstrate and study the impacts and benefits of bike lanes on Bloor Street. Extensive monitoring and evaluation is being carried out and will be reported to Council later this year.
Public Drop-in Event #3
Join us for our third public event to learn about the technical evaluation completed to date, review summaries of on-going public feedback, and discuss your experience and suggestions for the future of these cycling facilities.
Date & Time:
Monday, June 5, 2017, 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Location:
Trinity-St. Paul's Centre - Gym
(427 Bloor Street West. Wheelchair accessible)
Local Councillors Mike Layton and Joe Cressy will be in attendance. All information materials presented will be posted online shortly following the event.
Subscribe to receive emails with the latest updates on our webpage:
toronto.ca/bloorbikelanes
We look forward to seeing you!
Jason Diceman
Sr. Public Consultation Coordinator
Public Consultation Unit, PPF&A
City of Toronto
Metro Hall, 19th Floor
55 John Street, Toronto, ON M5V 3C6
416-338-2830
Jason.Diceman@toronto.ca
Follow us on Twitter - @GetInvolvedTORick Ross Finally Out of Jail... Ponies Up $2 Mil
Rick Ross -- Finally Out of Jail... Ponies Up $2 Million
Breaking News
Burn those "Free Rick Ross" tees... he's finally getting out of jail a week after getting arrested for assault and kidnapping -- but he had to come up with a ton o' cash to get sprung.
Ross' bond hearing in Fayette County, GA just wrapped up -- and the judge ok'd his release once he paid a $2 million bond... which he scraped together from a few places:
- $1 million equity from the ex-Holyfield mansion he owns, and another GA property
- $500,000 surety bond (from a bail bondsman)
- $500k in cold hard cash
Ross' attorney also promised his client would hand over the entire Holyfield property to the county... if he intimidates or threatens any witnesses.
Prosecutors reminded the judge how vicious the alleged crime was -- telling him Ross dragged the groundskeeper back into the house and beat him multiple times... and also held a gun to his chest and threatened to "pop a cap" in him if he talked.
Prosecutors said Ross was pissed because the groundskeeper -- who lives on the property -- had people over for his birthday the night before.
The boss will also have to wear one of those GPS ankle monitors... a la Lindsay Lohan back in the day.In April of 1989, a man named Charles Yacoub hijacked a bus with 10 passengers at gunpoint in Montreal. He forced the driver to take him to Parliament Hill. I was one month into my career, a cub news reporter at CJOH, the local CTV station in Ottawa. This would be the first major story I'd cover.
The bus ended up on the front lawn of The Parliament Buildings, right in front of the Peace Tower. It would sit there for five tense hours, with Yacoub and the hostages inside. He would eventually surrender—and in a very strange trial I covered—somehow get acquitted of the most of the charges, including hostage taking (this was my initiation to our justice system).
Those images of the bus on the lawn of our Parliament, Yacoub pacing back and forth inside with his gun, were surreal for Canadians. Especially an idealistic Ottawa boy who grew up thinking Parliament Hill was the symbol of our peaceful country. And the place we went for long, boring field trips in elementary school.
They locked down the Hill that day, too. I stood with a group of reporters just outside the police perimeter, grabbing streeters (quick interviews) with stunned citizens who all said exactly what we were thinking:
"How could this happen in Ottawa?"
We said the same thing six years later, this time through tears, when sportscaster and former NHLer Brian Smith, a friend and local legend, was shot dead as he walked out of our building after doing his 6pm sportscast.
The bus hijacking had been shocking, but Smitty's death was unfathomable. It couldn't happen in our safe, wonderful, city. No way.
But it did. A very sick man named Jeffrey Arenburg thought the media was broadcasting messages through his head. So he drove to our station and shot the first person he recognized. And everybody in Ottawa knew Smitty. Arenburg would be found not criminally responsible for Brian's death, and put in a mental institution. He was released a few years later (my re-initiation to our justice system).
I thought about both those awful incidents Wednesday, as the frightening--then heartbreaking--news from Ottawa broke piece-by-piece, tweet-by-tweet. It felt familiar in the worst possible way. But not shocking. That word slipped away after 9/11. We almost expect these horrific acts to happen now. It's only the when and where that catch us off-guard.
Our parent's generation grew up fearing wars. We fear being at the wrong place at the wrong time, when some lunatic decides to make his statement.
Nathan Cirillo knew there was risk when he became a soldier, but not today. Not in Ottawa and not standing in front of a monument with an unarmed weapon, ready to smile and pose with tourists.
We feel sick for his family. His friends. We tweet condolences, which never feel like enough.
I cover sports for a living. I won't attempt to offer an opinion on the issues that stem from what happened today—terrorism, politics, religion, national security, etc. You can find plenty of that elsewhere. What I do know is that when that bus hijacking happened in '89, and more so when Smitty was killed, we felt like Ottawa would never be the same…like it was somehow tarnished. But those feelings fade in time. And they will again.
I was back in town this past weekend for the Senators opener and Homecoming at Carleton University. It was spectacular. I took my parents for breakfast at Daly's, my favourite buffet right across from Parliament Hill. I drank beer with old friends, and screamed my lungs out with students dressed as Penguins (I have no idea) at the Ravens' game.
My hometown is hurting tonight and there are a lot of questions to be answered. But don't question this: Ottawa is a great city with great people. It was this morning. It is tonight. And it always will be.TORONTO - Toronto FC’s players trained in Oakville for the final time Thursday morning before they leave for Florida. After three days training at the Oakville Soccer Club, the players will have the weekend off before boarding a plane to Orlando on Monday morning.
Following training Thursday, Head Coach Aron Winter confirmed there will be trialists joining the team in Florida, but squad will be smaller than he took to Turkey. “We are going to have a smaller number of players than we had there,” he told Toronto FC TV. “I want to start training more with the roster that I think we will have when the season starts in March.”
“We have some players that we had with us in Turkey. They will be coming with us to Florida. We have some more trials in Orlando with some specific positions. Those players are mostly from South and Central America.”
After training, captain Dwayne De Rosario talked about how he fits into Aron Winter’s football philosophy. The Canadian international says the changes in style suit his game perfectly.
When asked if this is the happiest he has been on the pitch since joining the club, he said: “Besides my first day signing, I think so. I was really looking forward to seeing what kind of style the new coaches would bring and it has been everything I expected. It has been not only everything that I wanted but what everyone here wanted. It is the type of football that everyone will enjoy seeing, but the main thing is getting the results.”
“It is an attacking type of football with lots of possession and building up through the team, penetrating through the midfield. We have the players to suit that style. It is different to how we were playing last year so guys are adapting and utilizing the coach’s ideas to the best of our ability.”
“For me the style is perfect. It really suits anyone that likes to play with the ball on the ground and with lots of movement. The main thing is everyone getting comfortable with the ball at their feet.”Two officials from Reliance Industries and Reliance Power, which are owned by Mukesh Ambani and Anil Ambani respectively, were brought before a court in New Delhi on Saturday following their arrests on Friday evening.
Three employees working for other energy sector businesses also appeared in court, including the Essar conglomerate, which is controlled by the wealthy Ruia family, and Cairn India, the oil exploration division of billionaire Anil Agarwal's London-listed Vedanta Resources.
Read MoreHow big a deal is Modi's defeat in Delhi?
India's oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan promised a full investigation into the scandal, which emerged last week. This followed a police sting operation which led to the arrests of a series of middlemen on suspicion of illegally obtaining and then selling documents to the companies involved.
"Nobody is above [the] law. Nobody will be spared," Mr Pradhan told the Press Trust of India news agency this weekend. "This government will not permit anyone to breach the system or bend the rules."
Reshmi Khurana, head of India at security company Kroll, said the investigation was likely to attract extensive publicity given the high-profile businesses involved, all of whom have well-funded lobbying operations in New Delhi.
"These companies are names to reckon with," she said. "But this is a wider problem in the Indian system, when any sector with lots of regulation attracts layers of middlemen who you can deal with to get information, even if that means breaking rules."
More from The Financial Times:
Greece scrambles to send draft reforms to EU institutions
Shanghai exchange to open doors to foreign short sellers
Disunited Kingdom: UK — a new order?
Foreign companies operating in heavily regulated industries such as power, telecoms and defense often complain in private that domestic operators gain an unfair advantage through their ability to access information about forthcoming government decisions.
"We always assumed that our competitors would know anything going on in the ministry the minute it happened, and long before it became public. It was like magic," said the head of one global business operating in India, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Reliance Industries and Essar said they have launched internal investigations into the arrests of their employees. A spokesman for Reliance Power said it would "ensure full co-operation with the investigative agencies". Cairn India declined to comment.The security of high-end handcuffs depends on a detainee not having access to certain small, precisely-shaped objects. In the age of easy 3D printing and other DIY innovations, that assumption may no longer apply.
In a workshop Friday at the Hackers On Planet Earth conference in New York, a German hacker and security consultant who goes by the name "Ray" demonstrated a looming problem for handcuff makers hoping to restrict the distribution of the keys that open their cuffs: With plastic copies he cheaply produced with a laser-cutter and a 3D printer, he was able to open handcuffs built by the German firm Bonowi and the English manufacturer Chubb, both of which attempt to control the distribution of their keys to keep them exclusively in the hands of authorized buyers such as law enforcement.
The demonstration highlights a unique problem for handcuff makers, who design their cuffs to be opened by standard keys possessed by every police officer in a department, so that a suspect can be locked up by one officer and released by another, says Ray. Unlike other locks with unique keys, any copy of a standard key will open a certain manufacturer's cuff. "Police need to know that every new handcuff they buy has a key that can be reproduced," he says. "Until every handcuff has a different key, they can be copied."
Unlike keys for more common handcuffs, which can be purchased (even in forms specifically designed to be concealable) from practically any survivalist or police surplus store, Bonowi's and Chubb's keys can't be acquired from commercial vendors. Ray says he bought a Chubb key from eBay, where he says they intermittently appear, and obtained the rarer Bonowi key through a source he declined to name. Then he precisely measured them with calipers and created CAD models, which he used to reproduce the keys en masse, both in plexiglass with a friend's standard laser cutter and in ABS plastic with a Repman 3D printer. Both types of tools can be found in hacker spaces around the U.S. and, in the case of 3D printers, thousands of consumers' homes.
Over the weekend, a lockpick vendor at the HOPE conference was already selling dozens of the plexiglass Chubb keys for a mere $4 each. Ray says he plans to upload the CAD files for the Chubb key to the 3D-printing Web platform Thingiverse after the annual lockpicking conference LockCon later this week.
I reached out to both Chubb and Bonowi's parent company Assa Abloy over the weekend, and will update this story when I hear back from them.
Ray also tried creating duplicate plexiglass key for high-security handcuffs from the German manufacturer Clejuso, but found that when the cuffs were fully secured the plexiglass wasn't strong enough to overcome their internal springs. An attendee at the workshop helpfully suggested he try laser-cutting the stronger material Lexan instead.
Ray, who typically works as a computer security consultant but has also advised the German police on handcuff technology, says his goal isn't to reduce handcuffs' security so much as to exposing their vulnerabilities. His tools, he argues, are already available to criminals along with the rest of the public. "If someone is planning a prison or court escape, he can do it without our help," says Ray. "We’re just making everyone aware, both the hackers and the police."
He points out that police are trained to always monitor a handcuffed person, though officers might violate that rule if they believe their handcuffs are absolutely secure. "People tend to forget this rule if they think the key is secret," he says. "And the more they believe the key is secret, the more risk there is.
Even so, Ray says he won't post CAD models of the Bonowi or Clejuso models online, given that those keys are harder to obtain and providing blueprints for their reproduction could in fact reduce their real-world security. But the availability of the Chubb keys should serve as something of a wake-up call: The cuffs' applications include restraints for airplane passengers. Ray points out that his plastic keys can easily be carried through airport security.
The spread of ever-cheaper 3D printers and other computer-aided home manufacturing tools is raising thorny issues for any company or government hoping to control the distribution of shapes, from Legos to firearm components. In fact, Ray's HOPE demonstration wasn't the first time he's posed the problem for handcuff makers. In 2009, he reproduced simpler, more easily obtained keys used by Dutch police at another hacker conference in Vierhouten in the Netherlands.
"In Holland we showed the police first," Ray says. "They weren’t interested, and didn’t want to try it. So we demonstrated it anyway."
In this case, Ray gave no such forewarning to law enforcement or to the cuffs' manufacturers. But he says he's confident that his work on ubiquitous key reproduction is bringing important light to a security issue--not creating one.
"People who have a high value goal don’t mind the cost of using a higher cost method. Someone with a higher criminal goal doesn’t care if it takes one dollar or one hundred dollars to make this key," he says. "Lock security was broken before. I’ve just made it easier."Libya's rivals are continuing their meetings in Morocco under United Nations sponsorship led by Bernardino Leon, UN special envoy to Libya, whose mandate is about to expire at the end of March.
According to multiple people involved with whom I have spoken over the weekend, the discussions revolve around three main sticking points: legitimacy, a unity government, and putting an end to the fighting.
The House of Representatives (HoR), which was elected several months ago and is headquartered in the city of Tobruk near the Libyan-Egyptian border, insists that it is the only government body that should be considered legitimate and that because it was elected, it should not be put in the same position as the other bodies or groups.
Never mind the fact that more than half of its members are boycotting it and that it was elected by only 16 percent of registered voters, who, in turn, make up only approximately 20 percent of the population. The rest didn't bother to vote, were unable to vote for security reasons, or were not allowed to vote because they live in exile outside the country.
The latter group represents approximately 20 percent of the population and is comprised mainly of supporters of the former regime living in Egypt, Tunisia, and elsewhere since the killing of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
Perceived superiority
The HoR's perceived position of superiority is reinforced by international recognition, which is a legacy of circumstances that have long passed.
The issue of unity government involves the usual haggling over who gets what and who should head it. More important, having seen the documents being discussed myself, is the absence of any clear and detailed road map of who does what and when - and, who will guarantee the security of the government and protect it from the many armed militias and gangs controlling the country, which is precisely the same issue that afflicted its predecessors for four years.
The final issue that must be resolved in order to implement a truce between the warring parties is the same old revolving door as to who can ensure such disengagement, if even supposed allies of the "internationally recognised government" were bombing their enemies in Tripoli on the very day the talks in Morocco began.
If there is any real hope of hammering out an agreement that can last anytime soon, Leon needs to get serious and stop this nonsense of wanting everyone to play nice.
First, I think Leon needs to make it clear to the HoR that technical electoral "legitimacy" is not equivalent to representation nor does it give the HoR and General Khalifa Haftar, who was appointed in clear defiance of international advice, an open-ended check to play spoiler and engage in acts of war against the very people with whom they are sitting down to negotiate.
If the HoR is using this international fig leaf of recognition to be more intransigent, then maybe that fig leaf should be withdrawn so that everyone can be treated for what they really are; equal parties in the civil war.
If there is any real hope of hammering out an agreement that can last anytime soon, Leon needs to get serious and stop this nonsense of wanting everyone to play nice.
Political process
Second, Leon needs to put forth very clear criteria as to who will have a seat at the table and be part of the political process, irrespective of who they are, where they are, or what politics they espouse.
Then, he needs to allow them to sort themselves out and either accept these conditions or be considered outside the process and placed on the UN sanctions list.
Third, Leon should no longer delay the UN process of showing the stick of sanctions against individuals who have committed war crimes by bombing civilian targets, airports, and the like, as he has been doing for months, despite having a clear UN mandate, passed in September of 2014.
There has also even been a list of candidates to be placed on the list, which includes such people as Haftar and Salah Badi, both of whom have led military assaults on airports, which is an international war crime. Leon, who has been hoping to get these people to agree to a peace process, has delayed activating this sanctions list.
Fourth, Leon needs to offer guarantees, including a UN contingency of peacekeepers to secure the main urban centres, government facilities, oil terminals, etc. once the negotiating parties have agreed on a unity government and a clear mechanism to elect a new legislative body that can produce a real legitimate and representative body.
Finally, the UN needs to take control of the reserves and oil revenues to remove them from the grab of militias and rivals, and internationalise the financial dimension of Libya's conflict and put a stop to its ATM facilities to terrorists and militias from one side or the other.
Hafed al-Ghwell is a senior non-resident Fellow with the Rafik Hariri Center at the Atlantic Council in Washington DC and former adviser to the Dean of the Board of Executive Directors of the World Bank Group.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.College student Danish Mohammed’s arrest this March under the scrapped Section 66A of the Information Technology Act for allegedly sharing a morphed picture of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat wasn’t an exception.
Police arrested more than 3,000 people under the section in 2015, triggering concerns that the law was abused well after it was struck down by the Supreme Court in March last year. The top court had ruled Section 66A violated the constitutional freedom of speech and expression.
The exact number of people arrested after it was scrapped is not available. But the National Crime Records Bureau’s (NCRB) Crime in India report released last month shows 3,137 arrests under the section in 2015 against 2,423 the previous year.
On an average, four people were arrested every 12 hours in 2015 as compared to three in 2014.
“I am shocked,” said Supreme Court lawyer Karuna Nundy, who represented the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, among the petitioners in Supreme Court seeking removal of Section 66A.
“Making sure that our guardians of law know their law is absolutely basic... Whether it is training or notifying every police officer, we need action on it immediately,” she said.
It is unlikely that all 3,000-plus arrests were made before the provision was struck down in March. Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Bengaluru-headquartered advocacy group Centre for Internet and Society, said it was obvious that the police had not made these arrests before the SC ruling.
Lawyer Manali Singhal said once the Supreme Court struck off a provision of law, “any arrest under that provision would be per se illegal and void”.
Police also appeared to be on an overdrive to file charge sheets against people booked before the SC verdict – in 1,500 cases last year, almost twice the 2014 figure.
NCRB statistics suggest that trials too did not end.
There were 575 people still in jail on January 1, 2016, twice as many as the 275 in prison when the law was in force a year earlier. In 2015, the courts also convicted accused in 143 cases.
Read | Supreme Court disposes of PIL over ‘misuse’ of sedition law
First Published: Sep 07, 2016 01:06 ISTFremantle have named six changes to their TABtouch 22 for Saturday’s clash against the Western Bulldogs, with Harley Balic and Griffin Logue set to make their AFL debuts.
A product of Swan Districts Football Club, Logue arrived at Fremantle via pick 8 in the 2016 NAB AFL National Draft.
The 18-year-old defender first pulled on a Fremantle jumper in the JLT Community Series against Carlton in March, where he picked up 11 disposals and kicked a supergoal.
A second year player, Balic came to Fremantle from the Sandringham Dragons via pick 38 in the 2015 National Draft.
After being sidelined for most of the 2016 WAFL season with a wrist injury, Balic has shown strong form for Peel. The 20-year-old currently leads the WAFL in disposals, with 92 from the opening three rounds.
Tommy Sheridan, Hayden Crozier, Ethan Hughes and Brady Grey join Balic and Logue as Fremantle’s inclusions.
Zac Clarke has been placed on the placed on the long-term injury list which has allowed Grey to be elevated from the rookie list.
Zac Dawson, Nick Suban, Cam Sutcliffe, Darcy Tucker, Jon Griffin and Danyle Pearce have all been omitted with Pearce, Griffin and Taberner named as the emergencies.
The Western Bulldogs have named one change with Toby McLean coming in for the injured Stewart Crameri.Looks like we found our idiot of the day! C + F Food store on North Avenue in Grand Junction was robbed Tuesday (October |
husae and Gryphoceratops morrisoni are new species from the Leptoceratopsidae horned dinosaur family. The herbivores lived during the Late Cretaceous, between 75 to 83 million years ago. The specimens are described in Cretaceous Research.
"These dinosaurs fill important gaps in the evolutionary history of small-bodied horned dinosaurs that lack the large horns and frills of relatives like Triceratops from North America," said lead author Michael Ryan, Ph.D., curator of vertebrate paleontology at The Cleveland Museum of Natural History. "Although horned dinosaurs originated in Asia, our analysis suggests that leptoceratopsids radiated to North America and diversified here, since the new species, Gryphoceratops, is the earliest record of the group on this continent."
Unescoceratops koppelhusae lived approximately 75 million years ago. Measuring about one to two meters (6.5 feet) and weighing less than 91 kilograms (200 pounds), it had a short frill behind its head, no skull ornamentation and a parrot-like beak. Its teeth were lower and rounder than those of any other leptoceratopsid. Its hatchet-shaped jaw had a bone that projected below the jaw like a small chin.
The lower left jaw fragment of Unescoceratops was discovered in 1995 in Dinosaur Provincial Park, a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site by Philip Currie, Ph.D., now of the University of Alberta. Described in 1998 by Ryan and Currie, the dinosaur was referred to as Leptoceratops. Subsequent research by Ryan and the Royal Ontario Museum's David Evans, Ph.D., determined the specimen was a new genus and species. The genus is named to honor the UNESCO site designation for the locality where the specimen was found and from the Greek "ceratops," meaning "horned face." The species is named for palynologist Eva Koppelhus, Ph.D., wife of Currie.
Gryphoceratops morrisoni lived about 83 million years ago. It had a shorter and deeper jaw than other leptoceratopsids. Researchers believe it was a full-grown adult. Based on unique characters of the jaw and its size, researchers believe it was an adult less than one-half meter in length. This makes it the smallest adult horned dinosaur in North America and one of the smallest adult plant-eating dinosaurs known.
Lower right jaw fragments of Gryphoceratops were discovered in southern Alberta in 1950 by Levi Sternberg while working for the Royal Ontario Museum. The genus is named for "Gryphon," a mythological Greek figure with the body of a lion and the head of an eagle—a reference to the animal's beaked face. The species name honors Royal Ontario Museum technician Ian Morrison.
Second author Evans, of the Royal Ontario Museum, said, "Small-bodied dinosaurs are typically poorly represented in the fossil record, which is why fragmentary remains like these new leptoceratopsids can make a big contribution to our understanding of dinosaur ecology and evolution."
Contributing authors are Philip Currie, Ph.D., University of Alberta; Caleb Brown, University of Toronto; and Don Brinkman, Ph.D., Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology.
Images at www.cmnh.org.
SOURCE Cleveland Museum of Natural HistoryClawson School Board member Linda Grossmann joked at a Nov. 10, 2014, meeting that the district should shoot students with allergies. (Photo: Screen grab from YouTube video)
CLAWSON, Mich. — A school board member has resigned after public uproar over a joke she made at a meeting about shooting students with allergies.
The topic of students' food allergies was being discussed at a Nov. 10 board meeting when Trustee Linda Grossmann said, "Well, you should just shoot them," according to a video of the meeting posted on YouTube.
"We were stunned and saddened by a comment recently made by a member of the Board of Education of Clawson Public Schools," read a statement posted on the district's website.
"Although the comment was an inappropriate attempt at humor, it was most insensitive, and has resulted in the resignation" of Grossmann, the statement read. "It does not represent the views of our district nor our Board of Education."
The statement wasn't enough for some, including Heather Maurer, whose son has a nut allergy and is a fourth-grader at Schalm Elementary. She noted that some in the audience, and at least a couple of the board members now condemning Grossmann's comment, could be heard laughing in a video of the meeting.
Board members should have said something then, said Maurer, who describes herself as a strong supporter of the district.
"An immediate consequence needed to happen there," Maurer said.
During the meeting, the board was hearing a report about new federal rules that restrict the kinds of snacks that can be sold in schools. Principals were asked about the impact in their schools. One responded that snacks aren't served in school because many kids have allergies. Another made similar comments, saying "Too many allergies. We have like 20 kids with allergies at this point — at least one in every class."
That's when Grossmann responded: "Well, you should just shoot them."
She immediately raised her hands to indicate she was kidding. One board member said they should just put those children in a separate classroom.
Grossmann's comment angered Mark Drinkard, who has five grandchildren attending Clawson schools — including one with a peanut allergy.
"I know she was joking, but it was a very poor joke," Drinkard said. "If you had a life-threatening allergy, would you think it was so funny if someone made fun of you?"
He said his granddaughter has to eat at a table alone at lunch to avoid allergies and often feels ostracized. The separate lunch table is necessary, he said, to ensure his granddaughter doesn't come in contact with peanuts.
"Just the whole crassness of the thing is what gets me," Drinkard said.
He noted that if a student had made such a joking comment about shooting other students, he or she would face disciplinary action.
Clawson Superintendent Monique Beels called the comment "insensitive and hurtful," and a "sad attempt at humor."
Grossmann could not be immediately reached for comment.
A video of the meeting has gone viral, garnering comments from across the country on the district's Facebook page and the website page of a group that called itself Honesty for Clawson Schools. A posting on the latter's Facebook page had been shared nearly 2,000 times Tuesday.
A national group, Food Allergy Research & Education, issued a news release calling the comments "egregious and unacceptable."
"Food allergies are a serious illness and suggesting that these children should be shot, even in jest, is outrageous and unacceptable from a public official," said James Baker, CEO of the McLean, Va.-based nonprofit.
Maurer didn't hear about the uproar until she was scrolling through Facebook Monday night. Not knowing what the video would show, she played it while her son was with her.
"He comprehended it immediately and got very upset. He wrote a letter/picture about it because he was so mad about it," she said.
Despite the comment, Maurer said she's been happy with the care that staff at Schalm Elementary have provided to her son.
"I have all the faith in them," she said. "They do everything they need to do to keep my kid safe. It's sad that these are our policy-makers and decision-makers that are acting like this."
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1zXXpHADeirdre M. Daly, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, announced that ERIC LONERGAN, 23, of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, pleaded guilty today in New Haven federal court to one count of conspiracy to possess with the intent to distribute, and to distribute, MDMA (“Molly”). The charge stems from an investigation into the distribution of controlled substances that caused multiple Wesleyan University students to overdose earlier this year.
“This defendant trafficked in a drug that caused multiple overdoses and nearly took the life of one Wesleyan student,” said U.S. Attorney Daly. “As evidenced by this investigation and prosecution, Molly and other synthetic drugs are clearly not innocuous party drugs. Students who use synthetic drugs can never be certain what they are ingesting. Wesleyan students who bought these drugs from this dorm-room chemist literally risked their lives by relying on his purported expertise. We thank the DEA, the Middlesex State’s Attorney’s Office and the Middletown Police Department for their collaboration and diligent work in this investigation.”
According to court documents and statements made in court, LONERGAN and Zachary Kramer were students at Wesleyan in Middletown, Connecticut. Beginning in approximately November 2013, LONERGAN began selling a substance he referred to as both “Molly” and MDMA to students on or in the vicinity of the Wesleyan campus. LONERGAN regularly sold Molly from his dorm room, charging approximately $20 per.1 gram, or $200 per gram, LONERGAN also counseled students on how to ingest Molly and other psychedelic drugs. At one point in 2014, after the administration at Wesleyan sent out a campus-wide communication warning of the dangers of ingesting controlled substances like Molly, LONERGAN responded by distributing a pamphlet instructing students on the use of psychedelic drugs.
In approximately September 2014, Kramer began purchasing what he believed to be Molly from LONERGAN and distributed it to students at Wesleyan. At times, LONERGAN used a chemical test on the substance he sold Kramer to prove to him that he was selling Kramer high-quality MDMA.
In September 2014, LONERGAN was the source of Molly for several students who were planning a “rolling” party at Wesleyan, which is a party where guests ingest Molly. He provided several grams of a substance he represented to be MDMA, in bulk, and another student then distributed it to students in.1 gram capsules. At this party, which occurred on September 13, 2014, several students became ill, some seriously, after ingesting the substance provided by LONERGAN. Two of these students were transported to the hospital. After these overdoses, LONERGAN sent electronic communications to several students assuring them that the substance he provided to them was indeed MDMA. One of the students who became ill at the party saved one of the capsules she had purchased and turned it over to the Middletown Police in February 2015. A lab test on the contents of that capsule revealed that it did not contain MDMA, but contained two other controlled substances: AB Fubinaca, a Schedule I controlled substance, and 6-MAPB, an analogue of MDMA.
In approximately December 2014, Kramer became the primary supplier of MDMA at Wesleyan. Kramer typically would sell the MDMA in.1 gram quantities for $20 each or he would sell it in 5-gram and 10-gram quantities for a discount, charging $100 or more, depending on the customer and the quantity. During this time period, LONERGAN still supplied Kramer with bulk quantities of MDMA. In approximately January 2015, Kramer purchased approximately 45 grams of MDMA from LONERGAN. Kramer broke that quantity into 5 and 10-gram bags and distributed those bags to other students who planned to break down the MDMA into.1 gram capsules, sell those capsules to other Wesleyan students, and pay Kramer for the quantity of the drug he had provided to them.
On February 21, 2015, 11 individuals, including 10 Wesleyan students, overdosed on a substance they believed was MDMA, and many were transported to the hospital. Two of the students were in critical condition, and one of the students had to be revived after his heart stopped. All of these students obtained the purported MDMA through individual distributers who were supplied directly by Kramer.
Although Kramer and some of his distributers destroyed the substance identified as Molly that they had in their possession, one of the distributers did not, and that substance was seized by law enforcement officers and sent to the toxicology laboratory for testing. Laboratory analysis confirmed that the powdered substance contained AB Fubinaca.
The charge of conspiracy to possess with the intent to distribute, and to distribute, MDMA carries a maximum term of imprisonment of 20 years and a maximum fine of $1 million. LONERGAN is scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Vanessa L. Bryant on February 25, 2016, in Hartford. He has been released on bond since his federal arrest on May 22, 2015.
On November 12, 2015, Kramer pleaded guilty to the same charge. He is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Bryant on February 11, 2016.
This matter is being investigated by the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Middletown Police Department, with the assistance of the State of Connecticut’s Forensic Science Laboratory.
U.S. Attorney Daly acknowledged the support and assistance of the Middlesex State’s Attorney’s Office, which is prosecuting several state cases stemming from these overdose events.
The federal case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert M. Spector and Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Eugene Calistro, who has been cross-designated as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney in this matter.A committee of the Karnataka legislature set up to look into alleged irregularities in private clubs in Bangalore has in its recommendations suggested that elected members like MPs and MLAs must be given honorary memberships in private clubs.
The House committee which was set in 2012 when now chief minister and the then leader of opposition Siddaramaiah and other Congress leaders had demanded a House probe of clubs to look into issues like imposition of dress codes and other rules.
The committee whose recommendations of March 30, 2013 was placed in the Assembly on Friday has now recommended removal of dress codes prevailing in some of the prestigious clubs in the city preventing people wearing clothing like dhotis and chappals from entering clubs. Decent clothing should be criteria for entry into clubs rather strict dress codes, the committee has stated.
"The committee recommends that the government should issue directions that no club in the state must impose strict dress codes for entry,'' committee stated in its primary recommendation.
The Bangalore Golf Club, the Karnataka State Cricket Association, Bangalore Turf Club, the Bangalore Club and the Bowring Institute Club were among the prestigious clubs surveyed by the committee while putting forth its recommendations.
"Some prestigious clubs have their own dress code, and mostly give membership to foreigners, those who have black money and foreign culture,'' the committee said.
The committee has recommended taking over of government land allotted to clubs in the event of any illegal constructions being carried out on the property. The committee also said action must be taken against clubs engaged in activities other than what it was granted permission for. Creation of a monitoring committee to oversee clubs has also been recommended.
A New Recreation Club Act to regulate clubs and their membership has been mooted. "Elected representatives have special rights in a democracy and in this context local MPs, MLAs and MLCs must be made honorary members of clubs in their areas,'' the committee has recommended. The creation of a Constitutional Club for members of the legislature is among the recommendations.
Please read our terms of use before posting comments• Olympic champion fired by sprint rival Justin Gatlin’s ‘medical pass’ jibe • Bolt says he is in better shape for Rio than for world championships
Usain Bolt is promising to let Justin Gatlin “feel his full wrath” as he targets an unprecedented triple treble of gold medals at the Olympic Games.
Usain Bolt approaches peak to pump up pressure on Justin Gatlin Read more
Bolt was given a medical exemption by Jamaican officials to compete in Rio after he pulled a hamstring during the country’s Olympic trials and Gatlin wasted little opportunity in trying to get under the his rvial’s skin.
The American said the six-times Olympic gold medallist had been given “a medical pass” to compete and the comment has served only to fuel Bolt’s desire to prove himself on the track.
“I think they have not learned over the years that the more you talk, the more I will want to beat you,” Bolt said. “It’s one of those things but I’m looking forward to it, should be exciting and they will feel my full wrath as always.”
Having won the 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay at the past two Olympics, Bolt will attempt to become the first to win the three titles at three consecutive Games.
The world’s fastest man, who returned to action in the 200m at last month’s Anniversary Games in London, said he felt he is in better shape than he was for last year’s world championships in Beijing. “I’m feeling much more confident now. I’m much more comfortable with where I’m at. I never try to predict times, because you never know what will happen. But for me the shape I’m in, I’ll say I’m in much better shape, so I think 9.6sec definitely.”
Bolt’s world record for the 100m is 9.58. He ran 9.79 in clinching his third world championships title in Beijing. The 100m final at Rio is on 13 August.
As for the 200m Bolt and his coach Glen Mills have been pleased with the work they have been doing on the bend after some “rust” in London, when Bolt ran 19.89sec.
“We’ve been doing a lot of work since I’ve been here, everything has been going well, I’ve been feeling great and I have no problem so I’m happy with the progress I’m making,” he said. “It was just rust for me, having not run the 200 in over a year pretty much, but now I’ve familiarised myself back with the work, and it’s just about going out there and executing.”The Trump business is already profiting from the Trump presidency.
Mar-a-Lago, the Trump Organization's "Winter White House" in Palm Beach, Florida, doubled its initiation fee to $200,000 a year at the beginning of January, CNBC reported.
The introductory fee used to be $200,000 before Bernie Madoff took victim of so many Palm Beach residents. After that, the resort slashed it to $100,000. Now that Donald Trump has taken America's highest office, the price is back up.
And while the Trump Organization's most famous resort is raising its prices, Trump Hotels is plotting a nationwide expansion.
Trump Hotels CEO Eric Danziger said on Tuesday that the company aimed to be in all 26 major metropolitan areas — which would triple its U.S. presence. Bloomberg reported Danziger's remarks at a panel discussion in Los Angeles.
“There are 26 major metropolitan areas in the U.S., and we’re in five,” Danziger said. “I don’t see any reason that we couldn’t be in all of them eventually.”
The company is considering new hotels in Dallas, Seattle, Denver and San Francisco, along with a lower-priced tier of hotels in smaller cities.
Any U.S. expansion of Trump Hotels would come after the company faced criticism for its foreign real estate deals in light of Trump's election as U.S. president.Ukraine is not alone in being targeted by a Russia that uses restrictions and bans on trade as a weapon. Moscow seeks to punish neighbouring countries economically if they disagree on policy.
Despite clear Russian trade threats, former Soviet republics Moldova and Georgia intend to sign initial association agreements with the EU even as Ukraine has pulled out. Moldova has far more trade with Europe than with Russia. Even its outlaw region of Transnistria, populated by ethnic Russians, does 30 to 40 per cent of its foreign trade with Europe.
Georgia's new government is ostensibly friendlier with Russia than the one that fought a war with Moscow in 2008, but not so friendly that it would turn its back on European ties and European markets that offer far more potential. Russia has wielded trade bans against both countries, based on supposed sanitary infractions, and promises to keep doing so. That was one of its main tactics against Ukraine this past year.
As Russia tries to exert its will within the former Soviet Union, Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of a foreign policy magazine, suggests the country could be going through its ''little Britain'' phase. That is, Russia is still trying to find its place in the world after the downfall of an empire, just as Britain did after World War II, and that can involve a fair amount of small-minded petulance and occasional compensatory swaggering.
Russia's bullying has won few friends among Ukrainians, who are wary of rushing into a deal to join Mr Putin's Customs Union and will look for any counterweight they can find. Even Belarus, already a member of the Customs Union, though a prickly one, recently had a nasty dispute with Russia over control of the fertiliser trade that included the jailing of a prominent Russian business executive.Even as the Senate confirmed Wilbur Ross as commerce secretary on Monday by a comfortable bipartisan margin of 72-27, trouble was lurking for Deputy Commerce Secretary nominee Todd Ricketts.
Four sources familiar with the matter told CBS News that Ricketts, a member of the wealthy Ricketts family that owns the Chicago Cubs and Ameritrade, has run into significant difficulties separating himself from financial ties as part of Office of Government Ethics requirements.
The requirements and difficulty of divesting from family business ties could force Ricketts to withdraw his nomination, two sources told CBS News. That move, the sources said, could come as early as Wednesday.
Sources close to Ricketts say the nominee is committed to working through the complex requests from the Office of Government Ethics but added that a White House waiver may be required to keep Ricketts from withdrawing.
Waivers can be obtained if the White House wants to recuse an official from a “particular matter” if it would have a “direct and predictable effect on the employee’s own financial interests.”
The problem Ricketts has encountered is that family business holdings he is linked to are so numerous and widespread that many of the duties of deputy commerce secretary could intersect with them.
Sources close to Ricketts said the issues were difficult but they hoped not insurmountable. Still, word began circulating over the weekend that Rickett’s nomination was in peril.
The family is well-known in GOP circles as the father, Joe Ricketts, is the founder of Ameritrade and a friend of President Trump. The family has also backed initiatives to reduce federal spending and has been, overall, supportive of Republican fiscal policies. One of Todd’s brothers, Pete, is the governor of Nebraska and another brother, Tom, is owner and chairman of the Cubs. Sister Laura is a co-owner of the Cubs with Tom.
The Ricketts family donated to the anti-Trump Super PAC Our Principles PAC during the primaries but switched to backing Mr. Trump during the general election.Is this all just an accident? A legal loophole that no one has noticed? A decision by parliament, the consequences of which no one foresaw?
Internal Netherlands government documents, obtained by De Correspondent through a hard-fought Dutch Public Access to Government Information Act request, show that the responsible parties are fully aware of what they’re doing. The director of international tax affairs in the Dutch parliament warned his colleagues: “This tax relief will enable American multinationals to enjoy an enormous and improper competitive advantage.” He continued: “As a result [the Netherlands] will be underwriting the takeover of its own business community by the American one.”
Despite these warnings, nothing happened. Joop Wijn, the state secretary for finance at the time who went on to become economic affairs minister, abolished many hurdles aimed at preventing malfeasance. In a memo that was recently made public, he underlined the sentence: “The Netherlands need not serve as the world’s (tax) inspector.” Next to it, he wrote the Dutch word, “Juist.” Precisely.
For someone whose job it is to ensure the highest possible tax revenues, this is a rather strange view to hold. But what’s even stranger is the behavior on the American side. The U.S. misses out on hundreds of millions of dollars every year thanks to the Netherlands’ tax loophole. “We are happy to have you guys give better treatment to our companies,“ an employee of the U.S. Treasury Department wrote in an email to a Dutch colleague in spring 2005. But the Europeans should please not expect the Americans to “do the same for your companies.” Clark Gascoigne, the deputy director of the FACT Coalition, an American NGO that advocates for fair taxation, said he felt the business lobby has emerged victorious over the interests of the American people. For years, he said, the U.S. government has been an accomplice to big tax-avoiding corporations.
The Dutch tax loophole is also a triumph for the American Chamber of Commerce, one of the most powerful lobbying groups in the Netherlands. “AmCham” regularly throws lavish parties, inviting former and current prime ministers, cabinet members and party leaders. The Dutch finance minister hosts a delegation from AmCham multiple times a year, and representatives of large American companies, such as Nike, are usually present. Internal ministry documents show that they make their comments – one could also say wishes – known regarding issues such as capital regulations.
Meanwhile, the number of registered CVs grows year after year, almost doubling from 696 in 2013 to 1,325 in 2016. “The Netherlands is an underestimated tax haven,” said Fabio De Masi, a German parliamentarian with the Left Party and a former member of the European Parliament. “They deprive other EU states of billions in taxes that we desperately need for public investments in infrastructure.” The Finance Ministry in The Hague said in response to a request for comment by the Süddeutsche Zeitung that international tax avoidance could not be blamed on a single country’s tax system, adding that it considered the BV-CV system to be legal.
To be sure, the Dutch government has reached an agreement with the European Commission to close the tax loophole – but as things currently stand, that won't happen until 2020. American companies have another two years plus to legally keep millions away from tax authorities. “It’s preposterous that American corporations park billions in profits tax-free in Dutch companies and that the Dutch government then also fights to maintain this scam against the common welfare for as long as possible,” said Sven Giegold, a German member of the European Parliament with the Green Party. He added that the obstruction by Eurogroup head Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who also served until the end of October as Dutch finance minister, wasn’t worthy of his Labor Party. Instead of “keeping open possibly the world’s largest corporate tax loophole” for American corporations and being a “lackey for Trump’s plans for (overseas) profit repatriation,” Giegold said Dijsselbloem should push for increased cooperation among European tax authorities.
For American companies using the Dutch tax loophole, the agreement between the government of the Netherlands and the European Commission is apparently not an insurmountable problem. “In informal talks between [the ministry] and AmCham, we have agreed that AmCham will suggest alternatives to the current mismatch arrangement to have in reserve,” the American Chamber of Commerce wrote back in 2014, according to internal emails from the Dutch Finance Ministry. The term "hybrid mismatch" is often used in financial circles to describe the CV-BV tax structures. Informal discussions had apparently already taken place. The emails continued: “AmCham will deliver these alternatives and discuss them with the ministry.” When contacted for a response, the lobby organization answered, “We’d like to wait and see for the new Dutch government and their plans (sic).” AmCham added that it would prefer to talk to the new administration before going on the record.
And contacts remain excellent. Joop Wijn, the politician with the conservative Christian Democrats who, according to his critics, initially made the loophole possible and then expanded it piece by piece, first as state secretary for finance and then as economic affairs minister, received an award from AmCham in 2006 for his tax cuts. In 2012, six years after Wijn stepped down as state secretary, his life partner Patrick Mikkelsen was appointed director of AmCham in the Netherlands – as a representative of the very companies that profited the most from the tax loophole. When asked, both men denied any correlation between Wijn’s politics and Mikkelsen’s appointment.Montreal Canadiens winger Brendan Gallagher has been cleared by team doctors and will play in Friday's Winter Classic against the Boston Bruins.
The team confirmed his return to the lineup through a tweet posted following Thursday's practice at Gillette Stadium.
Brendan Gallagher will be back in the lineup for the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/WinterClassic?src=hash">#WinterClassic</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/GoHabsGo?src=hash">#GoHabsGo</a> —@CanadiensMTL
The 23-year-old has missed 17 games with a hand injury that he suffered when blocking a shot. He was expected to miss six weeks following surgery to repair two fractured fingers.
"Like I said from the start, I wouldn't come back if I didn't feel like I could help the team," said Gallagher.
"I didn't want to come back for selfish reasons. The doctors helped me to come back and play, and now hopefully I can contribute."
He has 19 points in 22 games this season and will provide a much-needed boost to the Canadiens, who are 2-8-0 in their last 10 games.
"In no way do I think I'm the answer. I just want to be a part of the solution," said Gallagher.
"We haven't lost the confidence, but we're still one of the better teams in the League if we go out and play like we can every night. Coming back today and practicing with the guys, the confidence is still there."Installing and managing an Ark Node
Jarunik Blocked Unblock Follow Following Nov 4, 2017
Installing an Ark node is pretty easy. But you will need to get comfortable with the ubuntu command line in order to keep your node healthy. This guide tries to give you some basics to get started. Don’t forget to dig deeper.
Getting your own Server
Register on vultr or any other virtual private server (vps) provider.
Deploy a server:
Any location Ubuntu 16.04 10$/month, 2048 MB Memory (or better)
Connecting to your own Server
Once the server is deployed you can login with any SSH client. I recommend MobaXterm.
You can connect by:
Session -> New Choose SSH Enter IP in the Remote Host field Click ok.
Now the clicking is done and we can start typing in the command line.
Installing Ark node
Login with root and the root password from your vps provider.
Change the root password
passwd
Create your own user
adduser jarunik
Grant your user sudo rights
You want your user to be able to become root/administrator if he wants to. That is the “sudo” right in the linux world.
usermod -a -G sudo jarunik
Now you will want to login with that new user instead of root.
If you try to install Ark on root you will get a lot of permission errors and it will not work.
Download ARKcommander.sh
wget https://ark.io/ARKcommander.sh
bash ARKcommander.sh
Ark Commander helps you to manage your Ark node and get started with it. The next chapter will explain the basics.
A longer version of this guide can be found here:
Operating your Ark node
It is recommended to use the ARKcommander.sh unless you really know what you do.
bash ARKcommander.sh
Operations with ARKcommander.sh
Install — This will install your complete node and all required modules Reinstall — Deletes your complete node and installs a fresh node. Update — Updates to the new version (if there is a new one) Rebuild Database — Deletes the blockchain and installs a snapshot Set/Reset Secret — Enter your delegate passphrase to forge OS Update — Installs newest ubuntu and module versions Additional Options — Some other stuff you rarely need.
A. Start — Start up your node
R. Restart — Restart your node based on new update/config.
K. Kill — Stop your node
S. Node Status — Displays status of your delegate (optional)
L. Log — Rolling log file to check what is happening.
0. Exit — Close the commander.
Manual operation of the node
Start the node (commander A):
cd ark-node
forever start app.js -c config.mainnet.json -g genesisBlock.mainnet.json
Stop the node (commander K):
forever stopall
Check if the node is running:
forever list
Check the log (commander L):
cd ~/ark-node/log/
tail -f ark.log
Edit config files (commander 5):
cd ark-node
nano config.mainnet.json
Install OS updates (commander 6):
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo apt-get autoremove
Delete and recreate an empty blockchain:
dropdb ark_mainnet
createdb ark_mainnet
Delete the ark-node and the blockchain db:
rm -rf ark-node
dropdb ark_mainnet
Ubuntu commands (you should know and use)
Check disk space:
df -h
Switch directories:
cd foldername
Go to your home directory:
cd
Go to your ark-node directory
cd ~/ark-node
List files in your folder:
ls
Edit a file:
nano filename
Create a file:
touch filename
Create a folder:
mkdir foldername
Delete a file:
rm filename
Delete a folder:
rm -rf foldername
Check folder sizes:
ls -lh
Deactivate sudo password prompt (for user jarunik):
sudo visudo
#Add the following line at the end of the file
jarunik ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL
Configure your log-rotate:
nano /etc/logrotate.d/ark-logrotate
Rebooting (you will have to restart the node):
sudo reboot
bash ARKcommander.sh
A
Find big files on your server:
du -aBM 2>/dev/null | sort -nr | head -n 50 | more
Improving security
You should harden it’s security if you intend to run your server for longer.
The long version can be found here:
Adapt SSH configuration
sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config
Change to the following settings (choose your own port):
Port 55555
LoginGraceTime 60
PermitRootLogin no
X11Forwarding no
MaxStartups 2
Restart your ssh server in order that the changed config takes effect:
sudo service ssh restart
Install a firewall
sudo apt-get install ufw
sudo ufw default deny incoming
sudo ufw allow 55555/tcp
sudo ufw allow 4001/tcp
sudo ufw allow 4002/tcp
sudo ufw enable
Install fail2ban
sudo apt-get install fail2ban
sudo cp /etc/fail2ban/jail.conf /etc/fail2ban/jail.local
sudo nano /etc/fail2ban/jail.local
Replace all SSH ports under JAILS with your own port 55555:
port = 55555
Now restart fail2ban:
sudo service fail2ban restart
Register your node on Arkstats
Arkstats shows the current state of the Ark network. It is pretty easy to list your node there.
You can find the installation guide on github.
Short installation guide:
sudo apt-get install git
git clone -b release https://github.com/dafty/arkstats-reporter.git
cd arkstats-reporter/
bash build.sh
Feedback
If you made it this far please take some time and give me some feedback. I would really love to improve and extend this guide and include some more useful information.
You can find me in all Ark communities as jarunik.
My website with all my Ark information can be found hereRoguelike exhaustion has meant that I’ve yet to take a look at Dead Cells, despite it looking extremely clever. The game’s third Early Access update landed yesterday, and it should please folk who grew fond of Spelunky’s daily challenges.
Peruse our list of the best indie games on PC.
The Daily Run lets players compete with their peers in a fixed level with identical loot, as everyone attempts to get the best score they can. Each day the run will change, but you can keep trying if you’re not happy with your first attempt.
Access to the Daily Run is granted when you hit a secret milestone in the regular game, and you’ll only have access to the items that you’ve already unlocked – so more experienced players will have a bit of an advantage.
During your run, you’ll also spot special altars containing two items – pick one and the other one vanishes. You’ll receive rewards for your first, fifth, and tenth daily runs succeeded in the form of blueprints.
This update also brings with it changes to drop rates, the gold system, and performance. Take a gander at the patch notes for more details.Bill Shorten faces questions on whether charges against former general secretary will damage party in election campaign
Jamie Clements suspended from Labor after being charged by electoral commission
The former NSW Labor general secretary Jamie Clements has been suspended from the party after being charged by the NSW Electoral Commission for disclosing protected information.
Party officials made the decision on Friday morning after it emerged that Clements will face court next month charged with two breaches of the Parliamentary Electorates and Elections Act.
“Officers of the NSW branch of the Australian Labor party met this morning and have resolved to suspend the party membership of Jamie Clements,” NSW Labor said in a brief statement.
The federal Labor leader, Bill Shorten, faced questions on whether the charges against Clements posed a risk for the party during the election campaign.
Senior Labor figure Jamie Clements charged with disclosing protected information Read more
“It’s a matter of record I have said some harsh things about Mr Clements in the past but the matter is now before the courts and I’m going to let that take its course,” Shorten told reporters in Darwin.
Clements is accused of two offences, including allegations he disclosed protected information in May last year.
A month later, it is alleged the then NSW Labor general secretary used information legally provided to the party by the NSW Electoral Commission for “a purpose not permitted by legislation”.
He is expected to face Downing centre local court on 7 June, with each offence carrying a maximum penalty of $22,000 if proven.
Clements resigned as general secretary in January.B.C. sculptor Kevin Peters turned on the TV news Monday at noon and was startled to see an image of a one-of-a-kind eagle statue he had crafted several years ago.
At that moment, the phone rang.
Ron Shore, the businessman who commissioned the piece of art, was on the other end. |
it did, and legendarily so. Merrily closed its doors after 16 performances.
Almost 40 years later, Lonny Price, one of Merrily’s leads, is a director. He’s returned to his first big break in his new documentary, Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened. It’s a warm-hearted and rueful documentary that looks back at all the hopes raised and dreams dashed as Merrily rolled its way to an early grave, and now it’s on Netflix. —Constance Grady
Review aired a surprise series finale
It was a surprise when Comedy Central’s brilliant but chronically low-rated series Review got a third season, but it was a shock when that season’s third episode ended the series for good on March 30. “Cryogenics; Lightning; Prank” is, perhaps fittingly, the show’s bleakest chapter yet, with Andy Daly’s beaming host going fully down the delusional path of no return as he commits so hard to his job of reviewing “life itself” that he ruins his life once and for all. Review was strange, and brutal, and very funny in all the most unexpected places. We will miss it, existential crises and all. —Caroline Framke
Rick and Morty unexpectedly dropped its season 3 premiere
The week of TV surprises didn’t end with Review, as beloved weirdo series Rick and Morty dropped its third season premiere out of nowhere — on April Fool’s Day. But it wasn’t a joke, and you can now watch “The Rickshank Redemption” every day this week at 10 pm on Cartoon Network. (The rest of the third season is, allegedly, coming out in the summer.) —CF
Revolutionary Girl Utena turned 20 this week
Bedecked in roses and flush with girl power, Utena is one of the most iconic anime ever made — and an unexpected, genre- and gender-bending delight 20 years after its 1997 debut. Chiho Saito’s story about a young girl who decides to become a prince and fight epic sword duels to defend her fair maiden is a surreal modern take on chivalric folklore that’s layered over a rich, uniquely Japanese aesthetic. With her neon-pink hair, iconic dueling wardrobe, and homoerotic shoujo narrative, Utena is still a revolution. Stream the entire series on YouTube. —Aja Romano
Hotel Beau Séjour brings Euro noir with a magical realist twist to Netflix
If you’re a fan of moody, overcast European noir like Forbrydelsen and The Returned, then Netflix’s recent debut of the Belgian mystery Hotel Beau Séjour is a must-watch. Like Forbrydelsen (which was remade as The Killing in the US), Beau Séjour concerns the mysterious death of a young girl and the impact of the subsequent criminal investigation on her community. But like The Returned, Beau Séjour deals with elements of the supernatural and magical realism. Murder victim Kato is our main character — or rather, her ghost is. As she tries to solve her own murder, Kato interacts freely with friends and enemies who are all tied to the crime and who each manipulate her afterlife for their own ends. It’s a neat trope subversion, played with all the gravitas expected of the genre, making this crime thriller a standout. —AR
The indie kaiju-inflected relationship comedy-drama Colossal hits theaters
In Colossal, which hits theaters this weekend, Anne Hathaway stars as a burnout alcoholic who moves home to New Jersey after her boyfriend (Dan Stevens) breaks up with her. She picks up a job at the bar owned by her old school friend Oscar (Jason Sudeikis) and spends nights after the bar closes drinking with him and his buddies. But then she discovers that the mysterious monster they’ve all seen attacking Seoul on the news every morning seems to be — her? Colossal doesn’t try to make perfect sense, opting instead to be a funny, smart parable about trying to wriggle loose of old relationships and ruts. —Alissa Wilkinson
Watch all of The Leftovers before season 3 premieres on April 16
It’s been a wild ride for The Leftovers, HBO’s series about a world where 2 percent of the planet’s population abruptly disappeared, Rapture-style. The first season attracted a dedicated cult of fans (including me) but seemed to turn off a bunch of people as well. Creators Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta tweaked the show before season two, and the result was one of the best TV seasons of the decade.
Now the third and final season arrives on April 16 — Easter Sunday, appropriately — and if you want to hop on board before then, this is the perfect time to start a binge watch. There are only 20 episodes, but if you want to skip through season one (a totally defensible option), watch episodes one, three, six, nine, and 10, before watching all of season two. (You can also just skip to season two, which is a soft reboot of the whole premise.) But get caught up. There’s no TV show quite like this one. —Todd VanDerWerff
The Japanese box office smash Your Name hits the US
If you live in one of the handful of cities where it’s playing, definitely check out the US release of Your Name, one of the biggest movies in the history of Japan. The animated drama follows a high school boy and girl — from Tokyo and from a small rural village, respectively — who mysteriously swap bodies. Their attempts to solve the mystery are only the opening act for a film that proves to be a sweet-tempered romance. The movie has already made more than $300 million worldwide without opening in the US, a rarity for animated films. —TVRep. Steve King (R-IA) proposed a source of funding for the U.S.-Mexico border wall on CNN’s New Day Wednesday, the over half a billion in federal funding that Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, receives annually.
“It’s 1.6 billion dollars,” CNN’s Alisyn Camerota told King, asking, “are you comfortable, congressman, with providing $1.6 billion of taxpayer money — not from Mexico — to build that wall?”
“Absolutely yes, and more,” King replied, "And I would find half of a billion dollars of that right out of Planned Parenthood's budget."
Planned Parenthood received $554.6 million in taxpayer dollars last year, had a slight decrease in the amount of contraceptive services provided and stopped the beating hearts of 328,348 unborn babies, according to their latest annual report.
King had another area of funding he thought would come in handy for the border wall.
"The rest of it could come out of food stamps and the entitlements that are being spread out for people that haven't worked in three generations," he suggested, "we've got to put America back to work, this administration will do it."
“You want to take food from people who are the people who are on the lowest rung of the nation’s safety net and their children in terms of food stamps,” Camerota asked, “you’re happy to take, willing to take money from them to build or to give the 1.6 billion for the border wall?”
“For a couple of reasons,” King explained, “and one of them would be that, you know, we will create the kind of security that would bring about 10 million new jobs in America by enforcing immigration law.”
“Second thing is I wouldn’t impose anything any more strict on anybody in America than what Michelle Obama did with her school lunch program and so I would just say let’s limit to that anybody that wants to have food stamps up to the school lunch program,” King suggested, “but we have seen this go from 19 million people on now SNAP program up to 47 million people on the SNAP program.”
“And you don’t think all of them need it?” Camerota asked.
“Oh I’m sure all of them didn’t need it,” King replied, “We built a program to solve the problem of malnutrition in America and now we have a problem of obesity and when you match up the EBT card with what the scales say on some of the folks I think it’s worth looking at, Michelle Obama looked at it Republicans should be able to look at it too.”
A 2015 USDA study supports a link between the food stamp program and obesity. The study found that 40 percent of food stamp recipients are obese, compared with just over 30 percent of those who don't participate in the program.French President Emmanuel Macron attends a media conference following a meeting to discuss how to speed up the implementation of the G5 West African counter-terrorism force, in La Celle Saint-Cloud, near Paris, France, December 13, 2017. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer
PARIS (Reuters) - The military campaign against Islamic State in Syria should be completed in February following the end of fighting against the militant group in Iraq, French President Emmanuel Macron said.
“On December 9, Iraqi Prime Minister (Haider al-) Abadi announced the end of the war and the victory over Daesh, and I think that by mid- to late February we will have won the war in Syria,” Macron said in a broadcast interview, using the Arab acronym for Islamic State.
France would now push for peace talks involving all parties in the six-year-old Syrian conflict, including President Bashar al-Assad, Macron told France 2 televisions, promising “initiatives” early next year.
He did not say how any French proposals would relate to existing negotiations being brokered by the United Nations.
Despite being a leading backer of the Syrian opposition, France has sought a more pragmatic approach to the Syrian conflict since the arrival of President Emmanuel Macron, saying that the departure of al-Assad was not a pre-condition for talks.
Assad’s government has been backed by Russia and Iran. President Vladimir Putin last week announced a significant scaling back of Russian forces in Syria, saying their mission was largely complete.Are you one of those people who rises before dawn and never needs an alarm clock? Or would you happily sleep until midmorning if you could? Do you feel like you are just hitting your day's stride by late afternoon, or do you like to get the big tasks of the day accomplished early?
Most of us have some degree of preference for late nights or early mornings. Where an individual falls on this spectrum largely determines his or her chronotype -- an individual disposition toward the timing of daily periods of activity and rest. Some of us are clearly "larks" -- early risers -- while others of us are distinctly night owls. The rest of us fall somewhere in between the two.
We're learning that these night owl and early riser tendencies are driven by some significant degree by biological and genetic forces. Different chronotypes are associated with genetic variations, as well as differences in lifestyle and mood disposition, cognitive function and risks for health problems, including sleep disorders and depression.
New research has now found evidence of physical differences in the brains of different chronotypes. Scientists at Germany's Aachen University conducted brain scans of early risers, night owls, and "intermediate" chronotypes who fell in between the two ends of the spectrum. They discovered structural differences in the brains of people with different sleep-wake tendencies. Researchers observed a group of 59 men and women of different chronotypes: 16 were early risers, 20 were intermediate sleepers, and 23 were night owls. They found that compared to early risers and intermediates, night owls showed reduced integrity of white matter in several areas of the brain. White matter is fatty tissue in the brain that facilitates communication among nerve cells. Diminished integrity of the brain's white matter has been linked to depression and to disruptions of normal cognitive function.
The cause of this difference in quality of white matter among night owls compared to other sleepers is not clear. Researchers speculate that the diminished integrity of white matter may be a result of the chronic "social jet lag" that characterizes the effects of the sleep-wake routines of many night owls. People who are disposed toward staying up late and sleeping late often find themselves at constant odds with the schedule of life that surrounds them, particularly work and school schedules that require early-morning starts. This can leave night owls chronically sleep deprived, and experiencing many of the same symptoms -- fatigue and daytime sleeplessness, difficulty focusing, physical pain and discomfort -- of travel-induced jet lag.
Research indicates that people who stay up late are at higher risk for depression. Studies have also shown night owls more prone to more significant tobacco and alcohol use, as well as inclined to eating more, and also less healthful diets than early risers or people with intermediate sleep patterns. But research on the influence of chronotype isn't all bad news for night owls. Some studies have shown that people who stay up late are more productive than early risers, and have more stamina throughout the length of their days. Other research has shown that night owls display greater reasoning and analytical abilities than their earlier-to-bed counterparts. Stay-up-late types, according to research, achieve greater financial and professional success on average than those people with earlier bedtimes and wake times.
This latest study is the first to offer physical evidence of neurological differences among people with different sleep tendencies. But other research has also shown that the inclinations toward staying up late or rising early are deeply rooted in biological and genetic differences:
Scientists have discovered an "alarm clock" gene that activates the body's biological clock in the morning from its period of overnight rest. Identifying this gene and its function may eventually tell us important new information about the influence of chronotype and circadian function on sleep and health.
Several studies involving twins have demonstrated genetic links to several aspects of sleep, including circadian timing and sleep/wake preferences.
Research has also revealed differences in brain metabolic function among night owls compared to early risers and middle-of-the-road sleepers. These metabolic differences were discovered in regions of the brain involved in mood, and may be one reason why night owls are at higher risk for depression related to insomnia.
Recently, scientists identified a gene variant that exerts a strong influence over the circadian clock, and with the inclination to stay up late or rise early. This genetic variation -- which affects nearly the entire population -- can shift the timing of an individual's 24-hour sleep-wake cycle by as much as 60 minutes.
If our preferences for sleep and wake times are strongly influenced by genetics and biology, what are we to do when faced with inclinations that don't match up with the demands and responsibilities of our lives? Genetic forces appear to play an important role in our preferences, but we're still working to understand just how, and how much. And we're far from powerless: The choices we make about our sleep environments and sleep habits can also make a significant difference. A recent study showed that limiting nighttime exposure to artificial light and increasing exposure to daytime sunlight can shift sleep-wake cycles earlier -- even for night owls. Strong sleep habits -- being careful about alcohol consumption close to bedtime, sticking to regular sleep and wake times, making sure your bedroom is dark and electronic-gadget free -- can help reinforce your sleep schedule, even if it doesn't align perfectly with your natural tendencies.
More broadly, I hope we'll see society begin to recognize the power of these biological sleep patterns, and the need for flexibility to enable people to construct work and school schedules that align better with their dispositions toward sleep. This is a smart, sleep-friendly strategy that would be good for public health and productivity.There is a golden rule in South African politics, predictable as the rising of the sun: whenever the ANC feels nervous, afraid, or under threat, its knee-jerk response is to call its opponents racist and their supporters stupid or worse.
Diko and the ANC are not really democrats and observe only a ceremonial loyalty to constitutional democracy. You would have thought that the punishment at the polls last year would have caused the ANC to roll back on the arrogance and continued insults of South Africa’s voters.
You would think that losing key metros would cause a moment of introspection for the ANC – what is it about the ANC that is causing a loss in support? But so overwhelmingly arrogant and out of touch are some in the ANC, that the only response is to blame, insult and belittle.
Nomvula Mokonyane once infamously told voters in Bekkersdal who were protesting about basic service delivery collapse, that the ANC didn’t want their “dirty votes”. Yonelo Diko’s disgraceful diatribe against black South Africans who vote for the DA is no different.
Diko’s logic is simple and belies his tenuous understanding of democracy and black lives: “The ANC owns all black people, who must all think the same, act the same, and have no individual agency.”
He, and many in the ANC, think themselves the self-appointed custodians of all black lives and minds, and therefore owed an unquestioning lifetime of bondage.
The 2016 election results showed that South Africans reject that patronising arrogance from the ANC with contempt. The DA now governs in four metros and has the honour of being able to deliver better basic services and job-creating economic growth to 16-million South Africans. This triumph was only possible with the support of more and more black voters choosing the DA as the party of South Africa’s future. This frightens our opponents in the ANC no end.
The DA will not be distracted by these attacks, nor will we be silent when Diko and others masquerade discrimination and disdain for black people practising their democratic right to vote for the party of their choice, as “thought leadership”. It is no wonder that the ANC’s support in the Western Cape, the province for which Diko is ANC Spokesperson, continues to lose support in droves. Two-thirds of voters in the City of Cape Town, for example, chose to support the DA – an utter rejection of the ANC’s brand of patronising politics.
Diko and the ANC are not really democrats and observe only a ceremonial loyalty to constitutional democracy. They will continue to spew bigoted rhetoric, with the endorsement of their top leadership, including President Jacob Zuma, who believe South Africans can vote for any party they choose, as long as it’s the ANC, to misquote Henry Ford.
The ANC does not own black South Africans and their choices. No party does and ever will. Regardless of political affiliation, we should all condemn those who use race to mobilise and score cheap points.
As we head to 2019 general elections, where South Africans will elect provincial and national leaders, we are bound to see an even greater assault, by the ANC, on the country’s democratic values and the rights of citizens to make their own choices. South Africans want to see and hear a positive vision for the country’s future, and real solutions to our many complex problems – not the divisive, unthinking rhetoric of a party that has long lost touch with any relevance among voters. It is for this reason that the DA published its Vision 2029 blueprint, which shows South Africans the kind of country the DA will build in its first 10 years in the government. The kind of drivel offered up by Diko is making the prospect of a DA-led national government even more likely. DM
Are You A South AfriCAN or a South AfriCAN'T?
Maverick Insider is more than a reader revenue scheme. While not quite a "state of mind", it is a mindset: it's about believing that independent journalism makes a genuine difference to our country and it's about having the will to support that endeavour.
From the #GuptaLeaks into State Capture to the Scorpio exposés into SARS, Daily Maverick investigations have made an enormous impact on South Africa and it's political landscape. As we enter an election year, our mission to Defend Truth has never been more important. A free press is one of the essential lines of defence against election fraud; without it, national polls can turn very nasty, very quickly as we have seen recently in the Congo.
If you would like a practical, tangible way to make a difference in South Africa consider signing up to become a Maverick Insider. You choose how much to contribute and how often (monthly or annually) and in exchange, you will receive a host of awesome benefits. The greatest benefit of all (besides inner peace)? Making a real difference to a country that needs your support.
Phumzile Van Damme Follow Save More Phumzile Van Damme is a National Spokesperson and Member of Parliament for the Democratic Alliance, the official opposition in South Africa. She was the former Head of Parliamentary Research and Communications for the Democratic Alliance (DA)
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Charges laid of making preparations for incursions into foreign countries to engage in hostile activities, which carries life sentence
Melbourne men charged over alleged plot to sail to Indonesia and join Isis
Five Melbourne men who allegedly wanted to use a small fishing boat to reach Indonesia and join Islamic State in Syria have been charged with terrorism-related offences.
The men were arrested near Cairns on Tuesday towing a seven-metre vessel, en route to Cape York in far North Queensland.
Suspects in alleged dinghy plot will be held for another 72 hours Read more
They were charged after four days in custody with one count each of making preparations for incursions into foreign countries to engage in hostile activities and could face life in prison if convicted.
They include Islamic preacher and the alleged Isis sympathiser Musa Cerantonio, whose lawyers told Guardian Australia that all five men would plead not guilty.
The five, aged between 21 and 31, are due to appear in Cairns magistrates court on Monday. They also include Shayden Thorne and Kadir Kaya, who allegedly told Melbourne radio after his passport was revoked in October that Australia was “an open-air prison”.
The attorney general, George Brandis, said on Sunday that despite the “unusual character to the [alleged] plot” the government did not “take this lightly”.
“I know... elements of the media have ridiculed it, but of course it’s not to be taken lightly,” he told a media conference in Brisbane. “It’s a crime carrying a penalty of life imprisonment after all [if convicted].”
Brandis said the men had been “under surveillance for quite some time” and had their passports cancelled months ago.
He said the charging of the men on Saturday night, after they were held in custody without charge for four days, was a result of both “evidence police had obtained prior to the men being arrested, as well as what was learned during the course of those investigations subsequent to arrest”.
“The police formed a view there was sufficient basis to charge the men, and that’s why they were charged last night,” he said.
The men are expected to be extradited to Victoria, where they are alleged to have bought the boat and made the bulk of other preparations to leave the country. Brandis said such extraditions were usually swift.
The Australian federal police assistant commissioner Neil Gaughan said they had been under investigation for a “number of weeks”.
Australian Associated Press contributed to this report
This article was amended on 16 May 2016. The original version referred to the vessel in question as a ‘tinnie’Photo: J Henry Fair, with permission of Gerald Peters Gallery Crime and Punishment, Gulf of Mexico, 2010
A good documentary photographer takes us to places that we never could imagine and teaches us something at the same time. Some do it by shooting stark realism, like Canadian Ed Burtynsky, or South African Pieter Hugo, but J. Henry Fair's work is more abstract.
His aerial photos look like a beautifully painted canvas that could hang over your sofa. Until you begin to unravel the subject matter: devastated landscapes and environmental pollution.
Photo: J Henry Fair, with permission of Gerald Peters Gallery Lightning Rods, Fort McMurrary, Alberta, Canada, 2009
From oil refineries to chemical waste to oil slicks, his pictures show a world which is destroying its natural environment on a massive scale. He has travelled to photograph these natural disasters in Canada and the USA, Mexico and Spain. The images are all in his recent book The Day After Tomorrow: Images of Our Earth in Crisis. The book also contains essays by the likes of James Hansen, Allen Hershkowitz, Roger D. Hodge, Jack Hitt, Frances Mayes, and John Rockwell.
The photos are all taken from airplanes at 1,000 feet. This enables him to capture the vision and colour as well as the abstraction. It is a paradoxical and bizarre beauty of waste. How can something so striking be so harsh?
J. Henry Fair has strong credentials. Not only is he a photographer, showing work recently at the Gerald Peters Gallery in New York but he is also co-founder and director of the Wolf Conservation Center in Salem,New York.
Photo: J Henry Fair, with permission of Gerald Peters Gallery Coal Slurry, Kayford Mountain, WV
Artist or activist is a question that must be asked of his work. He says that at first he
"photographed "ugly" things; which is, in essence, throwing the issue in people's faces. Over time, I began to photograph all these things with an eye to making them both beautiful and frightening simultaneously, a seemingly irreconcilable mission, but actually quite achievable given the subject matter."
He is still an optimist about America's future:
"To gear our civilization toward sustainability does not necessitate sacrifice today, as many naysayers would argue, but simply adjustment. There are many societies existing at present that have a standard of living at least as high as ours while consuming and polluting a fraction of what is the norm in the United States."
But his question (and mission) is one that many artists have pondered: "how do I translate my message to my medium such that it will effect the change I want?"
More on Documentary Photography
Europe's Obsolete Computers Burn in South African Toxic Dump
Ed Burtynsky on the Gulf Oil Spill
Genesis is Epic Eco-Photography by Sebastiao SalgadoRecently, we had an article on 10 lesser known linux fun on terminal shows some crazy outputs on your terminal. What about showing living forms in your terminal? In this article, I will present you "terninal" which brings life to your terminal.
What is ternimal?
Ternimal as you actually read (may be the combination of terminal + animal) is a program that draws an animated lifeform in the terminal using Unicode block symbols. It works in most terminal emulators and with most monospaced fonts. This official GitHub project is written by Philipp Emanuel Weidmann (p-e-w) under the terms of the GNU General Public License, version 3.
Ternimal can be considered to be used for fun and it doesn't require many resources in order to be run. It has no dependencies apart from the Rust Standard Library which must be a version >=1.20. You can clone the project as below:
# git clone https://github.com/p-e-w/ternimal.git Cloning into 'ternimal'... remote: Counting objects: 18, done. remote: Compressing objects: 100% (10/10), done. remote: Total 18 (delta 7), reused 18 (delta 7), pack-reused 0 Unpacking objects: 100% (18/18), done. Checking connectivity... done.
You can check the content of the folder:
# ls ternimal/ README.md ternimal.rs
As we say before, we must install rustc in order to have a functional ternimal.
# curl https://sh.rustup.rs -sSf | sh info: downloading installer Welcome to Rust! This will download and install the official compiler for the Rust programming
Now we can continue the ternimal process
# cd ternimal/ && rustc -O ternimal.rs
Use ternimal to simulate lifeform
Ternimal can be used through some parameters available in terminal.rs which can help you to manipulate it as your needs. You can simulate some lifeform through ternimal
Black hole
You can simulate a block hole in movement on your terminal as below:
#./ternimal speed=10 length=100 segments=5 thickness=13 gradient=0.5:#000000,0.8:#ffffff,1:#000000
You can edit the parameter by using the value in in terminal.rs. This output is the combination of low segment counts, wide distance fields, and appropriately chosen gradients.
Swarn
You can have another form as below
#./ternimal length=2 segments=30 thickness=1,4,19,30
Anaconda
You can use waves to create a snake on your terminal as below
./ternimal length=100 segments=50 thickness=1,4,1,0 radius=6,12 gradient=0:#666600,0.5:#fefd30,1:#003300
You can try to edit the parameter to have another form as below
#./ternimal length=200 segments=100 thickness=33,4,19,4
Hope you enjoyed this tool and let's know if you found any other similar tools. Have a good day and enjoy browsing other articles :-)HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - With Connecticut’s presidential primary fast approaching, residents across all age brackets are registering to vote in record numbers.
Secretary of State Denise Merrill said 76,685 people registered to vote between Jan. 1 and April 18.
The largest block of new voters, 36,607, have signed up with the Democratic Party. They’re followed by 23,182 new unaffiliated voters and 16,896 new Republican voters. Only registered Democrats and Republicans can vote in Tuesday’s primary.
“I think that people know that there’s a contest and they want to be part of it,” Merrill said. “Let’s face it: For many years, Connecticut hasn’t exactly been a battleground state. And suddenly, we’re relevant.”
In 2008, the last time Connecticut experienced record voter registrations, more than 34,000 people signed up to vote over a 90-day period that preceded that year’s presidential primary, which was held on Feb. 5 or Super Tuesday.
The latest voter registration numbers come as a new Quinnipiac University poll shows former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton leading Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in Connecticut by a 51 percent to 42 percent margin, with six percent of voters undecided. The survey of 1,037 likely Democratic primary voters indicated 18 percent of those who named a preferred candidate might still change their mind before Tuesday.
On the Republican side, 48 percent of those surveyed said they’re supporting businessman Donald Trump, while 28 percent said they’re backing Ohio Gov. John Kasich and 19 percent are voting for Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. Quinnipiac surveyed 823 likely Republican primary voters.
Conducted April 12-18, the poll’s margin of error for the Republican primary survey is plus or minus 3.4 percentage points. It’s plus or minus 3 percentage points for the Democratic primary.
The surge of new voters in Connecticut could help the candidates differently. The poll shows that Sanders, for example, leads Clinton 73 percent to 26 percent among voters who are 18 to 34 years old. New data from the Secretary of the State’s office show 29,286 of new voters who signed up between Jan. 1 and April 13 are between the ages of 18-29, while 5,232 are under the age of 18. Connecticut allows teens to register to vote early.
Merrill said the youth vote figure is not surprising, however, considering that’s traditionally when people first sign up to vote.
Meanwhile, Clinton easily leads Sanders among voters in the older age brackets, from 35-65 and older. The state’s new voter data show 15,507 are 45-59 and 9,290 are 60 years and older. The Quinnipiac poll shows Kasich leads among younger voters, 18-44, with 39 percent of the vote, followed by Trump with 32 percent and Cruz with 27 percent. Trump, meanwhile, has a strong lead among older voters, from 45-65 and older.
It appears people of all ages are signing up to vote by using the state’s new online voter registration system, which Merrill partly credits for the surge in registrations. More than 50 percent of those who are registering to vote this year used the system, which began 1½ years ago. She said one voter every 60 seconds or less has been signing up online in recent days.
Despite the jump in registration, Connecticut still hasn’t returned to its highest level of registered voters. In 2008, there were more than 2.1 million people who were registered to vote in that year’s presidential election. Currently, there are approximately 1.9 million people registered. Merrill, however, expects Connecticut will ultimately reach 2.1 million again by the time the general election is held.
“People really seem to think this one matters,” she said. “I love to see it. Whatever is motivating people, it’s probably a good thing. The more people, the better.”
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC.The New Hampshire Senate has backed a bill to make up to ¾ an ounce of marijuana a violation rather than a crime.
This is the first time the Senate has supported proposals to loosen the state’s marijuana laws.
Thursday's vote was 17 to 6, but it didn’t come easy. Throughout the hour-long debate, there were several efforts made to kill the bill, including one attempt to lower the amount to half an ounce.
Those against the bill argued that passing it would send the wrong message to youth, stressing that pot is "a gateway drug."
But Democratic Senator Jeff Woodburn of Whitefield argued not passing it would do more damage.
“Marijuana conviction is a gateway to a record and a record is a gateway to job loss and a record is a gateway to college loan rejection.”
Under the measure the first three offenses would earn a fine, with the fourth offense being a misdemeanor.
The bill now heads back to the House, where it’s likely to pass, and then to the Governor’s office who has said he “looks forward to signing it.”
Earlier this week the Vermont legislature voted to legalize marijuana. Maine and Massachusetts voters took that step this past November.The long-reaching health effects of the 9/11 attacks made headlines again with the passage of the Zadroga Act Dec. 18. The new law secures health coverage and compensation for the thousands of firefighters, construction workers and cleanup workers sickened by the toxic clouds of the collapse.
It took Congress more than 14 years to pass a permanent health bill for 9/11 first responders. The Zadroga Act was introduced in 2006, defeated in 2010, and is named after New York City police detective James Zadroga whose death was linked by some doctors to smoke inhalation during the attacks. The act guarantees $2.4 billion in funding for health programs treating 9/11 survivors and first responders through 2090, and supplies $4.6 billion for a compensation fund for victims and their families through 2020. That's a total of $7 billion over the next 75 years.
The money will be put to work monitoring 72,000 first responders for illnesses related to 9/11. Over 30,000 responders and survivors have at least one health condition. Almost 5,000 have cancer. A 2011 study of 27,500 responders published in Lancet showed that 42 percent had sinusitis from inhaling the toxic dust. More than a quarter had asthma, and 39 percent had heartburn. 32 percent had PTSD.
Many of these conditions are treatable, Dr. Michael Crane, medical director of the World Trade Center Health Program, tells Forbes. Skin cancer is the most prevalent cancer among victims, but it's curable if caught and treated early.
“We feel pretty good that we will be able to help these folks prevent their cancers or catch them really early,” he said. "Folks are going to be OK."
It's too late for 1,700 people. That's how many have already died from illnesses related to 9/11, according to John Feal of the FealGood first responders foundation. The former demolition supervisor lobbied Congress to extend the Zadroga Act.
Supporters celebrated the bill's passing. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, the bill's sponsor, told reporters it was "my proudest day in Washington.” She thanked the New York Daily News for telling the stories of first responders and "shaming" the bill's opponents.
"This is the Christmas the 9/11 responders deserved: some peace of mind for each and every hero. Their selfless actions in response to that tragic day deserve a lifetime's worth of care and respect." said Sen. Charles Schumer, who co-sponsored the bill.
“But that ends today: that cloud of uncertainty, the anxiety. It ends when 9/11 responders and survivors and people of lower Manhattan can rest knowing that they have permanent health care. My God, what a beautiful, beautiful word,” Feal told CBS.New Delhi: A day after the Reserve Bank of India’s report on demonetisation proved that the whole exercise of scrapping high denomination notes in order to detect and extinguish black money simply wasn’t worth the time or effort, a concerted campaign is underway on Twitter, WhatsApp and other digital platforms to prove that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s big economic gamble was in fact “a success”.
In a desperate attempt to change the narrative on social media about the Modi government’s ill-planned and poorly executed exercise that left nearly 100 people dead, destroyed informal markets, took away almost 1.5 million jobs and choked the money supply – and growth – of the nation, hundreds of Twitter handles were deployed to tweet the exact same ‘facts’ using the hashtag #DemonetisationSuccess.
As expected, the hashtag soon started trending on top on Twitter in India.
How does forced trending work?
Usually brands and political parties hire PR agencies who employ social media ‘influencers’. These influencers run multiple social media handles and usually have a huge following. They are provided a brief about the campaign that contains some sample tweets, a list of people they should attack, the timing of the tweets, etc.
Unlike similar campaigns in the past, the #DemonetisationSuccess effort wasn’t just about garden-variety trolls pushing the agenda. This time, even cabinet ministers have been deployed by the BJP’s high command to push the party line.
Ironically, the government doesn’t seem to have faith in the ability of its ministers to creatively argue the case for demonetisation actually being a success. The ministers were all seen sending out the same templated tweets that had been sent out to ordinary footsoldiers.
Incidentally, the messages they tweeted are also being sent out to smart phone users who have downloaded the Narendra Modi app.
Multiple RTIs filed by the Economic Times revealed that ministries have been paying agencies as much as Rs 2 crore a year to manage social media.
The |
who voted on the 2022 World Cup have been suspended or are under criminal investigation, including FIFA president Sepp Blatter.
In a documentary to air on the ABC this evening, Mr Lowy, who personally drove Australia's bid, denies that the "development money" handed out by Australia was an indication that it had tried to be part of "the FIFA game" but was outplayed.
"FIFA's culture is what we now know that it is. At the time, we didn't know," he said.
"We were outplayed because there was a lot more money available for those people to play the game. They had a lot more influence than we had."
Of the Australian money donated to voting nations, one $500,000 payment is believed to have ended up in the personal bank account of a Caribbean FIFA official, Jack Warner, who is currently under investigation for misappropriating funds from the region's football federation CONCACAF.
Mr Lowy said the FFA made out a cheque to CONCACAF, not Mr Warner, and was clear it was giving the money for the football-specific project that had been vetted.
He defended providing the donation even though the Australian government's view was that there were insufficient accountability safeguards in the Caribbean.
Mr Lowy said that gave him pause but "if I would run my life according to government rules, I wouldn't be where I am, and you fail sometimes as a result."
Donations of development money, or "legacies", as they are known, were entirely legal within FIFA's rules at the time — and indeed were expected of all nations bidding to host a World Cup. The organisation has since changed this rule.
Mr Lowy also defended millions of dollars spent on controversial European consultants, saying he had little choice because they were recommended by top FIFA officials to give the Australian bid the best chance of success.
The documentary, Played, is the first time Mr Lowy and the team around him have spoken extensively about the failed venture.
The notoriously private 85-year-old, one of Australia's richest men, participated in hours of interviews and nothing was off limits.
He steps down today after 12 years as the inaugural chairman of the FFA, a tenure that oversaw the transformation of soccer in Australia on the national and international stage.
Despite creating a thriving national competition from the grassroots up, bringing Australia into the Asian Football Confederation and seeing the Socceroos to three World Cups, Mr Lowy said he still saw Australia's World Cup bid as "one of the biggest failures of my career".
He and his team say they were grossly misled by FIFA executive committee members about Australia's chances, double-crossed and overtly lied to.
Revelations include:
Three FIFA Executive Committee members — president Sepp Blatter, Asian Confederation president Mohamed Bin Hammam and Oceania representative Reynald Temarii — all promised Frank Lowy their votes before Australia launched a bid, persuading him it was a reasonable prospect
Mohamed Bin Hammam continued to assure Frank Lowy he would help Australia secure the World Cup when he was secretly running slush funds on behalf of Qatar
Australia's bid video, featuring an animated kangaroo stealing the World Cup, produced by German bid consultants, was originally so awful that Hollywood director Phillip Noyce was flown in to rescue it as best he could. Even the final product was pilloried at home
Former FFA chief executive John O'Neill thought it was too soon for Australia to bid for a World Cup
Immediately after the Qatar announcement was made, two different FIFA Executive Committee members rang Frank Lowy to say they were the person who gave Australia its sole vote
In the documentary, suspended FIFA president Sepp Blatter was asked about the discrepancy between the votes Australia thought it had and what eventually transpired.
"They said yes yes, you can have it, okay we will vote for you and then perhaps they forgot," he said with a smirk.
Played: Inside Australia's Failed World Cup Bid airs on ABC at 8:30pm tonight.
Topics: socceroos, soccer-world-cup, soccer, australia
First postedMedia playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Emma Raymond: "It was horrible"
A teenage girl who was arrested at school over claims of bullying has described her treatment by police as a "nightmare".
Emma Raymond, 16, from Nottingham, said she was held in custody for more than eight hours after being arrested in the middle of a lesson.
After questioning, Emma was charged with harassment, but the case was later dropped.
Nottinghamshire Police said it had received a complaint about the arrest.
"It's the worst thing I've ever experienced," Emma, who has waived her legal right to anonymity, told the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme.
'Judging me'
She was arrested in January, when two police officers arrived at her school in response to claims she had bullied another teenage girl.
"I didn't get to say anything," Emma said. "The next thing I knew they were putting me back in the back of their police car.
"Other kids saw what happened. Everyone was talking about it - I could tell by the looks people gave me. It felt like everyone was judging me."
Image caption Emma Raymond says police confiscated computers containing her GCSE coursework
Emma said the arresting officers had refused to let her make a phone call on the way to the police station: "I just wanted to speak to my parents. They were treating me like a murderer."
When she arrived in the custody area, "men in cells were either side of me, banging and swearing", she said. "None of it made sense. I knew it wasn't true."
Police visited Emma's home and confiscated her tablet and laptop computer, which contained her GCSE coursework, she said.
"I didn't get it back until end of March, about a week before my deadlines," she said. "It was a nightmare. I feel like it's affected my GCSEs. I don't trust the police at all, not one bit."
'Frustrated'
Emma's father, Carl, said police had accused her of being the "ringleader of a hate campaign" against the other girl.
"I'm so frustrated and angry that it happened," he added. "They could have dealt with it so differently, just come round the house.
What happens when children are arrested?
Anyone over 10 years old - the age of criminal responsibility - can be fingerprinted, photographed and searched in police custody, although sometimes parental consent is required
Child suspects have the same rights as arrested adults, such as an entitlement to legal advice, but there are further requirements officers must follow for under-18s
The police must try to contact a parent, guardian or carer as soon as possible to inform them of a juvenile's arrest, why they have been arrested and where they are being detained
An appropriate adult - a parent or guardian, social worker, or an approved volunteer - must attend the police station and be present during questioning and any searches
The College of Policing advises steps should be taken to minimise the time a young person spends in detention, but forces can apply to hold child suspects for up to 96 hours without charge for more serious offences
Sources: Gov.uk and lawstuff
"She's had her DNA taken, finger prints, a mug shot. At no time was Emma's wellbeing, age and care taken into consideration."
In the year to March 2015, 94,960 people aged 10 to 17 were arrested in England and Wales, according to the Ministry of Justice.
Image caption Carl Raymond says his daughter was treated unfairly by police
Cyber bullying safety tips
If you feel you are being bullied online, tell a parent or other adult straight away
Most social networks have a way for users to report abuse
Take screenshots or use the print screen button on a computer to record evidence of any bullying messages
Protect any devices with a password or PIN
Parents should educate children on the effects of cyber-bullying
Charities such as Get Safe Online and Bullying UK can also provide help and advice
Sources: Get Safe Online and Bullying UK
"Being in custody can be extremely distressing and traumatic," said Shauneen Lambe, director of the legal charity Just for Kids. "You should only want to put children through it if it's absolutely necessary. It doesn't sound like that was the case for Emma."
Nottinghamshire Police said it had received a complaint, adding it "would be inappropriate for the force to comment further" at this point.
The Victoria Derbyshire programme is broadcast on weekdays from 09:00-11:00 on BBC Two and the BBC News Channel.SHARE
By of the
For a program that had never heard its name called during an NCAA Tournament selection show, the Marquette men's lacrosse team was remarkably at ease as it gathered Sunday night at the Union Sports Annex.
Part of that calm stemmed from exhaustion after a 3 a.m. wake-up call for a flight back from Denver. The other part came from returning from Colorado with an automatic bid wrapped up thanks to a 10-9 victory over Denver — the No.1 team in the country and reigning national champion — in the Big East title game.
The biggest question for Marquette was whether or not it would host a home game at Valley Fields in the opening round of the 18-team tournament. That answer came just a few moments into the selection show as the Golden Eagles (11-4) were announced as the No. 6 overall team, meaning they would indeed host a game. About 15 minutes later, they learned their opponent would be North Carolina (8-6), one of the premier teams in the sport, at 1:30 p.m. Saturday.
"I know one thing, I know they don't want to come out to Wisconsin," senior midfielder Jacob Richard said when asked what he knew about North Carolina. "I can't wait to get 'em and punch 'em in the mouth and welcome (them) to the Valley."
The biggest game in the history of Marquette lacrosse — and in the history of the sport in Wisconsin as well — comes just over three years since the Golden Eagles first hosted a Division I contest in the spring of 2013. It also marks the latest leap in a meteoric rise that even head coach Joe Amplo didn't see coming.
"What an opportunity," Amplo said. "We've got a chance to play a blue-blood in our sport, it's one of the best programs in the history of our game. We've got a chance to welcome them to Milwaukee for an NCAA Tournament game. What more can we ask for?
"I'm not sure I even put this in the dreams I had for this program to have that opportunity this early. I can't even say this is a dream come true because that wasn't even in the dream world. It's surreal. It truly is surreal."
Amplo may not have seen this level of success coming, but he knew about the matchup before everyone else assembled at the Union Sports Annex. He was part of the NCAA Tournament selection committee, and while he succeeded in keeping his knowledge secret, he failed in his goal of staying stone-faced. As the top eight seeds were announced, a smile, which he tried to hide, crept onto his face while his players' eyes stayed glued on the TV screen.
The tournament berth and chance to play at home represents what Amplo called a "perfect last chapter" for his seniors, who helped him build the program from the ground up.
"We've been through a lot," Richard said. "We struggled for a couple years and the whole time we just trusted in the process. We trusted in what Coach Amplo told us and to see that come to fruition is very fulfilling."
"Everything," senior attacker Conor Gately added when asked what being in the NCAA Tournament meant. "Us 19 seniors put our heart into this thing, so we're excited where we are but we're not content."
While the No. 6 seed and home game serve to validate the program's effort, the team certainly won't lose the chip on its shoulder that it's carried over the years. That's because shortly after learning their seed, the team heard ESPN analyst Quint Kessenich label them as a good story, a one-hit wonder and not worthy of their seed.
"That's great; that's fine," Amplo said. "We've proved people wrong from the moment we stepped on campus here. I think it's just another challenge our kids are going to take personal and they're going to play as hard as they can."Wood Stork. Photograph courtesy of the USFWS.
By Christine Harris
We often hear stories of species teetering on the brink of extinction. Rarely do we hear positive news about the fate of a threatened or endangered species, but the continuing recovery of the wood stork (Mycteria americana) is one of those rare stories.
A large, bald, wading bird standing approximately four feet tall with a wingspan of five feet, the American wood stork population was drastically reduced by habitat loss and fragmentation as many of the Florida wetlands in which it bred and lived were destroyed. This habitat loss led to a drastic population decrease from 40,000 breeding adults in the 1930s to around 10,000 in the 1970s. Today the population of breeding adults is estimated to be between 15,000 and 20,000.
Wood Stork Florida habitat. Image courtesy of University of Florida.
The wood stork’s population increase over the past thirty years is partially due to the fact that the species has expanded its range and established breeding colonies in new areas in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. These new breeding colonies have helped the species to compensate for the loss of some of its historic nesting grounds in Florida. The wood stork has also expanded its wintering grounds to include parts of Mississippi and Alabama.
On June 26, 2014 Secretary of the Interior and former REI CEO Sally Jewell announced that the wood stork is being downgraded from an endangered to a threatened species. Jewell made the announcement at the Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge on the coast of Georgia where an artificial wetland created in the 1980s now harbors 800 breeding adult wood storks. Restored and artificial wetlands throughout the wood stork’s breeding range have helped contribute to its recovery.
Wood Storks in their habitat. Photograph courtesy of wiki commons.
Although the population has made a significant recovery, not everyone is happy about the decision to change the bird’s status from endangered to threatened. Florida’s chapter of the National Audubon Society has publicly decried the decision citing the decline of the species in its historic range as cause for concern. Though the species is now breeding in areas where it didn’t when it was listed thirty years ago, many of the wetlands in which it bred historically have been further destroyed or damaged since it was listed leading to a population decline in some areas of Florida.
Although some consider the status change to be premature, the protection awarded to the species under the Endangered Species Act will be virtually the same as it was when the wood stork was listed as endangered. The downgrade to “threatened” indicates that the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the Federal agency that oversees the implementation of the Endangered Species Act, no longer considers the species to be at risk for extinction. Thirty years ago many believed the wood stork would never see a status downgrade. When the species was first listed in 1984 wildlife biologists feared the bird would be extinct by 2000.
Advertisements(File) Indonesian and Singaporean Navy commandos take their positions in a joint anti-piracy exercise. Source: AP
PHILIPPINE President Rodrigo Duterte said Friday that Indonesian maritime authorities will be allowed to enter his country’s territorial waters to capture pirates.
The Filipino leader, speaking in Jakarta after arriving from the Asean and East Asia summits, explained that this was the agreement made with his Indonesian counterpart Joko “Jokowi” Widodo during their Laos meet.
“We can make it clear that if the chase begins in Indonesia and continues in international waters, and inside Philippine waters, they can go ahead and blast them off.
“That’s the agreement, blow them up, that’s my word actually with Widodo, I said, ‘Blow them up’,” Duterte was quoted saying in Straits Times.
SEE ALSO: 15 Philippine soldiers killed in bloody standoff with Abu Sayyaf
The Philippine president is on his first official visit to Jakarta since he was elected in May.
Straits Times said the leader plans to speak to Jokowi further on how both countries, as well as Malaysia, can work together to secure their borders and fight piracy.
Indonesia, Philippines and Malaysia earlier this year launched coordinated patrols and set up crisis centres in their respective countries to solve the protracted piracy problem that have continued unabated in their maritime borders, particularly in areas like Sulu and Suluwesi.
Malaysia’s porous borders are often used by militant pirates, particularly those from the Abu Sayyaf terror network operating out of Southern Philippines, to carry out crossborder crimes such as hijackings and kidnappings.
SEE ALSO: Breaking: 10 dead, scores hurt as blast rocks Philippine president’s home city
A May report by Reuters noted that because of the attacks, Indonesian port authorities in some areas had stopped issuing permits to ships taking coal through the southern Philippines.
Indonesia supplies 70 percent of the Philippines’ coal imports, the report said.
Earlier today, a report by The Star said five Malaysians who were taken by Abu Sayyaf gunmen during a July kidnapping are now on the run with their captors through the jungles of Jolo, amid the ongoing military offensive launched by Filipino forces on Duterte’s order.
SEE ALSO: Unfazed by army offensive, Abu Sayyaf says ready for Duterte’s soldiers
The five – Abd Rahim Summas, Tayuddin Anjut, 45, Mohd Ridzuan Ismail, 32, Fandy Bakran, 26 and Mohd Zumadil Rahim, 23 – were taken from their tugboat off the waters of Lahad Datu, a coastal township in the east Malaysian state of Sabah.
The report quoting Jolo anti-kidnapping activist Prof Octavio Dinampo said the five are among the 13 captives currently held by the Abu Sayyaf.
Lahad Datu was also the target of Filipino intruders in 2013. During the bloody incident, a group of some 200 gunmen crossed territorial waters to enter Kampung Tanduo and lay the Sulu Sultanate’s claim over Sabah. The incursion led to a violent battle between Malaysian security forces and the gunmen, and killed 78 people, including 10 policemen.We've been telling you about The 99% Spring, the collective protest movement backed by Democratic Party activists and the labor movement.
Earlier this month, The 99% Spring trained 100,000 protestors. And today, they took on their highest profile target: General Electric.
Protestors massed outside GE's annual shareholders meeting in Detroit (yes, it met in the Motor City). Several thousand people marched at the Renaissance Center, according to The Detroit News. Some made it into the meeting room, where they were escorted out by police.
It was the second day that GE faced protests in Detroit. On Wednesday, protestors interrupted a speech by GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt at the Society of Automotive Engineers.
GE tried to head off the headlines about the protests by making a jobs announcement. It said Tuesday it is adding 300 positions at an advanced manufacturing and engineering center in Van Buren Township, Mich.
In his SAE speech, Immelt took issue with protestors' accusations that GE is a tax dodge, saying the company paid a 29 percent corporate rate last year.
But in retrospect, it probably was bad timing to hold a shareholders meeting in Detroit when a main backer of The 99% Spring is the United Automobile Workers union.
Outside the annual meeting, protestors carried signs reading, "Fighting for Pension Fairness" and "COLA Increase - Affordable Health Care" referring to cost of living allowance increases.
One protestor, Earl Hornung, told the News that he drove up from Indiana to show how he felt about his retirement situation.
"We're trying to get a raise in our cost of living allocation," said Hornung, who worked for GE for 28 years. "We have one fellow here who is 90 years old who retired 30 years ago. He's hurting really bad due to inflation. I've been retired for 10 years and inflation is eating away at my pension, too."
In a press release last week, The 99% Spring told of its plans to disrupt the GE meeting. "In particular, holding the meeting in Detroit—a city that has been dramatically impacted for the worse by the sort of tax dodging GE engages in—makes GE very much a target for the kind of disruptions we've seen at other shareholder meetings," the organization said.
In recent days, The 99% Spring protestors have disrupted or shut down several corporate shareholder meetings. The group claims its protests led to a shutdown at EQT Corp.’s meeting, prompted executives at Carnival Cruise Lines (NYSE: CCL) to cut its live broadcast and resulted in two hours of interruptions and ejections from the BNY Mellon meeting.Egg + avocado + oven = heaven.
I’ve been making some variation of the huevocate ever since I inherited a 30-some-year-old avocado tree on my property. The avocados that cover this tree every spring are the most massive avocados I’ve ever seen, easily weighing close to a pound each. I mean, look at this thing. I can’t even wrap a hand around it.
Such behemoths are the perfect size for a huevocate — a baked egg (huevo) inside an avocado (aguacate). You know, like an eggvocado. (Quick tip: You can even make this in a Dutch oven while you’re camping!) Think molten lava wrapped in a creamy cloud and topped with crunchy bits of bacon… and you’ve got a huevocate breakfast that’s surprisingly filling. Sometimes I’ll scoop everything out and smear it on toast. Sometimes I’ll eat it as-is. And yes, I eat the whole avocado by myself. (!)
Go as basic or as fancy as you want here. Grate some cheese. Slice a sausage. Do it up with sour cream and salsa. You might even want to eat breakfast for dinner… hey, I’m not telling you what to do. But I am telling you that you should make this now!
Huevocate (Or… Eggvocado)
Makes 1 serving
Ingredients
1 large avocado
2 eggs
1 green onion, chopped
1 strip bacon
Freshly cracked black pepper
Chili powder
Paprika (and/or any other spices you like)
Method
Preheat oven to 425°F.
Slice your avocado in half lengthwise. Remove the pit.
If you have a smaller avocado, you may need to scoop out some of the flesh to create a larger hollow.
Line a baking dish with foil and place your avocado halves in it. If they don’t stay upright, you can slice a bit off the bottom to make them level… or just prop them up creatively against the dish.
Crack an egg into each hollow. Some of the whites may spill over to the side. Gooey is good.
Top the avocados with cracked black pepper, chili powder, paprika, and whatever other spices or sauces float your boat for breakfast. Sprinkle a handful of green onions over everything.
Pop the dish in the oven and bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the yolks are done to your liking. I find that 20 minutes in my oven gives me the perfect combination of a cooked white with a soft, slightly runny yolk.
While you wait, fry up a bacon strip until crisp. Drain on a paper towel and crumble it all up.
Pull the huevocate out of the oven and sprinkle bacon bits over the halves.
Umm… What else is there to say? Try not to burn your tongue on it in excitement!The tax survives for now, but it’s a joke. It raised a risible $600,000 in the three months to the end of June, according to Joe Hockey. It will probably end up being even less; the mining companies that pay the tax have yet to make deductions against this tax bill. As Hockey likes to say, only Labor could devise a tax that raises no revenue. In a democracy, it’s not enough to win an election every few years. A government needs to generate and regenerate the support it needs to carry its program into public acceptance and parliamentary assent. The Coalition witnessed Labor’s chronic inability to carry an argument and laughed at it. Yet we now see some striking similarities in the Coalition government itself. The Abbott government’s first budget is the prime example. After 10 weeks, most of the major initiatives proposed are moribund. The government has failed utterly to persuade the people to support its budget. The government declared that there was a ''budget emergency'' in the nation’s finances. Today there is a ''budget emergency'' in the government’s political management. While the Abbott Coalition was formidable in campaigning against Labor’s policies, it is proving quite inept in campaigning for its own. It could destroy support for its enemies but is failing to build its own.
When Hockey first delivered the budget, 61 per cent of the people polled in a Fairfax-Nielsen survey said that it was unfair. A month later, 63 per cent told the same pollsters they thought it unfair. In other words, the government made no headway in the time when public opinion is most malleable, when people are forming their views of new proposals. This has emboldened an unruly, populist Senate to strike a very hostile pose. The net effect? While Hockey’s budget proposed $37 billion worth of budget repair – pending cuts and tax hikes – over four years, $24.5 billion worth of that is facing defeat in the Senate. That is, two-thirds of the government’s proposed fiscal fix is in dire danger. ''The big picture is essentially unchanged from before the budget – it’s deficits as far as the eye can see,'' says budget analyst Chris Richardson of Deloitte Access Economics. ''Over the past decade, federal government spending has grown by 3 per cent a year on average in real terms. Both sides of politics say ‘you have to get back to surplus, and that means you have to restrain spending growth to 2 per cent a year’.
''Well, this budget only proposed bringing it down to 2.7 per cent growth, and on current indications'' of the budget’s prospects in the Senate, ''it will be closer to 3 per cent,'' Richardson says. ''So we finally get a plan on the table, it’s only for 2.7 per cent, and the political structures are still failing to deliver.” Does it really matter? ''Australia does not have a budget crisis. We do have a budget problem. It’s like Einstein’s line about compound interest being the greatest force in the universe. Debt will just keep accumulating.'' The people most animated about this are members of the government itself. Frustration is rising. So far, it’s contained. Government MPs and senators are not yet going public. But privately, Coalition members are growing increasingly critical of Hockey. ''This is the one thing that can derail the government,'' a minister says. ''We’ve repealed the carbon tax, we’ve stopped the boats, we have to address debt and deficit.''
''You can’t declare a budget emergency and then go on holiday in Fiji,'' says another Liberal, a crack at Hockey’s absence from Canberra when the Senate was recalled in early July. Hockey should have been knocking heads together, not knocking off, he chides. ''Announcing the budget is not the point; legislating the budget is the point.'' A minister volunteers this admonition: ''We all have jobs to do and the budget is Joe’s. Plan A hasn’t worked and we need to see Plan B.'' A smart minister would have plans C and D and even a plan E as well, the minister adds. Hockey is making a new effort. This week he launched a crossbench tour of Australia, visiting the independent and minor-party senators in their home towns, a concession in itself, a Treasurer tending to their political egos to explain, flatter and cajole.
Defenders of Hockey, however, point the finger at other senior members of the government. The budget proposes some big reforms in the portfolios of other cabinet ministers. The $7 Medicare co-payment, for instance, in Peter Dutton’s portfolio of Health, and the deregulation of universities in Christopher Pyne’s area of responsibilities. Why have these ministers been so ineffectual? Hockey’s supporters demand. Before the budget was announced, a Fairfax-Nielsen poll acted on media speculation to ask voters whether they supported a $6 Medicare co-payment. Remarkably, most respondents, 52 per cent, were in favour and 46 per cent against. But after the budget, sentiment reversed, with only 29 per cent in favour and 50 per cent against, according to an Essential Media poll. In other words, Labor won the argument. Deregulating university fees has never found favour in any polling, but there is poll evidence that public sentiment has hardened against this idea too over the weeks and months since it was announced. A senior figure in the government accuses Dutton and Pyne of being too timid. Another Liberal accuses the pair of being ''just about invisible'' in mounting a persuasive argument for their reforms.
Members of the government are getting cranky with each other, but the problem is a collective one. Wherever individual fault might lie, it’s certainly true that the government as a whole has failed as a force for persuading, for implementing and for succeeding. The government did no real work to prepare public opinion for some of its dramatic reforms, failed to mount a persuasive public argument, and, as a result, is watching the slow demise of some of its prized projects. When Chris Richardson euphemistically blames ''the political structures'' for failing to address Australia’s fecklessness, he means the political parties, and there is plenty of blame to go around. Labor has taken a spectacular populist turn. Not only is it opposing most of the government’s plans to cut spending, it’s even opposing $5.7 billion in spending cuts that it proposed when it was in power. This is an extraordinary episode in irresponsible oppositionism. The Greens are no better. They’ve invented spurious arguments to block the government plan to resume increasing fuel excise by the annual rate of inflation. That is, a supposedly environmental party obstructing a pro-environmental policy.
The Palmer United Party is a more entertaining vehicle for delivering the same product – irresponsible policy and crass populism. So the government faces an unwieldy, irresponsible Senate. But that’s not unusual. It’s part of the job of government to manage the upper house to get its way. If Labor was chronically unable to make reforms, and now the Coalition is struggling too, does this tell us something bigger about Australia? Is the country’s politics just too fraught, too cheap, too divided? Not according to two accomplished reformers, Bob Hawke and John Howard. This pair has said in years past that reform is eminently achievable on the condition that a reforming government takes the people with it. And in a joint appearance by the two former prime ministers at the National Press Club recently, Howard added this advice. To succeed, a government needed to demonstrate to the people that ''any reform not only serves the national interest, but has got to be fair.'' Added Hawke: ''And seen to be fair.''
Tony Abbott has made the point that few people argue about the economics of the budget. It sets course for a prudent, gradual return to a budget balance over the next five years. The arguments are all political, as Abbott has pointed out. Right. So if the problem is political, so is the solution. The government needs to rethink, recast, regroup, and reinvigorate. Otherwise it will increasingly come to resemble the government it replaced. Peter Hartcher is the political editor.Honduras
The Photographs
Lourdes Flores packed the photos in a Ziplock, so they wouldn’t get wet, then tucked them into her purse. The handbag and the clothes she wore were all she had when she left Honduras.
The trip to America took weeks, and bus ride after bus ride.
“The photos were the only thing I could take at the moment,” she said.
They made her feel like her four children were with her during those frightful nights, making the journey north.
She was escaping a brutal husband and trying to find a place for her family somewhere safe. She left her children with her mother.
Her youngest, Kimberly, is a toddler in one photo, 18 months old and sitting in a stroller. The boys, Vidal and Luis, sit next to their sister, on the floor of the family’s living room. In another picture, Cindy is 6 and on an ottoman at home, her puffy white dress propping her up. Another shot features Vidal, all smiles, celebrating Children’s Day at his aunt’s clothing factory.
Lourdes didn’t know when she would see her kids again.
Somehow, she felt as if they would look just as they did in those pictures, frozen in time. She stared at the images, over and over.
That was 12 years ago.
Finding her way in the United States and winning asylum took time and patience.
Today, Lourdes works in a furniture store. Two of her children now live with her here in Houston. The other two, she has not seen in all those years. But they are safe, she says, with their own families and rich lives.
She keeps those old photographs on her night stand. They are worn at the edges and a little faded, but like her, they are protected.There are a lot of questions swirling around the scandal that brought down National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, but the biggest and most important goes way beyond him: What’s up with President Donald Trump and Russia?
Flynn was forced out of his job Monday night amid growing evidence that he’d misled Vice President Mike Pence, and potentially the FBI, about the nature of his conversations with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Flynn told Pence he didn’t discuss Washington’s sanctions on Moscow with the envoy, but FBI intercepts showed that he’d done so explicitly and even hinted Trump might lift the measures once he was in the White House.
The FBI is pursuing a criminal probe into Flynn’s dealings with the Russian diplomat; if it’s proven that he lied to federal agents, Flynn could face jail time.
That’s a really sexy scandal, and will rightly suck up a lot of oxygen in coming days as more details leak out and Democrats and Republicans spar about whether Congress should open a formal investigation into Flynn’s time in office.
It’s important to remember, though, that the Flynn story is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to why Trump has consistently praised Russian President Vladimir Putin and floated jarringly pro-Russian policy positions during the campaign and in his first weeks as president.
The most generous answer — using the term loosely — is that Trump shares Putin’s authoritarian tendencies, sees the Russian as a strong leader, and genuinely believes Moscow can be turned into an ally in the fight against ISIS.
The darkest and most conspiratorial interpretation is that Putin has something on Trump, hacked the US election to help him win the White House, and is blackmailing him into doing the Kremlin’s bidding.
There’s no smoking gun here, and I can’t bring myself to make the leap into seeing Trump as a Manchurian president. But it’s no longer something to just dismiss out of hand. In early January, the US intelligence community concluded with “high confidence” that Russia had directly interfered with the election to boost Trump’s chances and hurt those of Hillary Clinton. Less than a week later, CNN reported US intelligence agencies believed the Kremlin had “compromising personal and financial information” on Trump.
The Flynn scandal shows every sign of snowballing, with powerful GOP lawmakers like Texas Sen. John Cornyn, the chamber’s second-ranking Republican, calling for a formal congressional investigation and demanding the retired Army general testify under oath.
Several of those Republicans want the probe to also look at the broader issue of Trump’s views of Russia. “General Flynn’s resignation also raises further questions about the Trump administration’s intentions towards Vladimir Putin’s Russia, including statements by the president suggesting moral equivalence between the United States and Russia,” Arizona Sen. John McCain said in a statement Tuesday.
In a report certain to fuel calls for a wider probe, the New York Times reported Tuesday night that US law enforcement and intelligence agencies had intercepted communications between Trump campaign staffers and senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the 2016 election.
Citing unnamed current and former US officials, the Times said the “call logs and intercepted communications are part of a larger trove of information that the FBI is sifting through as it investigates the links between Mr. Trump’s associates and the Russian government,” including banking and travel records.
All of which means that Flynn’s downfall isn’t the only thing that should make us take a closer look at Trump’s ties to Russia — or at the controversial pro-Moscow aides the new president has long had in his orbit.
Flynn isn’t the only Trump aide who has been in FBI crosshairs because of Russia
Let’s rewind the tape to the halcyon days of last summer, when Trump’s floundering presidential campaign was being run by veteran GOP political operative Paul Manafort. He was forced to resign in August after the New York Times reported on a ledger documenting $12.7 million in payments to Manafort from a pro-Putin political leader in Ukraine. (This was arguably good news for Trump; Manafort’s replacement, Steve Bannon, honed the nationalist message that helped Trump win the White House.)
In late November, NBC News reported that the FBI had opened a preliminary inquiry into Manafort’s foreign business ties. It’s not clear if that’s come to an end or if FBI agents have decided to expand it into a formal criminal probe. Justice Department spokesperson Wyn Hornbuckle didn’t respond to an email seeking comment.
There are also lingering questions about onetime Trump adviser Carter Page, whose name pops up again and again in the unverified and now-infamous dossier about Trump that was prepared by a retired British intelligence agent and later published by BuzzFeed. The New York Times reported in January that Page was facing FBI scrutiny, but it’s not clear whether that probe is continuing.
The Page-related parts of the dossier, which appear under the headline “Secret Kremlin Meetings Attended by Trump Advisor,” allege that Page secretly met with Igor Sechin, the head of Russia’s largest oil company, Rosneft, and a close Putin crony (you can read more about Sechin in a Vox profile here). Per the dossier, Sechin offered Page and his colleagues up to a 19 percent stake in Rosneft — which could have been worth hundreds of millions of dollars, if not more — in exchange for working to persuade a future President Trump to lift the punishing economic sanctions on Russia.
Page has strongly and consistently denied the allegations, telling ABC News earlier this month that the assertions about his purported meetings with Sechin were “absolutely ridiculous.”
“If I were offered a prize of many billions of dollars, that would be quite an offer,” |
exemption from the directive or requesting a period of grace allowing pension funds to build up their assets.
Speaking at First Minister's Questions, Mr Salmond told MSPs: "We will be looking at the three options."
His chief political spokesman said later no decisions had been taken, but a Government paper setting out a detailed pensions policy for an independent Scotland would be published "soon".
Accountants' body ICAS, which highlighted the problem last week, has warned Brussels is unlikely to give companies the 10-year period of grace many need to bring their funds into line. In the case of UK and Ireland cross-border schemes, Brussels allowed time for them to be split up after the directive came into force.
One leading Scottish actuary, Donald Campbell, of pension consultants Xafinity, has already urged firms to consider dividing their pension funds ahead of next year's referendum.
However, he said splitting pensions would make them more expensive for firms to provide. The Scottish Government also faced pressure to explain how occupational pension holders would be protected, if the country left the UK and separate Scottish schemes were created.
At present 16,000 Scots, whose work pension schemes have collapsed, rely on the UK Government-backed Pensions Protection Fund – which pays most of the money they were due.
Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Conservative leader, said: "The First Minister is clueless on how he would guarantee people's pensions under separation and yet he is willing to gamble the futures of every man, woman and child on his punt to break-up the UK."
Gregg McClymont, Scottish Labour's pensions spokesman, said: "The devil is in the detail on pensions and the fact that the First Minister has not done his homework is glaringly obvious. When it comes to retirement, Scots want certainty and security, not assertion and wishful thinking."
The prospect of major changes to works pensions emerged as Mr Salmond came under fresh attack over his plan for an independent Scotland to enter a currency union with the rest of the UK.
Questioned by Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont he claimed a sterling zone was in the best interests of Scotland and the UK.
However, he refused to rule out creating a new currency in the event of independence, a plan favoured by many of his allies in the Yes Scotland campaign.
Meanwhile, the Labour First Minister of Wales, Carwyn Jones, entered the currency row, urging Chancellor George Osborne to reject any currency union with an independent Scotland.
He warned it would pose "very real risks" for the rest of the UK and could damage the Welsh economy.
Peter Sinclair, a professor of economics at Birmingham University, said all the currency options open to an independent Scotland were "fraught with difficulty".
He said keeping the pound would result in strict conditions on economic policy that would "make a nonsense of independence". He also warned a separate Scotland would face higher borrowing costs, pushing up national debt by the equivalent of £289 per family per year.
Mr Salmond's spokesman said: "The policy we have set out is a currency union with the rest of the UK. That is the only policy."This wasn't supposed to happen.
With the mainstream media, at least the majority that is left of center, flooded with story after story touting Obamacare's success, the news coming this morning from Denver that Colorado's largest nonprofit health insurer and participant in that state's insurance exchange Colorado HealthOP is abruptly shutting down, forcing 80,000 Coloradans to find a new insurer for 2016, was a slap in the face for the Obama administration's crowning achievement.
According to AP, the health insurer announced Friday that the state Division of Insurance has de-certified it as an eligible insurance company. That's because the cooperative relied on federal support, and federal authorities announced last month they wouldn't be able to pay most of what they owed in a program designed to help health insurance co-ops get established.
Wait, wasn't the whole point behind Obamacare to subsidize health insurance for everyone, and especially the poor? Or was the whole point of the "Affordable" Care Act merely to herd as many Americans into the clutches of the few for-profits, after the non-profit cooperatives finally read the fine print and realized they have no chance of being profitable under the new regime?
The plot thickens: in a statement announcing its closure Friday, Colorado HealthOP said it was "well on its way" to repaying some $72.3 million it has borrowed from the federal fund. The co-op reported a net loss of $23 million last year. In other words, the company burned through some $23 million in taxpayer funds and it didn't even get a lousy shirt to show for it.
Ironically, on the company's website, we read the following about the Co-Op's business model:
if our revenues exceed our costs, the surplus will be reinvested to directly benefit members—through lower premiums, expanded benefits, or quality improvements.
Well, no risk of that ever happening now. What the insurer failed to point out is that if costs exceed its revenues, it will be promptly liquidated and massive corporations will be the sole beneficiaries.
Naturally, the CEO was furious: Colorado HealthOP CEO Julia Hutchins called the de-certification "irresponsible and premature."
She is not alone - as it turns out HealthOP was just the fifth casualty of a program which with every passing months is being exposed as nothing but a tax-backed piggy bank for the mega insurance corporations. "The Colorado announcement makes the co-op at least the fifth in the nation to collapse. Similar nonprofit insurers have already failed in Louisiana, Iowa/Nebraska, Nevada and New York. A health insurance cooperative in Tennessee announced this week that it would stop offering new policies.
Expect even more failures ahead of open enrollment for 2016 starts on November 1. The Colorado Division of Insurance must first certify insurers before they're allowed to sell plans, so the de-certification essentially puts Colorado HealthOP out of business.
Back to the HealthOP CEO who added that "the Division has let local and national politics hurt Coloradans' access to low-cost healthcare options and assessed Colorado taxpayers with significant avoidable costs," Hutchins said in the statement.
Actually they became unavoidable the moment the deeply compromised and ideologically partisan Supreme Court imposed the Obamacare tax on Americans, with few if any realizing the monetary implications of the new insurance regime.
While it won't provide much comfort to Colorado HealthOp, which is now winding down, its board of directors has requesting that the state allow a board-appointed independent consumer protection ombudsman to assist through the shut-down.
In other words, even more millions in taxpayer funds will now be spent to liquidate the health insurer.
And while the lame duck president hardly cared as his legacy achievement will soon be some other president's problem, Republicans quickly took to gloating and pointed to the co-op's closure as "a sad but predictable outcome."
"Taxpayers are on the hook for millions of dollars in loans given out to the CO-OP, money that will likely never be repaid," U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner said in a statement after the announcement. "The years since Obamacare's passage have been marked by crisis after crisis in healthcare, and it's far past time for a new plan."
But wait, there's more. Now that the numbers are being crunched, and hyperbole and propaganda are finally making way for math, someone figured out that Colorado HealthOP's closure could be bad news for everyone shopping on Colorado's health insurance exchange.
A Republican state lawmaker who serves on an oversight committee that has reviewed Colorado HealthOP's finances, Rep. Lang Sias of Arvada, said "rates for everyone are expected to go up next year. Colorado HealthOP accounted for nearly 40 percent of the exchange's total customers."
"They're all going to be paying more, on average, I would expect," Sias said.
And as more Americans get letters in the mail such as the one below kindly informing them their health insurance premiums are rising by 60% crushing any desire to splurge modest "gas savings" on discretionary purchases...
... expect complaints about soaring health insurance prices, to hit - first in Colorado and then everywhere else.The Mamilla Cemetery is an ancient Muslim burial ground and holy site in Jerusalem believed to date back to the 7th century. A significant portion of the cemetery has been destroyed and hundreds of human remains have been desecrated so that the Simon Wiesenthal Center can build a facility called the “Museum of Tolerance.” Since 2010, CCR and the Campaign to Preserve Mamilla Cemetery have worked to halt construction of the new facility and preserve what remains of the site. To this end, we filed petitions with various UN bodies, including UNESCO to protect the sacred site. This advocacy effort is part of CCR’s longstanding commitment to support the struggle for Palestinian human rights.
Numerous saints of the Sufi faith and thousands of other officials, scholars, notables, and Jerusalem Palestinian families have been buried in the cemetery over the last 1000 years. Companions of the Prophet Muhammad were reputedly buried there. The Muslim Supreme Council declared the cemetery a historical site in 1927, and the British Mandate authorities pronounced it an antiquities site in 1944. It was an active burial ground until 1948 when the new State of Israel seized the western part of Jerusalem. Under Israeli control, the cemetery and other Islamic endowment properties, or waqf, were taken over by the Custodian for Absentee Property. Since then, Muslim authorities have not been allowed to maintain the cemetery.
The importance of the Mamilla Cemetery to Muslims is well known to the Israeli government. In 1948, the same year that Israel took control of the cemetery, the Israeli Religious Affairs Ministry recognized Mamilla “to be one of the most prominent Muslim cemeteries, where seventy thousand Muslim warriors of Saladin’s armies are interred along with many Muslim scholars. Israel will always know to protect and respect this site.” As recently as 1986, in response to an investigation by UNESCO regarding Israel’s development projects on Mamilla, the Israeli government stated that “no project exists for the deconsecration of the site and that on the contrary the site and its tombs are to be safeguarded.” Despite these reassurances and the cemetery’s inclusion in an Israeli Antiquities Authority list of “Special Antiquities Sites,” Israel has in fact destroyed a large section of the cemetery with the construction of buildings, parks, and even parking lots.
The “Museum of Tolerance” has resulted in the disinterment of hundreds of graves, and the whereabouts of the countless human remains that have been disposed of are unknown. With the help of the Israeli government, the Simon Wiesenthal Center continues to erect the museum atop thousands more graves. They justify the project by claiming that the cemetery is no longer sanctified, based on a 1964 proclamation by a Shari’a or Islamic law judge who lacked legitimacy in the Muslim community. The President of the Shari’a Court of Appeals in Israel has since deemed this ruling to be void and affirmed that the sanctity of cemeteries is eternal in Islam.
Under international law, UN resolutions, and its own domestic law, the Israeli government has an obligation to respect and protect the holy sites of its minority religious and ethnic populations, including Mamilla Cemetery. Its unwillingness to do so has drawn international condemnation, including Human Rights Council resolutions; a public petition signed by nearly 10,000 individuals from around the world; a letter from 84 respected archaeologists decrying the archaeological practices employed on the site; a resolution by the Central Conference of American Rabbis opposing the project; and the opposition of numerous prominent Israeli scholars.Is it easier for Jesus to turn water into wine or heal the sick? Is it easier for Jesus to walk on water or bring someone back to life? We as humans want to place limitations on God and also establish levels of difficulty upon His miracles. In the same way God wasn't constrained by any practical limitations of the rudimentary elements and forces of the natural world when setting forth His plans and desires for the ark.
Noah's Ark was divinely inspired by God. It wasn't simply Noah being left to his own efforts. God Himself per the Bible caused the animals to come to the Ark which wasn't possible without miraculous intervention.
God flooded the World with a volume of water that didn't exist before or after the flood and then made the water go away. Noah had 100 years to build the Ark with his sons and other help possibly.
People also assume that the animals were full grown, we dont know. Also, the Bible doesn't say that every single variety of species entered the Ark. Just pairs of species. In other words a pair of dogs and not 400 pairs representing each breed. The exception to this are birds which had pairs of every kind. Using pairs of species its quite possible to fit all of the animals onto an Ark that was 2 million cubic feet even without intervention from God. And it was God that shut them all in.
All in all either you believe in the power of God or you dont. Even to an atheist if its possibly to turn water into wine just by thinking about it its equally as possible to build a boat that holds a pair of all species. Either you believe or you dont. Why is it that no one challenges Jesus's claim that he turned water into wine?
God bless you.
jerrymack · 8 years ago 0 Thumbs up 1 Thumbs down Report AbuseIt’s going to be a lot harder to be a one-eyed kitten in San Francisco, starting this fall.
The main animal shelter for one-eyed kittens and other physically challenged felines is leaving town. It’s a tragedy for one-eyed kittens and the people who love them, which is practically everyone, because it’s awfully hard not to love a kitten no matter how many eyes it has.
“We don’t want to leave,” said Amber Holly, 42, the proprietor of the Saving Grace kitten refuge on Cayuga Avenue. “But we don’t really have a choice.”
The rent just went up, again, to $3,500 a month. Holly is looking for a new home, both for her family and her kittens, perhaps as far away as Oregon. Practically everyone else has gotten priced out of San Francisco, and now it’s the one-eyed kittens’ turn.
Among the felines soon to hit the road are Chevy, a very cute striped kitten, and Gizmo, a fluffy black kitten, and Checkers, a black cat who used to be a kitten but grew up and so became less cute, through no fault of his own.
Holly has operated the building in Balboa Park for six years. It’s been home to about 700 kittens — some one-eyed, some blind, some with three legs or two legs or a swollen brain. Some were abandoned at birth.
“We get ’em with their umbilical cords still on,” Holly said.
Some have other conditions that make them, in the parlance, “special-needs, at-risk” kittens, but never handicapped, disadvantaged or defective kittens.
“You name it, we get all the little wonky ones,” Holly said, “wonky” being a term of endearment that, as the premier guardian of wonky kittens, she has allowed herself to use.
Anyway, says Holly, there is no such thing as a disadvantaged kitten, only one whose advantages have not been properly understood. Chevy, who under Holly’s care had succeeded in putting her special needs behind her, was trying very hard at that moment to rip to shreds a cotton mouse.
The building is also home to Holly, her husband, their 16-month-old son and their dog, who all share the same space, the same toys and the same comfy cushions on the living room floor.
How it started
Holly, a veterinary technician, got her start rescuing at-risk kittens when she realized the fate of most at-risk kittens that were passing through her vet hospital. Most were sent to local shelters where they faced euthanasia, because shelters’ resources are limited and there is no shortage of two-eyed, four-legged kittens to adopt. So Holly got out of the vet tech trade and into the guardian angel trade.
Saving Grace is known to most Bay Area shelters, whose staffs send photos of soon-to-be-euthanized kittens to Holly’s phone. She invariably gives the OK for the kittens to be dropped off.
“People who send the photos are usually just like me,” she said. “Bleeding hearts.”
More bleeding hearts see the photos on Holly’s website and rush over to adopt the kittens or give them foster homes. About a dozen one-eyed or three-legged kittens come and go every month.
“Sesame may be blind but it isn’t slowing her down.... Check out Liz and Moe, cuddled on their foster’s legs.... Muldowney is in repose...”
‘It’s a big loss’
The folks at Animal Care and Control, San Francisco’s primary animal shelter, say they are sorry to see Holly and her kittens hit the road. Saving Grace is one of dozens of Bay Area animal rescue and support groups, but it’s special.
“It’s a big loss,” said shelter spokeswoman Deb Campbell. “Amber takes the really, really special-needs cats. Shelter work is difficult enough, and what she does is beyond difficult.”
But it will all come to an end as soon as Holly can find a new location. Exactly where she isn’t sure. Someplace in the country and someplace to the north and someplace where the rent isn’t $3,500.
Just outside her rear window, a 100-unit apartment house is about to be built, and the caterwauling from that enterprise is not something she is looking forward to. The neighborhood is changing, and one-eyed kittens are not its future.
“It really sucks that we have to move,” said Holly. “Things change. Life just sort of tells you what to do.”
Steve Rubenstein is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: srubenstein@sfchronicle.com Email:@SteveRubeSFHard Forks and Soft Forks for libertarians
Introduction
Nicolas Dorier Blocked Unblock Follow Following Feb 21, 2016
Lately, I’ve been sad to witness some libertarians I personally know thinking that if a result X can be achieved with a hard fork or a soft fork, then it should be done with a hard fork because a soft fork violates the Non Aggression Principle.
As a quick summary, the Non Aggression Principle is the guiding rod of libertarians values. For every policy that a libertarian evaluates, their moral judgment derives from whether someone’s property is violated or not.
The best examples of libertarian moral judgments derived from Non Aggression Principle about a wide range of policies can be found in Murray Rothbard’s books. Libertarianism never have been about maximizing choice as I’ve seen said in the community, but solely about defending right of property, starting by your body, mind, work and the fruit of it.
So, for the sake of this article, let’s have a libertarian moral judgment on soft forks and hard forks.
I will demonstrate that a soft fork never violates the Non Aggression Principle, then follow that a hard fork CAN lead to act of aggression if not handled carefully by service providers.
This post is divided into four parts:
A soft fork never violate the Non Aggression Principle A hard fork can lead to violations of the Non Aggression Principle A note on aggressive soft fork A note on “Let’s just follow Bitcoin”
This post should not be interpreted as a “No hard fork ever” argument. My goal is only to make you consider the philosophical dimension of the problem while stepping back from the noise coming from the other dimensions. I am lazer focusing on the philosophical aspect. In practice, for technical reasons, I still think hard fork will be needed at one point, but everyone should be clear that it is a moral hazard. (if you hold to libertarian values)
A soft fork never violate the Non Aggression Principle
The reasoning of “soft fork as a violation” proponents is the following one:
A hard fork asks my permission for a change (upgrading is consenting)
A soft fork is a sneaky way to change the protocol without my consent (no need to upgrade)
So some libertarians strictly prefer a hard fork, but let’s examine the facts.
When you joined Bitcoin, you accepted that a miner has two powers:
Selection of transactions to put into its block
Selection of the previous block to build up on
And you have one power:
Deciding if a block is valid
For the particular example of Segwit: a segwit ScriptPubKey contains 2 pushes on the stack.
Imagine you hear a libertarian friend screaming: “When I started using Bitcoin, 2 pushes on the stack was spendable by anyone, why does miners impose more rules without my permission?”
Now imagine he has an old node without segwit. So his rules are still “2 pushes don’t need any signature”. He tries to spend a segwit transaction output without signature. But find out that all miners are rejecting his transaction.
My 100$ question is: Does miners really violated his property by refusing to include his transaction into their block? Probably not, because the rule of Bitcoin never made him in charge of transaction selection in the first place.
On the other hand, when he receives money from a Segwit transaction output without signature, the payment is valid for him as he agreed with the rule “No need of signature to spend a two pushes ScriptPubKey”. So nobody changed the rules he previously agreed on.
A hard fork can lead to violation of the Non Aggression Principle
Ok so now, what about a hard fork?
A hard fork, by definition demands you to upgrade, so there is no way it can violate your property, right? Yes… if you store and transfer bitcoins with BitcoinQt as everyone does.
Now back in the real world. The world were you use Xapo, Trezor, Circle, Shapeshift, Coinbase, Copay and Mycelium. (I leave out Breadwallet, because by using SPV you explicitely agree to go along the longest chain, at least, until fraud proofs come out)
The following argument is purely philosophical and does not matter if there will be a split or not. The occurence of a split is irrelevant from philosophical point of view, but would be from the legal and economic one.
Let’s take a practical example with Trezor (but you can replace with any of the services mentioned above):
A hard fork happens You send money to a destination with myTrezor.com You get change back
Then you suddenly see that the change you got back is on the new chain. (By new chain I mean the chain which made the hard fork)
Question: Did Trezor violated your property by sending your change on a chain you did not agree explicitely?
It depends, it is a grey zone. But if Trezor does not want to violate it, there are only three choices, none of them are ideal.
Have a term of agreement where users grant to Trezor the decision of which chain to use if you use myTrezor.com Not switching to the hard fork regardless of its success Giving the choice to the user which chain to follow
For 1, it would be acceptable, but would give considerable political powers to service providers. (Power delegated by the user to the service provider)
For 2, if the hard fork is a success, then the user would stop using your service as the old chain is now useless.
For 3, implementing code for supporting one chain is difficult enough, and prone to exploitation if done wrong. Supporting two chains requires intensive code and UX changes, such a thing would not only confuse the user, introduce bugs, but also use resources which could have been used for more worthwhile things.
And still! The Trezor example is easy as you own the private keys.
What if you don’t? Let’s take an example now about you having Bitcoin denominated IOU on Coinbase exchange.
What does “Bitcoin denominated” means? Does it means old chain or new chain?
So in case of hard fork, Coinbase will have to decide on which chain there IOU becomes redeemable. Let’s examine the solutions:
Have a term of agreement where users grant to Coinbase the decision of which chain to redeem their IOU, and can change as they want.
This one is the most acceptable, but you are giving too much power to Coinbase, as Coinbase can now decide to redeem only on the failed chain. Your IOU would then become worthless, but it would still not violate the Non Aggression Principle.
2. Not switching to the hard fork regardless of its success
If the hard fork is a success, the problem is even worse than with Trezor, as suddenly your IOUs are worth nothing… the users will be pissed off, but Coinbase can claim they did not violated the Non Aggression Principle.
3. Giving the choice to the user which chain to follow
Sadly, this choice is not possible, as coinbase have to comply with reserve requirement on its IOU. If the user can choose, then for 1 BTC IOU pre fork, they need 1 BTC of reserve on both chain. This is still possible if one chain goes to zero, but would bankrupt them if not.
Finally, the technical and UX problem to explain the choice of chain to the user is as delicate as the Trezor case.
Conclusion
I started to expose why a soft fork is not a violation of the Non Aggression Principle, and then proceed to explain that not violating it during a hard fork involves tough decisions by each service provider.
I stayed on the purely philosophical point of view, and demonstrated the moral hazard of a hard fork. This does not mean it can’t be done.
The legal and economic implications would be directly dependent on whether the fork produces two living chain or not. I did not assumed that for this post.
That said, service providers should take steps now in the term of agreement to explicitely stipulate they are the one who decide which chain their service follow. Not doing so will inevitably result into people trying to sue them for switching to a chain they did not agree to.
A note on Aggressive Soft fork
Saying a soft fork never violates the Non Aggression Principle, does not mean it can’t be dangerous to Bitcoin.
The most aggressive soft fork would be censorship enforced by 51% of miners. Those miners can decide to add a rule that all transaction in a block must be signed by a central authority. This would still not violate your property. Also, you can do nothing to prevent it as the blocks mined by those miners will still be valid to your rules.
This would certainly affect the value of the bitcoins you hold, but because value is subjective judgement of the individual, you cannot pretend your property is violated since value does not belong to you, only your bitcoins. You can’t “own” value as you can’t control what I think about the value of your coins.
If such a thing happen, a hard fork with PoW change would be the solution and this would create an entire new currency.
A note on “Let’s just follow Bitcoin”
Some people will say that Bitcoin is Bitcoin regardless of an hard fork, so if there is a hard fork, one side die and only one is remaining (no split), it is right to choose the new chain for others.
Such observation is irrelevant. When you start using Bitcoin, you have an inalienable right to choose which block is valid. And you can of course delegate such right, by giving to someone else the right to choose what is the “right Bitcoin” in case of a hard fork for you.
This come back to my observation that in order to not violate the non aggression principle, service providers must explicitely specifies that the right of choosing what is a “valid block” is granted to them by using the service.
And once again, the problem is that those centralized web services will derive political power from those grants (you can witness it right now), this is by itself an element of centralization of Bitcoin, and the reason why there is no auto update feature in BitcoinQt. (If developers really wanted power, they would start here, this is the lowest hanging fruit, as most users would swallow the pill without questioning the detrimental, invisible effects)
SPV with fraud proofs will be the only fight against this form of centralization, their importance for resistance to political pressure has been understated.NEW DELHI: He dated tennis legend Martina Hingis, married and divorced Czech tennis player Nicole Vaidisova and then dated the current world No. 4 Petra Kvitova as well. Radek Stepanek, who is in the capital for the Davis Cup World Group playoff tie this weekend, admits that he is ‘done dating’ tennis stars. The Czech star spoke to TOI after his practice session at the DLTA here on Monday. Excerpts from an interview...The easier thing is they understand what you are going through while practising, playing matches, winning or losing and travelling. The difficult part is since everyone is used to different things to calm down and relax. It's two people living different lives together... You can be sure that I am done dating tennis players.It's something very interesting. He won a few points with that throughout the US Open. It changed the rhythm and surprised the opponent. It's something new. I am not sure about others picking it up because today guys play just big strokes from the baseline... given the technique, talent and skills, Federer is able to do it.He played a great US Open final. He didn't lose a set in Cincinnati and until the final, which proves his game. I haven't seen him move that well for the last few years. I believe he still has it in him and his biggest chance will be at Wimbledon.We had a bet in the team on the score of the final and I had predicted that Novak would win in four sets. I have trained with him few times during the US Open and I just felt he's playing tremendously well. He loves the big occasions and has ended up with better results than Serena. He won three Slams which is an incredible achievement. It shows how great he is.A lot of people tell me that once I wear the Czech lion shirt I become a different player. It always brings out the best in me. Even during tough matches when I am injured or not feeling well, I have been able to pull out incredible performances and win important matches.We had defeated Serbia in 2010 semis. So we knew what to expect and we were ready for it. We knew we had to concentrate on our half of the court. We knew the crowd would be loud, they would yell and scream between the first and second serves. But I think this great atmosphere belongs to Davis Cup.The only thing that I think is unfair is when the crowd steps in between serves or are still shouting when players are serving. A similar thing happened in Serbia and Argentina, a very enthusiastic crowd. But at the end of the day you have to forget about the crowd and concentrate on the game.We are looking at three points to stay in the World Group and that's why we came here. We know India can be strong at home. We have tough opponents and we are playing in different conditions. But the focus will be on our team and I believe we have quality on our side and would like to prove it through the weekend.We are a compact team. Obviously not having Tomas (Berdych) in the team is a big loss for us. We have a great allround team that has been able to win ties even when I didn't play or Tomas didn't. We have many possibilities on how to play through the weekend. The most important thing is our team spirit.Right now we are the top-ranked team in the world so we cannot say we are not the favourites. But rankings don't matter to us. For us it's important to play well and steal three points. Since Berdych is not with us, Indians will be the favourites in the doubles but our strength will be in the singles.Yes, I believe so. We have been through a lot of tough matches. Have played home and away in tough conditions. We know how to get through it. And hopefully it's going to help us play here.Yes definitely. It's important for us to get used to the conditions. The Indian team will fight hard and will give everything they have. They will have their home support and that will definitely bring out the best in them.It will be funny to see him on the other side of the court. I know how popular he is in India. I know he only plays in home ties so he would like to show his best. When we played together we had fun every day. We both come from similar backgrounds – didn't have much during the childhood and had to fight hard to get success.(By Sai Sachin Reuters) — Amazon.com Inc will lease 20 Boeing 767 freighter aircraft, lessor Air Transport Services Group Inc said on Wednesday, as the online retailer moves closer to setting up its own air delivery network.
The deal comes at a time when Amazon, which offers fast and increasingly free deliveries for millions of online orders, has been trying to make shipments even faster as well as assume more control over its business and costs.
The e-commerce giant has been testing deliveries by drones, but has not said when it expects to have them in service.
The duration of the leases will be five to seven years, ATSG said.
As part of the agreement, Amazon also has the right to buy up to 19.9 percent of ATSG’s stock over five years at $9.73 per share. The price is at a 17.3 percent discount to ATSG’s Tuesday closing price of $11.77.
ATSG’s shares jumped 21 percent to $14.25 in premarket trading.
(Reporting by Sai Sachin R in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva)Spread the love
If you thought the days of Reefer Madness were behind us, think again.
Most Americans seem to be waking up to the horrors of the War on Drugs. However, there is an irate and scandalous sect of law enforcement, politicians, and even doctors who are shaking in their statist boots over the idea of legalizing nature.
This sect is going to great lengths to ensure that people are kept misinformed, kidnapped, locked in cages and killed for wanting to possess or ingest a plant.
The evidence is indisputable, these people have a serious case of reefer madness.
The catalyst for the recent insanity from the oligarchs seems to coincide with a study published in the Scientific Reports Journal, titled: Comparative risk assessment of alcohol, tobacco, cannabis and other illicit drugs using the margin of exposure approach.
The study found that you are 114 times more likely to die from overdosing on alcohol than you are from cannabis. In fact, you are more likely to die from all other mainstream drugs, both legal and illegal, than you are from marijuana, according to the study.
Marijuana is roughly 114 times less deadly than alcohol, according to recent findings: https://t.co/UfeMKT6dUQ pic.twitter.com/R1RyLZxYBk — The Stoned Society™ (@stonedsociety) February 23, 2015
While this knowledge isn’t particularly mind blowing information for most of us, news of this now official study quickly went viral. It has helped to shake even more people out of their drug war slumber.
Another two pieces of kindling that stoked this fire of crazies were two pieces of legislation that were proposed in Congress last month. Both bills set out to legalize Marijuana on a federal level.
But the brush fire doesn’t stop there. A lawmaker out of Texas has come out with the boldest move against the drug war to date. Rep. David Simpson (R) filed a bill that would legalize all marijuana and treat it as another crop, untaxed and unregulated.
As the people started waking up, however, the propaganda machine began to spin, and the madness hasn’t shown any signs of stopping.
First up in the reefer madness mania was HLN Host Nancy Grace, who was eviscerated on national television because of her child-like attempt to demonize pot. The evisceration came from rapper 2-chainz after she ignorantly claimed that if marijuana is legalized, child abusers will have more access to marijuana, leading to more child abuse.
Sadly, Grace was just the tip of a much larger and crazier iceberg.
The first genuinely nonsensical rantings of a crazed lunatic hell-bent on kidnapping and caging people for a plant has come out of Carson City, Nevada. Sheriff Kenneth Furlong went on his local news station and claimed that Meth and Heroin aren’t what make people violent. It’s marijuana that causes people to be violent.
“Second to domestic violence, marijuana is at the top of our list of violent acts, here in Carson City,” Furlong said.
“A meth user, we call them tweekers, they just spin in circles. They don’t get anything done. He may threaten you, but he just can’t get out of that circle of the effect of the drugs. Same with the heroin. But the marijuana user is a clear-headed person,” Furlong explained.
And the hits keep on coming.
Fox News, who isn’t exactly known for their logical stance on marijuana prohibition, had a “doctor” on the show last week making some ridiculous claims.
Dr. David Samadi appeared on Fox & Friends with Clayton Morris to speak about the aforementioned study that showed that marijuana is one of the least lethal drugs available. Samadi has either lost his mind or was shilling for the pharmaceutical industry when he made the assertion that marijuana causes heart attacks, overdoses and wait for it…wait for it, crack babies.
“It actually causes heart attacks. It increases your heart rate. And on and on. We’re seeing in Colorado that we had 13 kids that came to the emergency [room] and ended up in the ICU as a result of overdose from marijuana. Now we have crack babies coming in because pregnant women are smoking this whole marijuana business,” Samadi said without citing a single source for his nonsensical claims.
The most recent blip on the insanity radar is a group of crazy sheriffs. Sheriff’s from Colorado, Nebraska, and Kansas have recently banded together to sue Colorado over the state’s legalization laws. Their reasoning? Legalization is unconstitutional. No Kidding.
Apparently these officers are so bored now that they can’t shake down innocent people for a plant, that they want weed to be illegal again. When reading the lawsuit, it becomes apparent that these “heads of their departments” are little more than children throwing a temper tantrum for not getting their way.
The lawsuit states:
Amendment 64 pursues only one goal – legalization of marijuana — a goal which is diametrically opposed to the many objectives which Congress has established, and repeatedly reestablished, for the United States’ anti-drug policy and practice for marijuana as a controlled substance. If allowed to continue in effect, Amendment 64’s legalization and commercialization scheme will conflict with and undermine the federal government’s careful balance of anti-drug enforcement priorities and objectives. It will permit and enable at least hundreds — if not many thousands — of marijuana cultivation, distribution, sales, and consumption operations. It will permit and enable vast quantities of marijuana with a commercial value of billions of dollars to be placed into commerce.
OMG! Did they just say legalizing marijuana will lead to the cultivation and sale of marijuana!? Run for the |
the other app also resized. This was a nice thing; you could for example shrink a Web page that were referencing, and the e-mail you were writing would automatically expand to fill the space. In Windows 10 that feature became more limited; while Windows 10 retains this behavior in tablet mode, in regular desktop mode windows are resized independently, even when snapped side-by-side. In 10586, you can choose to have the same resizing behavior even in desktop mode. With this option enabled (and it's on by default) resizing one snapped app automatically resizes its snapped partner.
Snapping is also smarter in tablet mode, since apps can now be directly snapped (or closed) from the Task View app switcher, just by dragging them to the sides (or bottom) of the screen.
Cortana is also getting smarter and more capable. On stylus-equipped systems you can write notes to Cortana to create reminders, and she'll understand them. When she's warning you of upcoming meetings, you'll be able to directly book an Uber to take you to your destination. If you have a Windows Phone, she'll be able to tell you about missed calls. She can track more events based on confirmations received in e-mail, and also understands movie bookings. Microsoft is also opening her up to more markets: Japan, Australia, Canada, and India (albeit only in English for the last).
Windows can even now sleep whenever Cortana knows that you're out of the office.
Cortana's integration in Edge is also extended; she can now tell you about coupons for various retailers when you visit their sites. Edge has some other nice improvements—tab previews, Miracasting media from any tab, syncing favorites and reading list items between systems—but it lacks the big feature that many people are waiting for: extensions. Those aren't now coming until next year, leaving Edge with a major functional gap when compared to Safari and Chrome. This is a shame, as the core browser engine remains fast and attractive.
The November update also includes Microsoft's first (but hopefully not final) implementation of its new deaggregated Skype-based messaging apps. There are three simple apps for Messaging, voice calls, and video calls, all powered by Skype. On Windows 10 Mobile these apps include support for placing calls and sending SMS messages over the phone network. On desktop Windows, however, they're only able to handle Skype at the moment. Currently these apps are extremely simplistic, and lack many features of the full desktop Skype client.
Enterprise ready
Microsoft says that Windows 10 is already seeing faster enterprise adoption than any previous version of Windows, with more than 10 million enterprise seats. The November Update brings a number of features that will make the operating system even more appealing to corporate users.
Chief among these is Windows Update for Business. WU4B allows companies to control various aspects of Windows Update using Group Policy, giving some additional capabilities not found with regular Windows Update. In particular, WU4B gives control over deployment cycles: machines can be defined as using Current Branch or Current Branch for Business.
Within these classifications, both Updates (the security and cumulative fixes that are released on Patch Tuesday) and Upgrades (such as build 10240 to 10586) can be deferred by a certain amount of time. Specifically, upgrades can be held back by up to eight months, in one-month increments, and updates can be held back up to 4 weeks in one-week increments. Updates and upgrades can also be paused, for example to ensure that machine configurations are not changed during a particularly busy time of year, for up to 35 days.
Even with this capability, updates and upgrades still cannot be deferred forever. The Long Term Servicing Branch remains the best option for those who want to hold back updates for even longer.
The release of this update also means that the Current Branch and Current Branch for Business split is now real; build 10586 is Current Branch, with 10240 becoming Current Branch for Business. Both will continue to receive security updates in parallel.
WU4B is compatible with and configurable from both System Center Configuration Manager, and Intune. Organizations using Windows Server Update Services will have to make a choice; devices can either source their updates from a WSUS server or use WU4B, but they can't do both. Intune isn't the only bit of cloud management supported; version 1511 also adds Azure Active Directory joining, making it easy to add machines to the enterprise directory, with all the configuration and roaming capabilities that brings, wherever they may be.
The update also brings Windows Store for Business. With this, companies can distribute apps using the Windows Store front-end. Organizations using this feature will have a company-specific section of the store app. Both public apps and private line-of-business apps can be promoted in this section, making it both a convenient place to pick up regular apps that a company uses and a source for custom internal software.
Version 1511 also includes another feature for enterprise customers: the option to disable all telemetry data collection. Microsoft would still prefer that companies not disable this, as it's useful for detecting and diagnosing problems, but enterprises concerned about its impact will be able to turn if all off if they prefer.
The company has also promised to provide better, more detailed information about the contents of updates. The focus of this work, however, will be (initially at least) in the cumulative monthly updates; in contrast to service packs of old, it doesn't appear that we will receive a complete list of fixes found in this release.
The new version of Windows 10 will by and large replace the previous version. Upgrades from Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 directly to version 1511 will be possible, and installing the update will also upgrade recovery data used to reset the operating system. The install process is also more convenient for those upgraders who want to perform a clean install; Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 license keys will be able to activate Windows 10 directly. This wasn't the case with build 10240, which proved annoying for those wanting to take advantage of the free upgrade offer but also perform a clean install.
So far, our testing of the build through the Windows Insider program suggests that it's more or less what we were expecting: Windows 10 with a few more features and slightly fewer bugs. The additional enterprise features represent solid improvements in the enterprise space, and should accelerate the operating system's uptake by corporate customers. In our initial review of Windows 10 we felt that while Windows 10 was definitely a worthy upgrade for most users, that some may want to hold off until some of the more visible bugs were fixed.
Version 1511 probably does that. Its improvements aren't major, but it's incrementally better than build 10240, and so far feels a little less buggy. If you were holding back waiting to take the plunge and make the upgrade, now is probably a good time to do it.The ADAC GT Masters contested its eleventh season in 2017. We review the stats, looking back on the history of the Super Sports Car League since its inaugural year in 2007.
– Sebastian Asch is the only driver to have won the title twice, becoming champion in 2012 and 2015. Some 18 drivers in all have won the title
– This year’s champion, Jules Gounon, is the first sole winner of the ADAC GT Masters title since 2009. Previous sole winners took the championship in 2007 and 2008
– Kelvin van der Linde is the youngest champion, race winner and pole-setter in the history of the ADAC GT Masters. The South African was 17/18 when he set these records in 2014
– Daniel Keilwitz has racked up the most race wins with 19 successes. The Corvette driver also holds the record for the most victories within a single year, winning six times in 2014
– With nine wins to his name, Christian Engelhart is the driver who has achieved the most success without having become champion
– The biggest lead ever racked up by a pair of winners was by Albert von Thurn and Taxis & Christopher Haase when they won Sunday’s rain-hit race at Assen in 2008 by 55.285 seconds
– So far, two lady drivers have won races in the ADAC GT Masters. Claudia Hürtgen has won seven times, Rahel Frey twice
– The only female to win a title so far has been Danish driver Christina Nielsen, who, strangely, won the Gentleman class in 2013 which is now the Trophy category for amateur drivers
– Brothers have shared the same car several times in a race. Ferdinand and Johannes Stuck have been the most successful sibling pairing, securing four victories in 2011. Jörg and Tim Bergmeister, who went on to become champion, triumphed twice together in 2008
– So far, a single pair of drivers has managed to make a clean sweep of both races held over the weekend 17 times
– Frank Kechele is the Pole King, having lined up nine times on pole for a race
– The fastest lap ever driven so far in the ADAC GT Masters was posted by Bernd Schneider in qualifying for the second race at Spa in 2015. The DTM record-breaking champion drove at an average speed of exactly 182 km/h on his pole lap
– The front-engined sports cars is the most successful vehicle design in the ADAC GT Masters to date with 70 wins. Mid-engine cars were successful 66 times, the rear-engine Porsche 13 times.
– However, it’s a tie, five all, where title wins are concerned with drivers of front/rear-engine cars winning an equal number of times. Porsche became champions once with a rear-engine 911 driven by Tim Bergmeister in 2008
– The fastest race to date took place this year on Sunday at the Red Bull Ring where the winners, the Lamborghini pairing of Rolf Ineichen & Christian Engelhart, achieved an average speed of 170.9 km/h.
– Callaway Competition are the most successful team to date with 27 race wins, 24 pole positions, two drivers’ and two team titles. The team have not missed a race so far since 2007
– 37 different teams have won races in the ADAC GT Masters
– With 31 wins, Audi are the most successful brand in the ADAC GT Masters, followed by Corvette (29) and Lamborghini (27)
– Since 2007, the ADAC GT Masters has held 81 race weekends with a total of 162 races
– Sebastian Asch has contested a record number of races, 135 in all. Other drivers, who have notched up more than 100 starts include Luca Ludwig (115), Toni Seiler (113), Daniel Keilwitz (110), Philipp Geipel (104) and Christopher Mies (100)
– Swiss driver Ricardo Feller is the youngest ever participant. He was just 16 years 10 months and 29 days old at the season opener in 2017
– So far, the ADAC GT Masters has raced on twelve different racetracks. Most races were held at Oschersleben and at the Nürburgring (26 each)
– Four race tracks – Oschersleben, the Nürburgring, the Lausitzring and the Sachsenring – have regularly appeared each season on the calendar of the Super Sports Car League
– The greatest number of entrants raced at Oschersleben and at the Nürburgring in 2012 when 40 cars competed
2018 ADAC GT Masters Calendar
13/04/18 – 15/04/18 Motorsport Arena Oschersleben
27/04/18 – 29/04/18 Autodrom Most (CZ)
08/06/18 – 10/06/18 Red Bull Ring (AUT)
03/08/18 – 05/08/18 Nürburgring
17/08/18 – 19/08/18 Circuit Zandvoort (NL)
07/09/18 – 09/09/18 Sachsenring
21/09/18 – 23/09/18 Hockenheimring Baden-Württemberg
Source. ADAC GT Masters/Photo. ADAC MotorsportWIKIMEDIA, NIHHIV-1, the virus that causes AIDS, is renowned for its ability to escape the immune system. A new study shows that its sneaky talents depend on the capsid protein that makes up the virus’s outer coat.
Xavier Lahaye and Takeshi Satoh from the Institut Curie in Paris showed that HIV-1 uses its capsid to cloak its DNA from dendritic cells—sentries that detect incoming threats and mobilize the immune system. The researchers also managed to lift this immunity cloak by mutating the capsid.
“By playing with the capsid, we made an HIV-1 that does not replicate but can stimulate an immune response,” said Nicolas Manel, who led the study. “We could imagine modifying the virus and using it as a vaccine.” The results are published today in Immunity.
“It’s a very nice piece of work,” said Greg Towers from University College London, who was not involved in the study but recently published similar results. “I think we’re all on the same page, and there’s a paradigm shift in our understanding of how HIV interacts with the immune system. We used to think that the capsid came off the virus when it entered the cell, and its job was done. It turns out that it also protects the virus’s DNA from being seen.”
Dendritic cells can recognize viruses that infect them with a range of sensor molecules, and they instruct other parts of the immune system to target these threats. “They are the key orchestrators of the immune response,” said Manel. “They’re first to detect pathogens and direct what happens after that.”
Back in 2010, Manel’s team showed that dendritic cells can detect HIV-1 under some circumstances, although this is atypical because the virus does not usually infect the cells efficiently. By contrast, a related virus called HIV-2 does fully infect dendritic cells and triggers a strong immune response. This partly explains why HIV-1 can evade the immune system and cause AIDS, while HIV-2 often does not.
The team wanted to find out how the dendritic cells were detecting the viruses, and which parts they were sensing. They began by tweaking HIV-2’s capsid, and found that changing a single amino acid produced a virus that cannot infect dendritic cells but can still be detected by them. This implied that detection takes place at an early part of the virus’s life cycle, before it has a chance to make copies of itself.
Once HIV-1 and HIV-2 enter cells, they copy their RNA genome into a DNA molecule that is integrated into the genetic material of their host. The team found that this DNA is what the dendritic cells detect. “You need synthesis of DNA for detection, but you don’t need the steps after,” said Manel.
The team also identified the sensor molecule—a protein called cGAS, which was discovered by investigators at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas this year. When cGAS detects viral DNA in dendritic cells, it triggers a chain of molecular signals that marshals an immune response.
That explains HIV-2, but how does HIV-1 evade detection? The team showed that the capsid somehow masks the viral DNA, preventing cGAS from sensing it. This allows the DNA to integrate into the host’s genome, be copied, and produce new virus particles.
The team managed to peel back this invisibility cloak by mutating the capsid, leaving HIV-1’s DNA exposed and visible to the cGAS sensors. This suggested that similar modified viruses may, after much development, form the basis of a vaccine. This modification happens naturally to an extent—people who are infected with HIV-1 live longer if they had previously been infected with HIV-2, and are less likely to proceed to develop AIDS.
Alternatively, “we can think about small chemical compounds that stimulate this pathway and mimic the immune response,” said Manel.
“The study highlights the importance of studying HIV-2 [to increase] our understanding of underlying mechanisms important for HIV-1 pathogenesis,” added Joakim Esbjörnsson from Lund University in an e-mail.
X. Lahaye et al., “The capsids of HIV-1 and HIV-2 determine immune detection of the viral cDNA by the innate sensor cGAS in dendritic cells,” Immunity, doi:10.1016/j.immuni.2013.11.002, 2013.
Editor's Note (December 4): For the sake of clarity, we've added the word "often" to the sentence in the sixth paragraph describing immune detection of HIV-1 and HIV-2.Scoff all you want to, but it’s the truth: Those of you who reserve your WaHo visits for 3 a.m. in an adult beverage-induced haze are only getting (and remembering) half of the picture.
» RELATED: 12 things you didn't know about Waffle House
When Joe Rogers and Tom Forkner opened their first Waffle House in Avondale Estates in the ‘50s, they probably didn’t know that their establishment would become an Atlanta rite of passage and haven for all breakfast-lovers.
While this city has undergone a culinary revolution the past several years, one constant has remained: that shining yellow beacon of hope and hashbrowns…the Waffle House.
As someone who frequents the Atlanta staple, I give you seven undeniable reasons that Waffle House is the best restaurant in Atlanta, and always will be.
1. Pictures on the menu. How much easier can it get? You know what’s going to be set before you because it’s right there on your menu. No need to ask about ingredients or decipher menu items like at other dining establishments; in fact, you can literally just point to an item and it will arrive (nearly) picture perfect.
This detail is very helpful for both non-English speakers and children alike. How considerate!
Photo: Photo courtesy of Waffle House
2. Breakfast served 24 hours a day. If you live in Atlanta, you know a thing or two about hour-long waits at some brunch establishments.
You may also know the heartbreak when, by the time you are finally seated, brunch is over and they’ve moved on to the dinner menu. Head on over to the WaHo and get your All Star Breakfast on, all day every day.
3. The Waffle House Index. That’s right, the GOVERNMENT turns to Waffle House when tracking emergencies. Waffle Houses are open 24/7, so when they adjust their menu or close (the horror!), FEMA knows how bad things really are and reacts accordingly. Amazing.
4. High speeds and low prices. You’ll likely get your meal within 10 minutes and even more likely, your bill will be spectacularly low. A couple can easily walk out of Waffle House for under $20, even if you splurge and get your hashbrowns scattered, smothered, covered and diced. Talk about efficiency!
5. The service. You will undoubtedly be called “darlin,’” “sweetheart,” or “honey” at any Waffle House. The ladies and gentlemen who serve you do so with a smile on their face and the kind of southern charm you can only find at the World’s Leading Server of T-Bone Steaks.
6. They’re everywhere. Go ahead, try not to find a Waffle House near you. There are over 2,100 locations in 25 states, most of which are located in the Southeast.
There are 16 alone in the perimeter. It’s comforting to know that a waffle is never far away.
7. Cheese ‘N Eggs. Nuff said.THIS WAS TO be his 13th professional bout, so Dave Hill had seen it all before.
Cocky pre-fight predictions and boastful statements of intent in interviews, what Hill encountered prior to taking on Conor McGregor was nothing new.
When he first came face-to-face with McGregor at the Roganstown Hotel near Dublin Airport, however, Hill quickly realised that there was something different about this next opponent.
The Englishman didn’t hesitate to accept when he was offered the chance to fight McGregor for the vacant Cage Warriors featherweight title. The bout would take place on Saturday, 2 June, 2012 — three years ago today — at The Helix in Dublin.
Hill had already heard of McGregor at that point but had yet to see what the fuss was about. The Irishman was beginning to earn himself a reputation and fighting him in his hometown would make the task even greater, but Hill was excited by the challenge.
He had taken on a similar one 18 months earlier by going to Finland to face Tom Niinimaki in his own backyard. Things didn’t go Hill’s way that night, so perhaps this was an opportunity for redemption; a chance to prove that he was capable of halting the progress of another UFC-bound featherweight, while furthering his own claims for a place on the roster of MMA’s largest organisation.
Along with coach Marc Goddard and team-mate Tom Breese, Hill flew from Birmingham to Dublin on Thursday, 31 May — two days before the fight with McGregor — and focused on shedding his final few pounds before the Cage Warriors 47 weigh-ins, which would take place the following afternoon at the event hotel just outside Swords.
“When I was offered the fight, I’d heard McGregor’s name but I hadn’t seen any of his fights,” Hill says. “So I went on YouTube and watched a few and thought: Fucking hell, this guy’s going to be a handful.”
Dave Hill Source: Dolly Clew
As the fight approached over the preceding weeks and months, McGregor had been dismissive of Hill’s chances via the MMA media in the UK and Ireland. The Dubliner saw himself as Europe’s best featherweight and he’d prove that at The Helix on 2 June, he said.
That didn’t bother Hill. He wasn’t one to pat himself on the back during interviews and he usually saw it as a sign of weakness in his opponents when they did so: “That kind of bullshit really winds me up. I think guys do it because they’re not confident in themselves, so they have to say it on social media so that the people reading can tell them that they’re great and they need that reassurance.”
But that wasn’t to be the case with McGregor. When the pair weighed in ahead of their bout, Hill was anticipating some posturing from his rival. What transpired had a major impact on his mindset.
“When I saw McGregor doing that kind of stuff in his interviews, I thought he was just chatting shit like everyone else.
“But when we were at the weigh-ins and he kicked off at me, I thought: Fuck, this guy really believes this. That was the first time it dawned on me quite how ridiculously confident he is and the self-belief he has.
“I walked in and I could see him eyeballing me straight away from the other side of the room. I stared him back, smiled at him and thought nothing more of it. When we squared up — I’d seen him square up to people and get in their faces before so I was ready for that — he started driving me backwards.
“He did throw me off, and he threw me off more than I’d like to admit. When you haven’t had anything to eat or drink for 24 hours, and you’ve just spent three hours in a salt bath sweating off your last bit of weight, the last thing you want to do is kick off with someone.
“At the time, Marc [Goddard], was like: ‘Are you alright mate?’ And I was like: ‘Yeah, it doesn’t bother me.’ But looking back, it definitely flustered me. Afterwards I was just thinking: Fucking hell, this guy is just so game and loves the aggro. It was just something I hadn’t experienced before.”
Since his subsequent rise to the top in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, much has been made of Conor McGregor’s apparent ability to break his opponents mentally before the fight has even begun. Not only is he an immensely talented fighter, but he’s an expert at mind games too.
One wonders how psychological warfare can become such a key component of a contest between two professional fighters. Regardless of whether mind games have been involved, the story always culminates with the athletes settling their differences by locking themselves in a cage and trading blows.
How do words and actions beforehand manage to make that a more intimidating prospect? Hill mentions that he felt “overwhelmed” by McGregor, both at the weigh-ins and during the fight, but how has McGregor managed to master that?
“I think it’s his inner confidence. He’s obviously such a confident bloke. I cleared my head after the weigh-ins but then during the fight he started talking again. He was saying: ‘I’ll go all day with you, you look soft, I’ll go five rounds if you need to.’ Then I started wondering if I should say something back, because I’d never been in that position before.
“So you start thinking of how you’re supposed to react and that kind of messes with your head as well. It’s definitely his confidence and that shows in the way he fights. He’s constantly moving forward, pushing you back and inflicting his game on you, so you don’t get a chance to inflict your game on him.”
Conor McGregor receives the Cage Warriors belt at the expense of a dejected Dave Hill. Source: Dolly Clew
In spite of the drama at the weigh-ins, Hill felt that he had regrouped afterwards and was in good shape — physically and mentally — for the fight. With Cage Warriors visiting Dublin for the first time and an Irishman bidding to win a title, The Helix was a complete sell-out and the atmosphere was befitting of the occasion.
As Hill made his way to the cage, to his right he could see and hear a group of McGregor’s supporters gesturing towards him. The visiting Englishman can’t quite remember what was said, but they weren’t wishing him an enjoyable stay in Dublin.
“They were all going fucking mental and I think I blew them a kiss. But I didn’t even notice them as soon as I was in the cage. Even though they were cheering for him, it still gets you pumping.”
While referee Neil Hall was issuing the fighters with their instructions before the bout began, McGregor resumed the conversation he had started with Hill at the weigh-ins.
‘I’ll go all day with you, you look soft, I’ll go five rounds if you need to’.
Hill: “It sounds stupid, but when he said it I was asking myself: Do I look soft? You’re not used to someone talking to you when it’s fight time. It puts you off a bit.
“Then when the fight started, when we clinched up against the cage, he started saying it again. Again, he was making me wonder how I should react. Should I have responded and told him to fuck off or something? And that’s obviously not the kind of thing you should be concerned about during a fight, but it can put you off your game.”
The fight itself was billed as an acid test of McGregor’s progress. With his two losses to date having come via submission, taking on a grappler like Dave Hill would reveal if he was more adept in that discipline than his defeats to Artemij Sitenkov and Joseph Duffy seemed to suggest.
Hill knew he didn’t have the striking skills to live with McGregor while the fight remained standing, so the gameplan was to get it to the ground as early as possible.
“I always enter fights thinking I’m going to take the guy down, but that was even more so with McGregor because of his striking. But that didn’t quite go to plan.”
Hill’s first takedown attempt came with just four seconds on the clock. As many opponents have since discovered, getting McGregor down is tough. Keeping him down is even tougher.
“That was the only time I was really on top,” Hill says. “It was a bit of a premature shot. I shouldn’t have gone for it that early. He jumped guard for a guillotine, which suited me fine, but before I know it he just popped back up again. I expected him to be good, but he was a lot better than I realised at the time.”
It was a dominant first frame for McGregor and he was en route to another 10-9 round in the second, before forcing Hill to tap to a rear-naked choke with 50 seconds remaining. It was the first submission win of McGregor’s career.
Hill: “I never thought at any point during the fight, I’m done here. But I think I was quite overwhelmed by him, which I’d never experienced before. I got battered in Finland for the entire fight but I never had that same feeling of being overwhelmed. It’s quite daunting, almost.
“And it’s surprised me that he’s been able to carry that into the UFC, even against the top-level guys. When he fought Dustin Poirier, I thought McGregor would win, but I didn’t think he’d get in Dustin’s head because Dustin is very experienced and high-level. But he made Poirier look shit. He gets in your head and it really overwhelms you.
“During the fight, you’re not thinking: Shit, I’m going to lose this fight. But you are thinking: Fucking hell, let up on me a little bit. He’s constantly on top of you and in your face.
“He’s got a presence about him and I’d never experienced anything like that before. You find that you’re trying so hard just to keep up with him but he’s always one step ahead of you… and he makes it seem quite effortless too.
“People will always put on a brave face, but you can see moments of weakness when guys don’t know what to say or how to react to him. I always thought that because those top guys in the UFC are at such a high level, they’re not just going to back down. But he gets in everyone’s head a lot more than you’d think and I think that’s why he makes a lot of them look so crap.
“And again, part of me says there’s no way Jose Aldo gives a shit about what he’s saying or what he’s doing, but then there’s little moments. A lot of the videos I’ve seen make me think that it might be working on Aldo as well.”
After submitting Dave Hill, McGregor celebrated by launching himself into the crowd. When he returned to the cage to collect his Cage Warriors belt, he got stuck into some push-ups — his way of telling the audience that he still had plenty left in the tank. At first, Hill wasn’t impressed by his opponent’s actions.
“If you had asked me straight after the fight, do you want McGregor to do well? I’d have said: Fuck no. But I’ve warmed to him since and I like him now. I’d like him to go in there and do well against Aldo.
“We spoke a little bit straight after the fight in the medical room. I just congratulated him and that, and I think I remember him tweeting at one stage that I was the toughest guy he’d fought, which was nice to hear even though you’ve lost.
“Then not long after he signed for the UFC I sent him a message on Twitter to say congratulations, and he replied and said if you ever want to come over to Ireland to train it’d be great to have you here. That was a couple of years ago now and that’s the last time we had contact
“Straight after the fight he wouldn’t have been my favourite person in the world because of how he was. I thought it was unsportsmanlike at the time. I came out of the fight thinking: What a prick.
“But he’d been decent after the fight and I just find him really entertaining now. The way he is now is how he was to me at the time, but I know now that that’s what makes him so marketable. I quite like him now.”
Dave Hill remains one of the top featherweights in Europe and he still has ambitions of joining Conor McGregor in the UFC. However, since that defeat in June 2012, the 29-year-old has only managed to compete on three occasions.
His job as a successful graphic designer in Warwickshire has prevented him from pursuing MMA as a full-time career thus far, but he certainly has the ability to be more than just another guy who lost to Conor McGregor.
Three years later, Hill is still often asked about it. What’s it like to fight Conor McGregor? Few will want to find that out for themselves, but they’re still curious. And Hill has the answer.
“People are interested in it because everyone fucking loves him, don’t they? Also, if people ask you who have you fought and what have you done, everyone knows who he is so they tend to be quite impressed,” Hill says.
“It’s just a shame that when they go and watch the fight on YouTube, it’s me getting battered for nine minutes.”American Airlines to offer non-stop flights to Miami
Boeing delivers its 1,000th 757-200 to American Airlines on Feb. 14, 2002. Boeing delivers its 1,000th 757-200 to American Airlines on Feb. 14, 2002. Photo: PHIL H.WEBBER, Phil H. Webber/seattlepi.com File Photo: PHIL H.WEBBER, Phil H. Webber/seattlepi.com File Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close American Airlines to offer non-stop flights to Miami 1 / 1 Back to Gallery
American Airlines will start non-stop flights between Seattle and Miami June 14, it announced Thursday.
"We are very excited to be launching this new route for our Seattle-Tacoma and Miami passengers," Chuck Schubert, American's vice president of Network Planning, said in a news release. "By using this new flight, Seattle-Tacoma customers will be able to easily enjoy the beaches of South Florida and make convenient connections to other American and American Eagle flights to the Caribbean, Central and South America, as well as the Bahamas."
A flight will leave Seattle each evening at 9:25 p.m. and arrive in Miami at 6:25 the next morning, allowing for those connections Schubert mentioned. The return flight will leave Miami at 8:25 p.m., arriving at 11:45 p.m. (all times local).
American plans to use Boeing 757-200 aircraft with 22 First Class seats and 166 Main Cabin seats.
Seattle-based Alaska Airlines currently nonstop service between Seattle and Miami and is a codeshare partner with American, meaning American can sell tickets on Alaska flights. But Alaska announced in February that it would end the Seattle-Miami route with the start of new service to Fort Lauderdale on July 16. The new American service won't be part of its codeshare with Alaska, meaning people won't be able to buy tickets on it through Alaska, although passengers will be able to put the flights on their Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan.
Read more aerospace news. Visit seattlepi.com's home page for more Seattle news.Daniel Acuna/Marvel Comics
Wolverine may be the most famous member of the X-Men, but Cyclops is the definitive X-Man. He's essentially the main character of the franchise since day one, and has one of the most complex arcs of any major superhero. Scott Summers' story begins with him being a straight-arrow hero and protege of Charles Xavier, but over time he deviates from Xavier's dream to develop a radical, separatist, militaristic version of the X-Men in the name of protecting mutants. Recently he crossed a horrible line by accidentally killing Xavier – his father figure! – in a fit of rage while possessed by the Phoenix, and has become an outlaw revolutionary and a pariah among his old friends. Everything about Cyclops comes down to two essential metaphors – that he's a man who is always struggling against his own body to stay in control of a destructive power, and that his myopic obsession leads to all his triumphs and all his failings.
Oh, and then there's his gloriously messy love life! His relationship with Jean Grey as a young man is fine but after she dies for the first time, he goes off and impulsively marries a woman who looks exactly like her – we later find out she's a clone – but he abandons her and their infant child immediately after learning that the real Jean has come back to life. He's a total cad. And then he ends up having a psychic affair with Emma Frost while he's married to Jean Grey, and shacks up with Emma immediately after Jean dies for a second time. He's a mess. And seriously, what is up with him only getting seriously involved with incredibly powerful psychics? And why does his intense rivalry with Wolverine often seem weirdly sexual?
Anyway, Cyclops is frustrating and profoundly uptight and wonderful and probably the best superhero ever.Legislation introduced Monday in the US Senate aims to add privacy controls and public transparency mandates to existing legislation that will guide the use of drones by commercial and government entities in the United States.
The Drone Aircraft Privacy and Transparency Act, offered by Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), would amend the Federal Aviation Administration Modernization and Reform Act to require law enforcement to obtain a warrant before using surveillance drones on US soil, except in cases of emergency.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is currently developing rules for domestic drone use by both private and public operators pursuant to the 2012 law. The agency is required to have the regulatory guidelines in place by 2015, though the FAA has already issued over 400 active drone certifications.
The new legislation would bar the FAA from offering drone permits unless the license application “includes a data collection statement that explains who will operate the drone, where the drone will be flown, what kind of data will be collected, how that data will be used, whether the information will be sold to third parties, and the period for which the information will be retained.”
Markey’s bill would also require law enforcement - including their contractors and subcontractors - to “include an additional data minimization statement that explains how they will minimize the collection and retention of data unrelated to the investigation of a crime.”
The bill would “require the FAA to create a publicly available website that lists all approved licenses and includes the data collection and data minimization statements, any data security breaches suffered by a licensee, and the times and locations of drone flights.”
Exceptions to the requirement that law enforcement get a warrant before drone surveillance use include situations when authorities believe there is imminent risk of death or serious physical injury, or when the US Department of Homeland Security has determined there is “credible” evidence of a terror attack.
The FAA estimates that 7,500 commercial drones will be possible in the US within five years. Aerospace industry research firm Teal Group believes global drone spending may hit $11.4 billion by 2022.
The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, the top unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) trade group, estimates the drone industry could reach more than $ |
“The measure of any society is reflected in the degree to which it is willing to help the most vulnerable.”
Mike de Jong in the BC Budget 2016 Speech
If this is the measure we apply to Budget 2016, then BC is failing miserably. What this budget offers to BC’s most vulnerable is a drop in the bucket.
Here are my first take-aways after spending a few hours at the BC Budget lockup in Victoria. There’s a lot of information in the 134-page Budget 2016 and this piece was written over the course of the afternoon/evening as I made my way back to Vancouver.
1. After a nine-year freeze, disability benefits are increasing by a measly $77 a month.
This increase doesn’t even cover the increase in the cost of living since 2007 when the rates were last increased. One third of food bank users in BC receive disability benefits. Upping the monthly benefit to $983/month would hardly change that.
What is even more insulting is that this increase will replace subsidized bus passes and other transportation subsidies people on disability assistance already received. As a result, for about 25,000 people on disability who received the bus pass before, this represents an increase of $25 per month. For another 20,000 people on disability who received special transportation assistance of $66 per month, the increase will be $11 per month.
There is no change in social assistance rates for people without disabilities whose rates have also been frozen for nine years.
2. BC remains the only province without a poverty reduction plan
The Minister of Finance points out that BC is the only province with triple-A credit rating. We’re also the only province without a poverty reduction plan. This is despite the fact that the bi-partisan committee of MLAs who conducted this year’s pre-budget consultations unanimously recommended these in the pre-budget consultation report.
The new tax credit for farmers who donate food to charity is a nod in the direction of food security but there’s no big-picture plan to address poverty and hunger so people don’t need charity to survive.
3. Most of the housing measures focused on home buyers
Budget 2016 will exempt newly constructed homes valued under $750,000 from property transfer tax and pay for this by charging 3% property transfer tax on property valued over $2 million instead of the current 2%. These changes to the property transfer tax make it somewhat more progressive but this only helps those who can afford to purchase newly constructed homes (which tend to be more expensive than resale homes) – a group that is already better off than many.
A recent report by the BC Non Profit Housing Association shows that 23% of BC renters pay more than 50% of their income in housing. There were 119,000 such households in 2011, likely more now. They won’t be buying a home any time soon and they also need help from the government. Current rental assistance programs for low-income families with children and seniors help only 30,000 households. That’s only a fraction of the need and this budget offers no increase to rental assistance in the budget.
The government will begin to collect citizenship information for all home buyers in the province but there are no measures in this budget to curb speculation or tax vacant homes in the overheating Vancouver real estate market.
4. The budget commits to 2,000 new affordable housing units over 5 years
This new investment is welcome but it’s hardly “historic” given that the province was creating 2,000 units of social housing every year in the 1980s and early 1990s (including their investment in cooperative housing). Unfortunately in 1993 the federal government withdrew funding for new social housing development, and the construction of new social housing units slowed down considerably.
Only 14% of the money is available in the first year, so we can expect 280 new housing units to be funded. That’s a welcome investment but it is modest at best. And the Minister of Finance could not explain how they define “affordable” housing, which itself suggests that it won’t all be social housing for low-income British Columbians.
Additional federal funding may be able to increase the number of new units of social housing built. Time will tell by how much.
5. MSP premiums are going up again in 2017, couples without children will be hardest hit
MSP premiums are going up again in 2017. This time, premium assistance is modestly expanded and the income threshold for receiving assistance will increase to $42,000 from the current $30,000. This is a welcome gesture for modest-income British Columbians who were considered too well-off for premium assistance before but is a rather arbitrary threshold of where tax fairness ends.
MSP premiums will be restructured as of Jan 2017 so that only adults pay MSP premiums. However, the rates are increasing for couples with no children who do not qualify for premium assistance. As a result, single parent families with children will get a break but there will be no change in the premiums for couples with children.
A senior couple with income of $52,000 will pay $240 more per year under the new scheme, the same as a power-couple of executives earning a combined total of $5 million. Overall, the restructuring of premiums will bring in more money from MSP premiums than charging children did – an estimated $46 million per year.
6. The government is establishing a Commission on Tax Competitiveness, but does not appear interested in tax fairness
The business sector is concerned about the impact of raising electricity prices and what they deem to be unfair taxes on their bottom lines. The members of the Commission and the terms of reference were not revealed at budget time but it seems clear that the impact of rising hydro bills or MSP rates on families isn’t something the government considers worthy of review.
7. The budget for K-12 education is practically frozen for the next 3 years
Funding for K-12 education is virtually frozen this year, and budgeted to increase by 1% in each of the next two years. This fails to account for inflation, let alone the increasing student enrolment. Unfortunately, this means we’ll be seeing even larger classes and more students with special needs not receiving the supports they need to learn.
8. The Budget ignores the child care affordability crisis
The Throne Speech contained a line that made me very optimistic. It seemed like the government recognized the affordability pressures faced by ordinary families:
This month, your government will take steps to ease the pressures of cost of living increases.
There are some very small changes to that effect sprinkled in here and there, but they are too small to make a tangible difference. There is an additional $11 million to support child care centres, which will create a small number of new spaces but there’s no guarantee these will be affordable.
With child care fees running higher than university tuition in the province, many families are struggling to stay afloat. Small enhancements to the status quo like this new funding are just not cutting it — BC needs to adopt the widely-endorsed $10 a Day Plan. The federal government’s interest in supporting a national childcare program via their Social Infrastructure funds represents a unique opportunity for action but there’s nothing in this budget to suggest BC is prepared to take it.
9. The so called “revenue-neutral” carbon tax gives away $500 million more in tax than it raises every year
Buried into the annual Carbon Tax Report and Plan (p. 57 in BC Budget 2016) is this line:
The Carbon Tax Plan is revenue neutral for all years, with the tax cuts in 2017/18 and 2018/19 exceeding the carbon tax revenues by $533 million and $540 million, respectively.
Even if you’re a supporter of a “revenue neutral” carbon tax, it’s clear that “neutrality” can be achieved with smaller tax cuts. The extra $500+ million per year would be better used to increase the low income carbon tax credit (giving a break to modest income families) and/or fund investments to get us off fossil fuels.
10. There is some new infrastructure funding but no transit funding for Metro Vancouver
There is $1.1 billion in new capital spending this year over what was announced in Budget 2015. Half of that is for BC Hydro, largely for funding initial construction on the controversial Site C Dam.
Universities and colleges will be able to fund some much-needed deferred maintenance but the capital budget for schools (for seismic upgrades and other repairs) is actually down by $21 million. There is also an increase for BC Transit.
11. BC Budget 2016 prioritizes debt-reduction instead of helping British Columbians in need
Despite BC already having an excellent credit rating and very manageable debt (one of the lowest among the provinces), the BC government has chosen to pay down debt faster than scheduled in last year’s budget. If BC had held to the schedule instead, we’d have $500 million more to spend this year (the difference between a 17.2% debt-to-GDP ratio and a 17% debt-to-GDP ratio).
The resources going to debt reduction are resources that are not available to help children growing up in poverty, youth struggling with mental illness, or frail seniors stuck in a hospital bed longer than they need to be because a residential care bed is not available.
In answering a question in the Budget lockup, the Finance Minister outlined his priorities clearly: “first call” on any budget surpluses will be paying back debt. I suspect that our friends at First Call: BC Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition and I aren’t the only ones concerned with this order of priorities.
Bonus Budget fact: The BC film industry got $493 million in tax credits in 2015/16 despite the fact that it doesn’t need them now that the dollar is so low.
That’s because the tax credits were designed as a percent of the industry’s labour costs in good times and in bad. In fact the local film industry is embarrassed enough about taking so much public funds that “representatives of the film industry have approached the government to work together to seek ways to address this pressure.” (p. 61 in the Budget)
Kudos to the film industry for making this move. I hope they are donating a lot of these tax credits to worthy charities instead of pocketing them in profits!
Was the Ministry of Finance asleep at the wheel here? Why wasn’t the government the one taking action on this file in the first place instead of waiting for industry to approach them? Another example of funds that could have been used to provide help in areas where it was truly needed.
UPDATED Feb 16, 8:34pm: Added sections 8 to Bonus. Fixed a couple of typos (let me know if you find more). Modified the intro to indicate the piece is now complete.
Topics: Children & youth, Economy, Education, Environment, resources & sustainability, Poverty, inequality & welfare, Provincial budget & finance, Taxes, WomenIn Part 1 of our Matchmaker 2.0 Myths series, we unveiled the basics of how Matchmaker 2.0 works and how it will change in Update 0.15. In Part 2 we will take a look at another common misconception.
Myth #2: The Matchmaker causes losing streaks.
Winning or losing streaks are often incorrectly blamed on the Matchmaker mechanism and its influence on battles. Some even claim the Matchmaker is intentionally causing them to lose if they win too often, whereas wins are almost never "blamed" on the Matchmaker mechanism itself and are usually attributed to player skill.
In reality, the Matchmaker has little to do with either and does not contain any mechanisms that could be blamed for such winning or losing streaks. To better illustrate the issue, let's have a look at the streak statistics collected from the Russian server over the last month.
Click to Open the Table Tier Winrate % of Matches with 5+ lose streaks % of Matches with 5+ win streaks 1 <=25 7.73 0 1 >25<=35 3.73 0.11 1 >35<=45 1.88 0.55 1 >45<=55 0.92 1.39 1 >55<=65 0.33 3.92 1 >65<=75 0.08 6.23 1 >75 0.00 10.65 1 Tier Weighted Average 1.22 1.14 2 <=25 9.21 0.00 2 >25<=35 5.14 0.07 2 >35<=45 2.39 0.60 2 >45<=55 1.03 1.66 2 >55<=65 0.29 5.22 2 >65<=75 0.15 7.10 2 >75 0.00 21.56 2 Tier Weighted Average 1.35 1.54 3 <=25 8.47 0.11 3 >25<=35 4.76 0.08 3 >35<=45 2.74 0.66 3 >45<=55 1.33 1.40 3 >55<=65 0.53 4.10 3 >65<=75 0.12 13.18 3 >75 0.00 14.58 3 Tier Weighted Average 1.50 1.47 4 <=25 7.84 0.00 4 >25<=35 4.68 0.39 4 >35<=45 2.64 0.82 4 >45<=55 1.58 1.57 4 >55<=65 0.64 3.33 4 >65<=75 0.27 7.95 4 >75 0.00 20.44 4 Tier Weighted Average 1.64 1.57 5 >25<=35 4.74 0.61 5 >35<=45 2.56 0.93 5 >45<=55 1.72 1.62 5 >55<=65 0.76 4.64 5 >65<=75 0.04 11.57 5 >75 0.00 7.02 5 Tier Weighted Average 1.73 1.71 6 <=25 10.00 0.00 6 >25<=35 4.58 0.00 6 >35<=45 2.62 1.11 6 >45<=55 1.84 1.65 6 >55<=65 0.88 4.08 6 >65<=75 0.22 14.30 6 Tier Weighted Average 1.81 1.75 7 >35<=45 2.39 1.05 7 >45<=55 1.91 1.74 7 >55<=65 1.01 4.71 7 >65<=75 0.41 13.23 7 Tier Weighted Average 1.85 1.96 8 >35<=45 2.42 1.40 8 >45<=55 1.90 1.75 8 >55<=65 1.07 3.56 8 >65<=75 0.61 7.29 8 Tier Weighted Average 1.85 1.86 9 >35<=45 3.63 1.24 9 >45<=55 2.13 1.83 9 >55<=65 1.18 4.70 9 >65<=75 1.39 6.19 9 Tier Weighted Average 2.02 2.19
The following can be observed from the table:
The average player (45-55% winrate) encounters a series of 5+ losses in only 1.84% of matches. The chance of encountering such a series of losses within one day is therefore very low, even lower than one might expect
The higher the winrate, the lower the chance of a 5+ loss series and the higher the chance of a 5+ win series and vice versa
This behavior is expected and there is no artificial influence on the streaks beyond basic mathematical statistics.
The counter-argument for this statement would be: "But the series exist and players complain about them!"
However, there are several ways to explain that.
First and foremost, it's a known psychological fact that people remember streaks more than they remember regular gaming sessions without streaks. This effect can be found in many aspects of life and is well-documented.
Another known fact is that Armored Warfare players – like any other group – tend to remember negative pieces of information better than positive ones. Players will remember that one losing streak, but will sometimes forget those three winning streaks they had.
Finally, human intuition does not work very well when trying to guess the real likelihood of encountering a winning or losing streak. In many cases, the scale of the streak issue is exaggerated and its real scope can only be seen when looking at actual statistics.
Series of Wins or Losses in Statistics
Calculating the chance of getting a certain number of wins or losses in a row is quite complex, but can be explained with several simple examples, based on the theory of probability. The simplest is the calculation of the probability of a 50% winrate player receiving a 5 loss streak per day when entering the game for the first time. This is 3.125% (0.5^5 = 0.03125 – five times 50% chance in a row).
But what about the likelihood that from (let's say) 50 players in one Battalion at least one will encounter such a situation?
The answer here is a bit more complicated, but the result is 79.55% (1-(1-0.03125)^50). This number was reached the following way:
(1-0.03125) is the chance of NOT ending up in a 5 loss series
^50 is the 50th degree of the abovementioned chance
As a result, there is one person practically every day in a 50 man Battalion that experiences a streak of 5 losses. But in reality, the chance is even higher, as the more battles a player plays per day, the higher the chance of encountering such a streak.
The situation can also be explained as follows: Each battle gives the player a chance to start a streak without continuing it. For example, if a player plays 6 battles a day, the 5-loss streak can start from the 1st or 2nd battle. What then is the chance of encountering a 10 loss streak when playing 100 battles under the same conditions?
It is 8.5% (1-(1- (0.5^10))^(1+100-10) ). In other words, every 12th player with a 50% winrate who plays 100 battles will encounter a 10 loss streak at least once.
For 1000 battles, the number is significantly higher (62%). A player, who doesn’t encounter a 10 loss streak even once in 1000 battles, is therefore either very lucky or very skilled.
On the Russian server, a series of 10 losses happens roughly every 0.02-0.03% of matches (depending on tier and player skill). The theoretical value of a 10 loss series is approximately 0.0244%.
Conclusion
Winning or losing streaks exist, but their incidence depends on the laws of probability, not on intervention by the Armored Warfare Matchmaker. The chance of a winning or losing streak is not influenced by the previous amount of won or lost battles – there is no rule saying that losing X battles in a row guarantees the matchmaker will stack odds in your favor or vice versa.Joey Bada$$ continues to climb the ranks of the rap scene and at the top of the year, he received his first plaque, a gold certification for his “Devastated” single.
As he prepares to release his A.A.B.A. album, he has some lofty words about his legacy.
“I already know I’m a better rapper than 2Pac is,” the New York MC says to Genius. “That’s just facts. One-on-one battle, I’ll flame ‘Pac.”
Badass explains that each new generation should strive to challenge the legends.
“I believe every generation that comes after has the opportunity to outshine the previous generation,” he shares. “Because they gave you their best. Now, they set the bar. It was like, ‘Oh that was your best? Ok.'”
These comments are not made without homage to the West Coast icon. Badass lists 2Pac as one of his main influences and explains how he is carrying on the spirit that Mr. Shakur exemplified.
“I believe I am one of the minds that ‘Pac said will spark to change the world,” he says. “I believe I am one of those, but I’m probably not the one that’s gonna change the world, probably the one after me.”
[UPDATE] He also clarified his statements on Twitter, but stayed firmed on his claim.
When I said I was better than PAC (my favorite rapper of all time) I was refering to rap skill. Bar for bar. Not accolades or influence. — BADMON (@joeyBADASS) March 1, 2017
And I back myself 1000 times to that fact… media like twisting up the words but that's I meant when I said it for all you butt hurt bozos — BADMON (@joeyBADASS) March 1, 2017Home » Learning Curve Remember Odessa The neocons in State prefer you not be shown.
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Try It So the head of the CIA, the US veep, and the obsequious Swedish MFA all turn up in Kiev. The US-backed putsch government start scrambling troops to the east of the country shortly afterwards.
The people living there are scarred. They've seen the US come in, co-opt a genuine protest, run 65 NGOs in their country, pick and choose who will sit in a putsch government before anything happens, watch the right wing extremists hijack the popular movement, watch someone from the US go around handing out cookies, see the formal rise to power of two crazed neo-Nazi groups who can't get popular vote, see the equivalent of the brown shirt be given formal authority to police the nation.
These people have lived with and fought against the brutality of fascism all their lives, as had their parents and grandparents. Crimea got out safely.
Here's a clip from a demonstration they had some two months ago. These are the people David Cameron would have you and the House of Commons believe are on the side of the west, and only chanting and shouting slogans because they're being held 'at the point of a Kalashnikov', just as he and others said of the celebrations in Crimea the night the referendum results became known.
Then the violence hit. The putsch government sent in heavy guns to deal with public buildings that had been occupied for weeks. And the right wingers followed along for good measure. And someone from that extremist right torched the trade union building there in Odessa. 46 people perished as a result.
Some people were rescued, but then the right extremists - with the putsch forces looking on, protecting the extremists, doing nothing to stop the violence - beat them to death.
The following clips are protected by YouTube: they're that hideous. This is the face of fascism. This is why over 20 million Russians and Ukrainians gave their lives.
The city is in shock today. The world is in shock. Or should be.
46 people. Forty-six. Forty-four years ago Neil Young wrote a song of outrage about four people being slaughtered by their own countrymen. Last night Odessa lost over ten times that many. And the people in Odessa simply want to live their lives.
46.
Sweden's counterpart to Tony Bliar wanted people to believe the 46 were responsible for their own demise.
He was otherwise out campaigning in the Duckpond for his wife today, as if nothing had happened.
Putsch troops are reportedly on their way tonight to Mariupol where one building's already been torched.
These peoples of the east aren't anti-west or anti-Russian or necessarily pro-west or pro-Russian: more than anything, they're anti-fascism.
These people and the peoples of Russia lost over 20 million lives defending themselves against fascism 70 years ago. 70 years is recent enough for several generations to remember. 20 million lives is genocide.
Putin meanwhile has essentially done three things. Asked for a parliamentary vote authorising him to intervene if it's deemed necessary. Accepted Crimea's application for membership in the Russian federation. (They're traditionally part of Russia; many of them spoke now about 'finally coming home'.) Nothing else whatsoever. The neocons in State want him to reach for his holster. They've been itching for an all-out nuclear battle to the death for generations. You won't see or hear much of this on your western MSM. The neocons in State prefer you not be shown. They'd prefer you believe Russia and Putin were behind it all, when they can't offer any 'evidence' that isn't debunked within minutes - forged passports, photos of empty supermarket shelves in Crimea with US dollar signs on the edges, some pretty childish stuff.
They need you to believe that these peoples would otherwise have no reason to object to their cookie-fed putsch government.
They need you to gloss over their orchestrated slaughter yesterday.
Remember Odessa.Leslie Furlong Clarence and Rudine Ridgley can feed their entire block with the produce from their "Edible Estate," a community garden and art project commissioned by the Contemporary Museum in Baltimore.
Clarence Ridgley is the most popular guy on his block, and it's all thanks to his lawn. In April, Ridgley transformed his neatly trimmed yard into a garden of tomatoes, blueberries, strawberries, lettuce, beets and herbs. And because the plot sits in front of his home in Baltimore, the bountiful harvest is visible and available to anyone who wanders by."People will come to my yard and pick up an onion sprout and start eating it on the spot," he says. "I've met more people in the past two months than I have the past 22 years of living here."
Ridgley is one of five homeowners in the U.S. to participate in the project known as "Edible Estates," in which homeowners trade their mowed and ornamental lawns for artistic arrangements of organic produce. Los Angeles-based architect Fritz Haeg launched the campaign in July 2005, after pundits and politicians had divided the country into Red and Blue states for the presidential election. Haeg says he was drawn to the lawn that "iconic American space" because it cut across social, political and economic boundaries. "The lawn really struck me as one of the few places that we all share," he says. "It represents what we're all supposedly working so hard for the American dream."
The problem, as Haeg sees it, is that the "hyper-manicured lawn" is looking increasingly out of date. In the 1950s, when suburbia first began to sprawl, a perfectly trimmed front yard embodied the post-war prosperity Americans aspired to. Today, amid rising fuel costs, food safety scares and growing environmental awareness, a chemically treated and verdant but nutritionally barren lawn seems wasteful, he says.
The concept of tilling one's front yard is not a new one. In 1942, as the U.S. emerged from the Great Depression and mobilized for World War II, Agriculture Secretary Claude R. Wickard encouraged Americans to plant "Victory Gardens" to boost civic morale and relieve the war's pressure on food supplies an idea first introduced during The Great War and picked up by Canada, the U.S. and Great Britain. The slogan became "Have Your Garden, and Eat It Too." Soon gardens began popping up everywhere, and not just American lawns plots sprouted up at the Chicago County Jail, a downtown parking lot in New Orleans, and a zoo in Portland, Ore. In 1943, Americans planted 20.5 million Victory Gardens, and the harvest accounted for nearly one-third of all the vegetables consumed in the country that year.
Though Haeg's creative approach to home-grown produce is unique; his enthusiasm for gardening is not. Twenty-five million U.S. households planted vegetable and fruit gardens in 2007, according to Bruce Butterfield of the National Gardener's Association, and that number is expected to increase by several million this year. The waiting list for the USDA's Master Gardener Program, which involves nearly 90,000 volunteers in all 50 states who educate and assist the public with horticulture projects, is getting longer every year, says Bill Hoffman, National Program Leader for Agriculture Homeland Security. Even urban dwellers are returning to the land; in Austin, Texas, for example, the wait for community gardens is three years.
"It comes as no surprise to me," Butterfield says. "Gas prices, food prices, salmonella the world has gone absolutely crazy. And for a lot of people, that brings up this need to take control over what happens in their own yard. If all goes to hell, you can just lock the gate and stay at home."
In fact, the average American garden has proven to be a surprisingly accurate social and economic barometer. The upsurge in fuel prices in 1975 spawned a similar gardening boom, with nearly 49% of the population growing some sort of produce. Then, as the prosperity of the '90s trickled down to American yards, the pendulum swung back toward aesthetics over sustenance.
"Back in the 1990s, when things were booming, the gardening movement was all about Martha Stewart spending lots of money hiring people to make these beautiful, ornamental spaces," says Charlie Nardozzi, senior horticulturist at the National Gardening Association. Nowadays, "growing your own food can be a political statement that you have a personal connection with your food and where it's coming from, versus going to a grocery store and grabbing whatever is on the shelf."
But while some gardeners might be trying to save a few bucks or avoid commercially farmed produce, many horticulturists believe the gardening boom is more about lifestyle than economics. And unlike the concept of government-sponsored, "top-down" Victory Gardens, Edible Estates is a grassroots effort. Ridgley, for one, says his garden is as much about community and beauty as it is about food. "This is an art exhibit that just happens to be in my front yard," he says.
Haeg, meanwhile, hopes his project will prompt more Americans to rethink their yards, and where they plant their gardens. He hopes to plant two more Edible Estates next year. "This is a wonderful opportunity to reconsider how we're living, which I don't think is so great anyway." And with 80% of Americans living in homes with access to a yard, the potential for growth is enormous. As Haeg says, "the front lawns are there waiting."A staff member prepares the replica of Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jet at the exhibition centre ahead of the Singapore's Airshow on February 9, 2014. Asia's top aerospace and defence show opens on February 11 in Singapore with major global arms makers seeking to cash in on rising military spending as territorial disputes escalate in the region. AFP PHOTO / ROSLAN RAHMAN (Photo credit should read ROSLAN RAHMAN/AFP/Getty Images)
It's no news that a large portion of our federal tax dollars goes towards defense spending. But your jaw might drop at the cost of the newest jet manufactured by the U.S. military, and just how much good could have been achieved domestically with the same price tag.
The $400 billion program to create a fleet of F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jets, which, as The Hill points out, is seven years behind schedule and chronically plagued with misfortunes and incompetencies, could have housed every homeless person in the U.S. with a $600,000 home.
The staggering fact, configured by Think Progress, is just one of several figures the news source put into perspective for taxpayers. For example, the amount spent per year to build the F-35 jets could easily fulfill a $16.7 billion request by the United Nations Office of Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs to save countless lives from preventable causes around the world — and then have enough left over to fund UNICEF's budget request, too. The full cost of the jets program could also fund the National School Lunch Program, which feeds about 31 million students annually, for the next 24 years.
The mind-boggling cost for a fleet of F-35 jets exemplifies what Steven Conn would consider a military budget that doesn't have much of a positive impact on everyday Americans.
"Spending our taxes on the military doesn't yield much to make our lives or our communities better," Conn, a professor and Director of the Public History Program at Ohio State University, wrote on a HuffPost blog in April. "Big weapons systems and overseas military installations, to say nothing of feckless military adventures in Vietnam or Iraq, have done very little to fix our roads, improve our kids' education, or push the boundaries of medical research."Blackfoot Ways of Knowing is a journey into the heart and soul of Blackfoot culture. In sharing her personal story of "coming home" to reclaim her identity within that culture, Betty Bastien offers us a gateway into traditional Blackfoot ways of understanding and experiencing the world. As a scholar and researcher, Bastien is also able to place Blackfoot tradition within the context of knowledge building among indigenous peoples generally, and within a historical context of precarious survival amid colonial displacement and cultural genocide. In mapping her own process of coming to know, Bastien stresses the recovery of the Blackfoot language and of the Blackfoot notions of reciprocal responsibilities and interdependence. For the Siksikaitsitapi, knowledge is experiential, participatory, and ultimately sacred, rather than objective and inert. Rekindling traditional ways of knowing is essential if First Nations people in Canada are to heal and rebuild their communities and cultures. By sharing what she has learned, Betty Bastien hopes to ensure that the next generation of First Nations people will enjoy a future of hope and peace.There are very few things that I'm fanatical about. It's pretty much just my dogs, whiskey, and Fallout. And now Fallout 4 is out! It has dogs and whiskey! I also have dogs and whiskey! You'd think my week would haven been all happiness and butterflies until I puked up pure sunshine. But no; in playing Fallout 4, I have learned some dark and disturbing things about myself that, in all honesty, I wish I could take back. For example...
5 I Don't Want To Be A Bastard, But I Need The Option
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My favorite part of Fallouts past was that the games were truly open-ended. You could go nuts and slaughter a whole town, save for those damned invincible children, who still insisted on entering into battle with you only to spend every turn panic-sprinting to the edge of the map you little sons of bitches. And if one of your victims just happened to be a major quest-giver, well, that's called a consequence, motherfucker. Sometimes your actions have them.
We lost some of that with Fallout 3, which had invincible major characters. Oh, sure, that made for "a smoother progression in plot" and ensured you didn't "accidentally screw your whole game 'cause that guy on the aircraft carrier called your hat ugly so you slaughtered the entire society two hours ago and only just now found out you needed the captain alive to get the last mission to beat the game." You'd think having a few major characters that can't be killed would make the game less violent and more moral, but the opposite is true. Now I know that once I start machine-gunning mini-nukes into a farm because one of the ranchers stupidly rejected my sexual advances, anybody important will just take a knee for a moment, then get back up and give me my quest. There are no real consequences.
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That's been happening since Fallout 3. But Fallout 4 adds a bigger problem: I have seen very few opportunities in the game to be anything less than a good guy with a personality problem. That's down to the nature of the central story. In the early Fallouts, and in New Vegas, you were pursuing a fairly neutral goal. In Fallout 3, and now 4, you're looking for a lost family member. In 3 it's your father, and that sort of limits your role-playing options. No truly dark and malevolent character is out there in the wasteland screaming, "Daddy, why did you leave me?!" into the radioactive winds.NASA's newest tiny, cheap "PhoneSat" — a super cheap satellite made out of off-the-shelf Android hardware — has dialed home from orbit, meaning all systems are go.
The 2.2-pound satellite was built using a heavily-modified Samsung Nexus S and uses a two-way S-band radio so that engineers can command it remotely. It's part of NASA's effort to explore cheaper satellite technology.
It cost the space agency just $7,500
"The smartphone provides many of the functions the satellite needs to operate, such as computation, memory, ready-made interfaces for communications, navigation and power, all assembled in a rugged package before launch," NASA says in a press release.
This iteration of the mini-spacecraft, the PhoneSat 2.4, was launched two weeks ago and cost the space agency just $7,500. It will test a system for changing the satellite's orientation in space as well as measure how well off-the-shelf components perform over the course of a year.
The first batch of PhoneSats launched in April and the next version is scheduled for February.Jessamine County experienced a fairly rapid settlement from 1790 to 1810, then fairly flat population until 1950. But beginning in the 1950s, the population rose rapidly. The period from 1790 to 1810 I will call a “frontier” period. From 1810 to 1870 I’ll call the “plantation” period. Then from 1870 until 1950 I will call the “rural” period. Finally, from 1950 to present I will call a “suburban” period.
The above chart compares the accumulated growth rate in Jessamine County to the rest of the Bluegrass and to Kentucky beyond the Bluegrass. All of the lines are benchmarked to 1860. As can be seen, Jessamine County and the Bluegrass leaped to their index-level population during the frontier period, while the state on the whole took more time. Then during the rural period, the state outgrew both Jessamine County and the |
, service, cement, and dump trucks. The proposed Regulations would also include provisions that establish compliance flexibilities which include a carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emission credit system for generating, banking and trading emission credits. Flexibilities also include additional credits for hybrid vehicles and electric vehicles, as well as for innovative technologies to reduce GHG emissions. Companies would also be required to submit annual reports and maintain records relating to the GHG emission performance of their vehicles and fleets. Cost-benefit statement: The proposed Regulations are estimated to result in a reduction of approximately 19.0 megatonnes (Mt) of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO 2 e) in GHG emissions over the lifetime of vehicles produced in the model years 2014–2018 (MY2014–2018) cohort. The present value of the cost of the proposed Regulations is estimated at $0.8 billion, largely due to the additional vehicle technology costs required by the proposed Regulations. The total benefits are estimated at $5.0 billion, due to the avoided social cost of carbon, and fuel savings ($4.5 billion). Over the lifetime of vehicles produced in MY2014–2018, the present value of the net benefit of the proposed Regulations is estimated at $4.2 billion. Business and consumer impacts: Although owners and operators of heavy-duty vehicles would not be subject to the proposed Regulations, they are expected to face higher purchase prices for new heavy-duty vehicles. The technologies embodied in the vehicles in order to comply with the proposed Regulations would bring fuel savings that would outweigh the costs of these technologies. These available technologies were carefully selected to ensure broad industry support through the adoption of safe and currently available “off-the-shelf” technologies. The technology improvements will enhance the competitiveness of heavy-duty vehicles manufacturers; the increased fuel efficiencies of the vehicles are also expected to make the trucking industry more competitive. Despite their benefits, and while there will likely be some vehicle technology improvement, it is not expected that those technologies would be introduced to the same extent in the market place in the absence of regulations. Domestic and international coordination and cooperation: Consultations were conducted with industry, provincial and territorial governments, other federal government departments and environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs). Environment Canada and Transport Canada co-hosted three consultation group meetings that included representatives from the above-mentioned stakeholders. Environment Canada also released two consultation documents. Comments received during consultation served to inform the development of the proposed Regulations. In addition, Environment Canada has conducted joint testing and research with the United States Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) to support the development of common standards. Performance measurement and evaluation plan: The Performance Measurement and Evaluation Plan (PMEP) describes the desired outcomes of the proposed Regulations, such as GHG emissions reductions, and establishes indicators to measure and evaluate the performance of the proposed Regulations in achieving these outcomes. The measurement and evaluation will be tracked on a yearly basis, with a five-year compilation assessment, and will be based on the information and data submitted in accordance with the reporting requirements and records of the companies.
1. Issue
As a result of human activities, predominantly the combustion of fossil fuels, the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHGs) have increased substantially since the onset of the industrial revolution. In view of the historical emissions of GHGs from anthropogenic sources, and the quantity of emissions expected in the near future, GHGs are expected to remain a key contributor to climate change.
Across Canada we are witnessing the negative impacts of a changing climate first-hand. For example, a warming climate has been linked to the melting of permafrost in the north that has destabilized the foundations of homes and schools. While the specific impacts vary by region, all of Canada’s provinces and territories are experiencing the effects of a changing climate. (see footnote 1)
While Canada accounts for just 2% of global GHG emissions, its per capita emissions are among the highest in the world and continue to increase. In 2009, GHG emissions in Canada totalled 690 megatonnes (Mt) as shown in Table 1 below:
Table 1: Canada’s GHG emissions
Source (Mt) 2005 2009 Total 731 690 Transportation 193 190 Heavy-duty vehicles 44 45
Source: National Inventory report: 1990–2009
As this table indicates, the transportation sector (air, marine, rail, road and other modes) is a significant source of GHG emissions in Canada, accounting for 28% of total emissions in 2009. Within this sector, heavy-duty vehicles account for nearly 24% of GHG emissions, or approximately 7% of total emissions in Canada. (see footnote 2) Emissions in the overall transportation sector fell by about 3 Mt from 2005 to 2009, although heavy-duty vehicle emissions rose by about 1 Mt.
Accordingly, taking action to reduce GHG emissions from new on-road heavy-duty vehicles and their engines is an essential element of the Government of Canada’s strategy to reduce GHG emissions to protect the environment and the health of Canadians. Carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) is the predominant GHG emitted by motor vehicles and is directly related to the amount of fuel that is consumed by vehicles. Vehicles also emit other GHGs, including tailpipe emissions of methane (CH 4 ) and nitrous oxide (N 2 O), and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) through the leakage of air conditioning system refrigerant, gases which all have higher global warming potential than CO 2. Reductions of those emissions are not related to or do not significantly contribute to fuel savings.
2. Objectives
2.1. GHG reductions
The Government of Canada is committed to reducing Canada’s total GHG emissions to 17% below its 2005 levels by 2020 (i.e. from 731 to 607 Mt) — a target that is identified in the Copenhagen Accord and the Cancun Agreements. By establishing mandatory GHG emission standards for new on-road heavy-duty vehicles and engines beginning in 2014, Canada will move closer to its Copenhagen 2020 target.
The implementation of a comprehensive set of national standards reflecting a common North American approach for regulating GHG emissions from new on-road heavy-duty vehicles and engines would lead to environmental improvements for Canadians and provide regulatory certainty for Canadian manufacturers. Aligning Canadian standards with new U.S. regulations would also set a North American level playing field in the transportation sector.
The proposed Regulations will require manufacturers selling heavy-duty vehicles and engines in Canada to deploy emission reduction technologies, which will benefit both the environment and Canadians.
2.2. Regulatory burden
The proposed Regulations are designed to achieve the objectives above while minimizing the regulatory compliance burden of regulated Canadian industries through the alignment of heavy-duty vehicle regulations in Canada and in the United States. The reporting requirements were designed to assess the performance of the proposed Regulations against the targets established in the Performance Measurement and Evaluation Plan (see section 15) while minimizing the reporting burden of industry. The proposed Regulations would also allow regulatees to use the same GHG emissions model (GEM) as regulatees in the United States will use. This GEM is an accurate and cost-effective tool to assess compliance in either country.
3. Description
3.1. Key elements of the proposed Regulations
The proposed Regulations would introduce progressively more stringent GHG emission standards for new on-road heavy-duty vehicles and engines that would align with the national GHG emission standards and test procedures of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) for the 2014 model year and subsequent model years. The proposed Regulations would apply to companies manufacturing and importing new on-road heavy-duty vehicles and engines for the purpose of sale in Canada.
3.2. Prescribed regulatory classes
The proposed Regulations would reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the whole range of new on-road heavy-duty vehicles, from full-size pickup trucks and vans to tractors, from a wide variety of vocational vehicles such as school, transit and intercity buses to freight, delivery, service, cement, garbage and dump trucks.
The new Regulations would be aimed at all on-road vehicles with a gross vehicle weight rating of more than 3 856 kg (8 500 lb.), except those vehicles that are subject to the Passenger Automobile and Light Truck Greenhouse Gas Emission Regulations. Trailers would not be subject to the proposed Regulations.
The proposed Regulations would recognize the utility of vehicles and introduce GHG emission standards that would apply to the three prescribed regulatory classes of heavy-duty vehicles. Under the proposed Regulations, the full-size pickup trucks and vans would be regulated as “Class 2B and Class 3 heavy-duty vehicles,” and combination tractors as “tractors.” All other heavy-duty vehicles not covered by the two previously mentioned prescribed regulatory classes would be regulated as “vocational vehicles,” which include buses. Furthermore, the proposed Regulations would establish a prescribed regulatory class for heavy-duty engines designed to be used in a vocational vehicle or a tractor.
3.3. Emission standards for CO 2, N 2 O and CH 4
The standards in the proposed Regulations would address emissions of CO 2, N 2 O and CH 4 from heavy-duty vehicles and engines. The proposed Regulations would also include measures to require reductions in leakage of the hydrofluorocarbon refrigerant used in cabin air-conditioning systems.
For Class 2B and Class 3 heavy-duty vehicles, the proposed Regulations would include emission standards for CO 2, N 2 O and CH 4. In regards to CO 2 emissions, the standard would be a fleet average CO 2 emission standard for all vehicles of a company’s fleet.
In regard to vocational vehicles and tractors, the proposed Regulations would include heavy-duty engine standards for CO 2, N 2 O and CH 4, and also separate vehicle standards for CO 2.
The proposed standards are structured not to constrain the size and power of heavy-duty vehicles, recognizing that these vehicles are designed to perform work. The proposed standards would be expressed in grams per unit of work, therefore allowing a more powerful vehicle to proportionally emit more GHGs than a less powerful vehicle.
3.4. Compliance assessment and computer simulation model
For standards applicable to Class 2B and Class 3 heavy-duty vehicles, regulatees would measure the vehicle performance using prescribed test cycles on a chassis dynamometer, similarly to existing procedures for light-duty vehicles under the current Passenger Automobile and Light Truck Greenhouse Gas Emission Regulations.
The performance of engines installed on vocational vehicles and tractors would be measured using prescribed test cycles on an engine dynamometer, i.e. the same ones used to measure criteria air contaminants under the On-Road Vehicle and Engine Emission Regulations.
Compliance with the vehicle standards for vocational vehicles and tractors would be assessed using a computer simulation model. This model is readily available at no charge and would assess the emission reductions of a vehicle equipped with one or more non-engine-related technologies, such as aerodynamic fairings, low rolling resistance tires, a speed limiter, weight reduction technologies, and idle reduction technology. The simulation model will also assign to vehicles a pre-determined payload and engine size. As a result, Canadian manufacturers will not be disadvantaged compared to U.S. manufacturers due to the higher average payloads in Canada.
3.5. CO 2 emission credit system
The proposed Regulations would include a system of emission credits to help meet overall environmental objectives in a manner that provides the regulated industry with compliance flexibility. The CO 2 emission credit system would allow companies to generate, bank and trade emission credits. Under this system, companies would be allowed to manufacture or import vehicles and engines with emission levels worse than the applicable emission standard, and others performing better than the standard, provided that their average fleet emission level does not exceed the applicable emission standard.
Credits would be obtained by companies whose average fleet emission levels fall below the applicable standard, while deficits would be incurred by companies whose fleet emissions exceed the applicable standard. Credits may be applied by a company to offset a past deficit for up to three model years prior to the year in which the credits were earned, or may be banked to offset a future deficit for up to five model years after the year in which the credits were obtained. Credits may also be transferred to another company. A company would calculate emission credits and deficits in units of megagrams of CO 2, for each of its heavy-duty vehicle or engine fleets and averaging sets of a given model year.
3.6. Additional emission credits
The proposed Regulations would allow companies that incorporate certain technologies that provide improvements in reducing CO 2 e emissions to be eligible for additional emission credits when participating in the credit system.
Companies that manufacture or import, prior to the coming into force of the applicable standards, heavy-duty vehicles or engines that have emissions that are below the proposed required emissions standards would also have the possibility to generate early action credits.
The methods to calculate the additional credits would be aligned with those of the United States. A company would not be allowed to obtain additional credits more than once for the same type of GHG emission reduction technology.
3.7. Annual reporting requirements
Beginning with the 2014 model year, companies would be required to submit to the Minister an annual preliminary report for their Class 2B and Class 3 heavy-duty vehicles and an annual end of year model report for all their heavy-duty vehicles and engines.
The report would include, for each type of vehicle or engine of a prescribed regulatory class, all necessary information for the calculation of the company’s credits or deficits. This would include, amongst others, information such as the applicable emission standards, emission values or rates, and family emission limits.
3.8. Other administrative provisions
Several administrative provisions would be aligned with those under existing related regulations under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 (CEPA 1999), including provisions respecting the national emissions mark, maintenance and submission of records, the cost for test vehicles, application for exemptions and notices of defect. The proposed Regulations would introduce requirements for vocational vehicles and tractors manufactured in stages, in line with similar requirements of the Motor Vehicle Safety Regulations under the Motor Vehicle Safety Act, governed by Transport Canada.
4. Sector profile
4.1. Heavy-duty vehicle manufacturing and importing
The proposed Regulations have divided these vehicles into three different categories: Class 2B and Class 3 heavy-duty vehicles (full-size pick-up trucks and vans), vocational vehicles, and tractors. Heavy-duty vehicles have a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) greater than 3 856 kg (8 500 lb.) and span several GVWR classes: tractors (often called combination tractors) are contained mainly within classes 7 and 8, and vocational vehicles span from class 2B through class 8. Vocational vehicles also comprise a range of vehicle types, including various types of buses.
There are currently only two Canadian manufacturers of heavy-duty trucks, Hino and Paccar, which produce approximately 6 400 vehicles annually that are primarily exported to the United States. There is little to no manufacturing of heavy-duty engines in Canada. There are some Canadian body manufacturers that produce finished vocational vehicles. Canadian bus manufacturers hold an important share of the North American market. Notably, MCI in Manitoba and Prevost in Quebec produce intercity buses; New Flyer, Nova Bus, and Orion produce transit buses; and Girardin Minibus produces school buses and smaller buses. All of these manufacturers sell in both American and Canadian markets.
4.2. Statistics of manufacturing and trade
The Canadian industry, classified in national statistics as Heavy-duty Truck Manufacturing in the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS 33612), includes producers of complete heavy-duty vehicles and chassis, which are either tractors or vocational vehicles under the proposed Regulations. Output of the industry has fallen sharply in the recent recession: from 11 321 vehicles in 2009 to 5 630 in 2010. (see footnote 3) Most of the vehicles produced are exported to the United States: over 90% in 2009, and about 80% in 2010. The decline in output reflects a reduction in total vehicles purchased in the United States in consequence of reduced economic activity. The industry defined as Motor Vehicle Body Manufacturing (NAICS 336211) included 197 Canadian establishments producing vocational vehicles in 2009.
In 2009, these two heavy-duty vehicle manufacturing industries together generated approximately $3.6 billion in gross revenue and $1.2 billion in gross domestic product; and employed over 10 500 workers. Of total revenue, some $2.1 billion was from exports, including $2.0 billion from the United States. Imports of heavy-duty vehicles and engines totalled $3.3 billion in the same year, of which $2.8 billion was from the United States. (see footnote 4)
4.3. Truck carriers
In 2009, there were some 750 000 heavy-duty trucks of GVWR over 4 536 kg in operation in Canada (Canadian Vehicle Survey, 2009). There were approximately 435 000 medium heavy-duty trucks below 14 970 kg GVWR and 314 000 heavier heavy-duty trucks. The medium heavy-duty truck usage was 8.2 billion vehicle-kilometres, an average of 18 900 km per truck, while the heavy heavy-duty truck usage totalled 21.2 billion vehicle-kilometres, an average of 67 500 km per vehicle. There were 194 000 trucks described as “for-hire,” only 26% of the total fleet, but responsible for 46% of total vehicle-kilometres. A further 128 000 trucks were owned by owner-operators, responsible for 21% of total vehicle-kilometres. Such trucks are usually contracted to a larger carrier or company. Some 319 000 vehicles were used in “private trucking,” the term used to describe trucks that are not for hire, but are used to carry the owners’ goods, including trucks owned by major manufacturers and retailers to transport the goods they own, and also trucks owned by farmers or tradesmen, for example. Such trucks were 43% of the fleet, but were used for only 23% of total vehicle-kilometres, at an average of only 21 000 km per vehicle.
Table 2: Heavy-duty truck use in Canada in 2009
Ownership/
Use Vehicles
(thousands) Vehicle-
kilometres
(billions) Medium Heavy Total Proportion Medium Heavy Total Proportion For-hire 51.8 142.5 194.3 0.259 1.1 12.6 13.7 0.464 Owner-operator 63.3 64.2 127.6 0.170 1.8 4.5 6.3 0.221 Private 240.0 79.0 319.0 0.426 3.9 2.7 6.7 0.227 Other 79.5 28.5 108.0 0.144 1.4 1.4 2.8 0.095 Total 434.6 314.2 748.8 1.000 8.2 21.2 29.5 1.000
Ownership/
Use Kilometre/vehicle Medium Heavy Total For-hire 22 236 88 421 70 510 Owner-operator 28 436 70 093 49 373 Private 19 250 34 177 21 003 Other 17 610 49 123 25 926 Total 18 868 67 473 39 391
Source: Canadian Vehicle Survey, 2009, Statistics Canada
4.4. Trade by transport mode
Table 3 shows preliminary 2010 values of Canada’s merchandise trade with the United States and Mexico, combining imports and exports. Trucking is responsible for the largest proportion of North American merchandise trade by value — 57% in 2010.
Table 3: Total North American merchandise trade by transport mode
Mode Trade 2010
(millions of U.S. dollars) Road 298,832 Rail 87,151 Pipeline and other 71,652 Air 29,267 Marine 27,305 Total 514,208
Source: North American Transportation Statistics Database
In 2008, employment in the for-hire trucking industry in Canada was estimated at 415 000. It included 182 000 full- and part-time employees of the medium and large for-hire carriers with annual operating revenues of $1 million or more; 26 000 employees of small for-hire carriers with annual operating revenues between $30,000 and $1 million; 104 000 owner-operators with annual operating revenues of $30,000 or more; and 103 000 delivery drivers. Of this total for-hire trucking employment, 36% was in Ontario, 20% in Quebec and 27% in the Prairie provinces, with smaller proportions in the other provinces and territories.
4.5. Bus carriers
Bus carrier companies operate in several sub-markets or sub-industries. A total of 1 371 companies earned service revenues of $6.4 billion, and received an additional $7.2 billion in Government contributions, primarily for urban transit services. Urban transit services earned 53% of total industry revenues excluding those contributions, and school bus services earned another 23%. Scheduled intercity, charter and shuttle services together earned 16% of total revenues.
5. Background on policy development
5.1. National context
In 2009, the Government of Canada committed in the Copenhagen Accord and the Cancun Agreements to reducing, by 2020, total GHG emissions by 17% from 2005 levels, a target that is aligned with that of the United States. An important step toward meeting that goal included the 2010 publication in the Canada Gazette, Part Ⅱ, of the Passenger Automobile and Light Truck Greenhouse Gas Emission Regulations that are aligned with those of the United States.
On May 21, 2010, the Government of Canada and the Government of the United States each announced the development of new regulations to limit GHG emissions from new on-road heavy-duty vehicles. Canada announced that the proposed Regulations would be made under CEPA 1999 and in alignment with those of the United States. On October 25, 2010, the Government of Canada released an initial consultation document describing the key elements being considered in the development of Canadian regulations to seek stakeholder views early in the process.
On August 9, 2011, Environment Canada published a second and more detailed consultation document to provide an additional opportunity for stakeholders to provide comments and to participate in the regulatory development process.
5.2. Canada’s collaboration with the U.S. EPA
Environment Canada, in partnership with Canada’s National Research Council, has conducted joint aerodynamic testing and research with the U.S. EPA as well as heavy-duty vehicle emissions testing at Environment Canada facilities to support regulatory development. This collaboration is taking place under the Canada-U.S. Air Quality Committee and builds on the joint work with the United States on the development and implementation of GHG emission standards for vehicles. This collaboration served to inform the development of the proposed Regulations in Canada.
5.3. Actions in other Canadian jurisdictions
Provinces and territories have not indicated any intention to regulate GHG emissions from new on-road heavy-duty vehicles. Furthermore, provincial environment ministries have communicated strong support for federal Canadian regulations aligned with those of the United Stated.
The provincial and territorial governments set requirements for in-use vehicles including tractor-trailer weights and trailer dimensions. All provinces will continue to be consulted to ensure a consistent pan-Canadian approach to regulating on-road heavy-duty vehicle emissions.
5.4. Actions in international jurisdictions
5.4.1. United States
On November 30, 2010, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the U.S. EPA jointly published a Proposed Rule describing a set of complementary new proposed regulations for heavy-duty vehicles and engines for model years 2014 and later. On September 15, 2011, the Final Rule was published in the U.S. Federal Register. The U.S. rules establish coordinated federal regulations to address the closely intertwined issues of energy efficiency and climate change under a joint Heavy-Duty National Program. In this joint rulemaking, the NHTSA implements fuel economy standards under the Energy Independence and Security Actof 2007, while the U.S. EPA regulations under the Clean Air Act implement the GHG emission standards for heavy-duty vehicles.
The U.S. National Program is based on a common set of principles, which includes, as stated in the Final Rule: (see footnote 5) “increased use of existing technologies to achieve significant GHG emissions and fuel consumption reductions; a program that starts in 2014 and is fully phased in by 2018; a program that works towards harmonization of methods for determining a vehicle’s GHG and fuel efficiency, recognizing the global nature of the issues and the industry; standards that recognize the commercial needs of the trucking industry; and incentives leading to the early introduction of advanced technologies.”
In 2004, the U.S. EPA launched SmartWay, a voluntary program that encourages the trucking sector to identify strategies and technologies for reducing fuel consumption and CO 2 e emissions and allows companies to be SmartWay certified.
The SmartWay program has allowed the U.S. EPA to work closely with heavy-duty vehicle manufacturers and fleet operators in evaluating numerous technologies and developing test procedures that achieve fuel and CO 2 e reductions. The experience and knowledge acquired with SmartWay served in developing the Heavy-Duty National Program of the GHG regulations of the United States.
5.4.2. California
The California Air Resources Board adopted a GHG emission regulation for heavy-duty vehicles in 2008. This regulation is to reduce GHG by improving the fuel efficiency of heavy-duty vehicles through aerodynamic enhancement of vehicles and the use of low rolling resistance tires. This regulation covers tractors that pull a 53-foot or longer box-type semi-trailer, as well as covering the trailers themselves, and applies to the users of these tractor-trailer vehicles.
Since January 1, 2010, 2011 and later model year sleeper-cab heavy-duty tractors pulling a 53-foot or longer box-type trailer operating on a highway within California must be U.S. EPA Certified SmartWay, which requires certified aerodynamic equipment and low rolling resistance tires. As for day-cab tractors, the regulation requires that they be equipped with SmartWay verified low rolling resistance tires. The California regulation also requires that existing tractors, mainly all 2010 model year and older sleeper-cab and day-cab tractors, be equipped with SmartWay verified low rolling resistance tires starting in January 2012. The regulation also includes similar requirements for 53-foot or longer box-type trailers.
5.4.3. Other international regulatory actions to reduce GHGs/fuel consumption of vehicles
Other international jurisdictions have established or are developing regulatory regimes that directly or indirectly serve to reduce GHG emissions from new heavy-duty vehicles.
Japan has implemented the Top-Runner Program, which identifies and designates as the “top-runner” the most fuel-efficient vehicle in each weight range. The program has the objective to improve the fleet average fuel-efficiency of all vehicles in a particular weight range to match that of its top-runner. In the case of heavy-duty vehicles, the most fuel-efficient vehicle of model year 2002 (excluding hybrids) was set as the baseline and regulation would start with model year 2015.
The European Commission is currently developing a new certification procedure and a strategy targeting fuel consumption and CO 2 e emissions from heavy-duty vehicles. Simulation modelling is being considered. A draft regulation is expected to be completed during 2012. It is expected that mandatory reporting would be effective in 2013–2014 and that possible regulation would be in a 2018–2020 timeframe.
6. Regulatory and non-regulatory options considered
6.1. Status quo approach
Currently, there is no federal requirement in Canada to reduce GHG emissions from new on-road heavy-duty vehicles. Heavy-duty vehicles are an important contributor to overall emissions and reducing GHGs from these vehicles is a key element in meeting the Government’s climate change goals. Maintaining the status quo would make it more difficult for Canada to achieve this goal, while preventing Canadians from benefiting from the associated environmental improvements. Therefore, for the Government of Canada, maintaining the status quo is not an appropriate option for reducing GHG emissions from new heavy-duty vehicles in Canada.
6.2. Voluntary approach
New regulations in the United States will require manufacturers to adopt more GHG-reducing technologies in new heavy-duty vehicles sold in the United States beginning in 2014. However, because of the highly customized nature of the heavy-duty vehicle industry, manufacturers may choose not to install those technologies in vehicles sold in Canada. Therefore, while a voluntary program can result in some emission reductions, it would not necessarily amount to the same emission reductions as a regulatory regime.
6.3. Regulatory approach
Given the importance of addressing climate change, most industrialized countries are moving to establish regulated requirements for the control of fuel consumption and/or GHG reductions from new vehicles. The implementation of a comprehensive set of national standards reflecting a common North American approach for regulating GHG emissions from new on-road heavy-duty vehicles and engines would lead to environmental improvements for Canadians, and provide regulatory certainty for Canadian manufacturers. Aligning Canadian standards with U.S. standards would also set a North American level playing field in the transportation sector.
6.3.1. Regulations under the Motor Vehicle Fuel Consumption Standards Act
The Government of Canada has previously considered reducing GHG emissions through the adoption of vehicle fuel consumption standards under the Motor Vehicle Fuel Consumption Standards Act (MVFCSA). When the Passenger Automobile and Light Truck Greenhouse Gas Emission Regulations were developed in 2010, it was determined that significant amendments were required to the MVFCSA in order to be able to put in place regulations that would align with the U.S. fuel economy standards. Therefore, the approach of proceeding with Canadian fuel consumption regulations under the MVFCSA was then excluded in favour of regulating under CEPA 1999.
6.3.2. Regulations under CEPA 1999
CEPA 1999 enables the implementation of innovative compliance flexibilities such as a system for the banking and trading of emission credits to help meet overall environmental objectives in a manner that provides the regulated industry with maximum compliance flexibility.
This approach is also consistent with the existing use of CEPA 1999 to establish standards limiting smog-forming air pollutant emissions from new vehicles and engines, as well as to regulate GHG emissions from light-duty vehicles under the Passenger Automobile and Light Truck Greenhouse Gas Emission Regulations.
The Government of Canada has determined that establishing regulated heavy-duty vehicle GHG emission standards under CEPA 1999 represents the best option to introduce these proposed Regulations and to align Canada’s requirements with the national regulated standards of the United States.
7. Benefits and costs
The proposed Regulations are estimated to result in a reduction of approximately 19.0 Mt of CO 2 e in GHG emissions over the lifetime of new on-road heavy-duty vehicles sold between 2014 and 2018 (MY2014–2018), the period during which the proposed Regulations first come into effect (2014) and then are gradually phased into full effect (2015 to 2018). The proposed Regulations are also expected to reduce fuel consumption by 7.2 billion litres over the lifetime of the MY2014–2018 fleet.
Over the lifetime of MY2014–2018 vehicles, the present value of the cost of the proposed Regulations is estimated at $0.8 billion, largely due to the additional vehicle technology costs required by the proposed Regulations. The total benefits are estimated at $5.0 billion, due to the value of GHG reductions ($0.5 billion) and fuel savings ($4.5 billion). Over the lifetime of MY2014–2018 vehicles, the present value of the net benefit of the proposed Regulations is estimated at $4.2 billion. The detailed analysis of benefits and costs is presented below.
7.1. Analytical framework
The approach to cost-benefit analysis identifies, quantifies and monetizes, to the extent possible, the incremental costs and benefits of the proposed Regulations. The cost-benefit analysis framework applied to this study incorporates the following elements:
Incremental impacts: Impacts due to the proposed Regulations are analyzed in terms of changes to vehicle technologies, emissions, and associated costs and benefits in the regulatory scenario compared to the business-as-usual (BAU) scenario. The two scenarios are presented in detail below. The incremental impacts are the differences between the estimated levels of technologies and emissions in the two scenarios, and the differences between the associated costs and benefits in the two scenarios. These differences (incremental impacts) are thus attributed to the proposed Regulations.
Timeframe: The analysis considers new heavy-duty vehicles sold between 2014 and 2018 (MY2014–2018), the period during which the proposed Regulations first come into effect (2014) and then are gradually phased into full effect (2015 to 2018). The analysis assumes that new vehicles survive for up to 30 years. This timeframe is consistent with other analyses, and with Canadian data that shows that few vehicles survive beyond 30 years. Thus the overall timeframe for the analysis is 35 years (2014 to 2048), the total lifespan of the MY2014–2018 new vehicle fleet. The impact of vehicles sold after 2018 is not considered in this analysis, but is expected to be similar to the impact for MY2018.
Costs and benefits have been estimated in monetary terms to the extent possible and are expressed in 2010 Canadian dollars. Whenever this was not possible, due either to lack of appropriate data or difficulties in valuing certain components, incremental impacts were evaluated in qualitative terms. Table 4 summarizes the benefits and costs which were evaluated quantitatively.
Table 4: Monetized benefits and costs
Benefits Costs Pre-tax fuel savings
Avoided GHG damages Technology costs
Noise, accidents, congestion
Government administration
Discount rate: A social discount rate of 3% is used in the analysis for estimating the present value (2011 base year) of the costs and benefits under the central analysis. This level is within the range prescribed by the Treasury Board Secretariat’s cost-benefit analysis (CBA) guidelines. This is consistent with discount rates used for other GHG related measures in Canada, as well as those used by the U.S. EPA.
7.2. Key data and information
To assess the impact of the proposed Regulations, it was necessary to obtain Canadian estimates of future vehicle sales, fuel prices and monetary values for GHG reductions; to identify the technologies that manufacturers would likely adopt, and the costs they would incur in order to comply with the proposed Regulations; and then to model future vehicle emissions, fuel consumption and distance travelled, with and without the proposed Regulations. These key sources of data and information are described below.
7.2.1. Canadian sales forecast
For years 2011 through 2018, a vehicle sales forecast from DesRosiers Automotive Consultants (DAC) was used in the analysis. For the purpose of this study, all historical (calendar year 2005 through year-to-date June 2010) medium and heavy-duty vehicle data was provided by R. L. Polk (Polk). Using the Polk data file, DAC developed aggregate medium and heavy-duty historical registration data and forecast data using proprietary DAC forecasting methodologies and input from industry representatives. This study required an in-depth review of core Canadian economic variables. A database containing historical and forecast economic factors from calendar year 2000 through 2018 was provided by Environment Canada’s Energy-Economy-Environment Model for Canada (E3MC) in March of 2011. DAC also considered provincial economic forecast data from Informetrica Limited (March 14, 2011), BMO Capital Markets Economics (March 14, 2011) and TD Economics (March 2011). The overall results of the DAC sales report are displayed below, with historical trends shown from 2000 to 2010, and projected trends shown from 2011 to 2018, based on DAC analysis and forecasts:
Figure 1: Sales forecast for Canadian medium and heavy-duty vehicles
The analysis of the proposed Regulations incorporates the same detailed DAC sales estimates, for each vehicle regulatory class, into the modelling of vehicle population growth from 2010 to 2018 for both the BAU and policy scenarios. DAC estimated total sales per calendar year, which are used as a proxy for model year sales in this analysis.
7.2.2. Canadian vehicle emissions modelling
Estimates of Canadian vehicle emissions were developed using methods aligned with those initially developed by the U.S. EPA, together with key Canadian data to reflect the impact of the proposed Regulations. The emissions selected were those linked to climate change, air quality and human health, such as greenhouse gases (GHGs) and criteria air contaminants (CACs). The primary modelling tool used to calculate vehicle emissions was the Motor Vehicle Emissions Simulator (MOVES), which is the U.S. EPA’s official mobile source emission inventory model for heavy-duty vehicles. Key data for Canadian heavy-duty vehicle populations and distance travelled were then incorporated into the most current version of MOVES (MOVES2010a) in order to produce an analysis for Canada of the impacts of the proposed Regulations. Vehicle data collected by gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) was mapped into MOVES2010a and then categorized according to the vehicle classifications in the proposed Regulations, as described in this RIAS and as shown in figure 2.
Figure 2: GVWR, MOVES and RIAS classes for this analysis
Canadian vehicle populations were estimated for all calendar years 2005 through 2050. For the purposes of this analysis, data purchased from Polk and Co. on the heavy-duty fleet in Canada for calendar years 2005 through 2010, were used by Environment Canada to develop vehicle population and age estimates for those years. After 2010, future vehicle populations are forecasted based on new vehicle sales and the number, age and estimated survival rates of existing vehicles. For years 2011 through to 2018, the DesRosiers sales forecast were used, as discussed above. For years 2019 and beyond, the default MOVES sales rates were used in the absence of Canada specific sales rates beyond 2018. Comprehensive validated survival estimates for Canadian heavy-duty vehicles were not available for this analysis. Instead, MOVES default vehicle survival rate estimates were generally used. These MOVES survival rate estimates appear similar to available Canadian data for vehicles less than 30 years old, but appear to underestimate survival for Canadian vehicles aged 30 years or more. Therefore, an adjustment was made in MOVES for the survival rate of vehicles aged 30 years or more, to make this rate more consistent with available Canadian data.
Along with vehicle populations, vehicle distance travelled is also important in overall emissions estimation for Canada. Estimates of Canadian vehicle kilometres travelled (VKT) and kilometre accumulation rates (KAR) were developed for all calendar years from 2005 through 2050. KAR is the product of VKT divided by the number of vehicles (the population). In 2010, Environment Canada contracted Stewart-Brown Associates (SBA) to generate KARs from inspection and maintenance (I/M) program data in Canada. Specifically, this was the Drive Clean program in Ontario, and the AirCare program |
ably a driver for Bitcoin, after all, so let’s not get ourselves occupied whether we like its color or not. I outlined a bit of Bitcoin’s growth potential in this field in my post where I described why I invested in Bitcoin.
Between 5% and 30% of the world’s money supply of about 75 terabucks are in circulation to support unlawful trade. The guesstimates vary due to the nature of the subject. Let’s assume 5%, and then let’s move on to guesstimate that 10% of those 5% is in high-tech trade that would be early adopters of Bitcoin (the kind of merchants capable of building intercontinental undetectable submarines).
Let’s assume that these merchants move about one-sixth of their trade to Bitcoin over the coming years to explore it and use it for long-distance transactions. That would mean 15% of 10% of 5% of 75 terabucks enter the Bitcoin ecosystem, which comes down to about 60 gigabucks. The current value of Bitcoin in circulation is roughly 6.5 megacoins times 20 bucks, coming to about 120 megabucks.
Thus, the value used to trade in the Bitcoin ecosystem stands to multiply by about 500x in the next few couple of years — counting this uptake driver alone. Now, this doesn’t automatically mean that the value of one bitcoin will rise by 500x as the market is more complex than that, but it’s a good estimate of where we’re heading.
Next: international trade and merchant trade. Those uptake drivers are much, much larger (not to mention currently legal).File Photo: Bombay High Court
Children carry very heavy school bags in comparison to their age and over 58 per cent of students below 10 years of age are suffering from orthopaedic ailments, said a Maharashtra-government-appointed committee report submitted to the Bombay High Court today.A division bench of Justices VM Kanade and BP Colabawala was informed that the 12-page report has been accepted by the government and a decision will be soon taken on implementation of its recommendations.After perusing the report, the court said "soon children will have to carry trolley bags as the backpacks they carry at present is not enough."Justice Colabawala, whose children go to school, said "everyday all the subjects are taken. Hence, a student has to carry all the textbooks and its notebook. There has to be a change in the time table."The court has asked the government to file its reply by July 23 and also wanted to know by when it is likely to implement the suggestions made by the committee in its report.The court suggested the government consider directing schools to set up lockers where children can keep their textbooks instead of carrying it daily.Justice Kanade, however, immediately observed that then children would not be able to study at home."So much homework is given that students need the books at home also. If students start keeping their books in schools, then parents will have to buy two sets - one for home and one for school," the court said.The committee has recommended that one book should be used for three months for each subject and the textbook weight can be reduced by using less weight paper and no hardcover.Further, it also suggested use of e-classroom, audio- visual technology and other technological means for teaching.The bench, after going through the report, said "we find the suggestions are quiet reasonable but for this year we assume that it would not be possible to implement them." The government had appointed the committee following a public interest litigation filed by activist Swati Patil on the issue.When we visit some of the most iconic places in Toronto — Bloor Street, Bay Street, Christie Pits Park — the experience could be enhanced by knowing more about their names. Not knowing about the spaces that surround us is “part of the general vagueness most of us are guilty of,” says Allan Gould, co-author of the book Toronto Street Names.
Bay St. was originally called Bear St. because, according to Dr. Henry Scadding, who is quoted in Gould’s book, a bear ran out of the nearby woods and to escape its chasers “made for the water along this route.” ( DAVID COOPER / TORONTO STAR )
Even though every name isn’t the gateway to a romance or mystery, “it’s hard seeing some of these names without wondering what the story is behind (them),” Gould says. With that in mind, the Toronto Star takes you on a tour of some of the most well-known place names in Toronto — a city whose name, as it turns out, has more to do with fish than pigs. Read on — you’ll be the hit of your next dinner party. Bay Street: The more unusual thing about Bay Street’s name is what it morphed from. It was originally called Bear St. because, according to Dr. Henry Scadding, who is quoted in Gould’s book, a bear ran out of the nearby woods and to escape its chasers “made for the water along this route.” The name was later changed around 1800. The current name was coined for the small stretch that connected Queen St. to a bay in Toronto Harbour. Today’s more superstitious Bay Street financiers are surely happy the original moniker didn’t stick.
Article Continued Below
Christie Pits Park: Perhaps it should have been named Mr. Christie’s Park. Yes, the famous downtown green space honours the iconic Canadian baker and entrepreneur William Mellis Christie, a.k.a., Mr. Christie, according to city archives. He moved to Canada from Scotland in 1848. Not long after his massive biscuit-making operation took up much of the area where George Brown College now sits. Mr. Christie College doesn’t quite work. Bloor Street: If you have ever enjoyed a beer on Bloor, the man it was named for may have been looking down with a smile. Joseph Bloore was one of the city’s earliest brewers. He built his brewery in 1830 and when he sold it in 1843 bought land in what would become Yorkville. City historians are not sure why the ‘e’ was dropped when Tollgate Road was renamed Bloor Street in 1855. Avenue Road: When you think about it, there’s not much sense in naming a road “Avenue.” But according to staff at City Hall’s Survey and Utility Mapping department, an old legend suggests the name has nothing to do with the two obvious synonyms. As the story goes, an early team of surveyors was working its way along what’s now Bloor Street. When the team of Scottish men got to where the road is located today, the leader said: “Let’s ‘ave a new road here.” Toronto: There’s actually some controversy behind the origin of the city’s name. Though many historians say Toronto comes from the Huron toronton, “place of meetings,” according to Natural Resources Canada, that’s not where Toronto gets its name. It comes from the Mohawk, tkaronto, which means, “where there are trees standing in the water” and describes the large stakes used about 4,000 years ago to catch fish in weirs around Lake Simcoe, some 130 kilometres north of Toronto. Even if the name was meant for somewhere else, it sure beats Hogtown.Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nev. points to a reporter during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, May 22, 2014, to discuss immigration reform. (AP Photo/Lauren Victoria Burke)
WASHINGTON -- Want to make Harry Reid laugh? Ask him what he thinks about Scott Brown's chances of returning to the Senate.
The Senate majority leader takes the challenges Democrats face this election cycle quite seriously, even as he remains bullish about the party's prospects. He just isn't sweating Brown's efforts to unseat Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.). In fact, the mere prospect of that happening left him laughing out loud during a recent interview, after HuffPost asked if the Republicans' ability to expand the Senate contest to some traditionally blue states made it more difficult for Democrats to hold red state seats.
HuffPost: Are you nervous that with Republicans expanding to Colorado, Michigan and New Hampshire, it will that take away [Democratic resources] from Arkansas? Reid: New Hampshire? HuffPost: They would like to think so. Reid: Hahahaha. HuffPost: You don't think Scott Brown will pull this one out? Reid: Um... We're doing fine in Michigan. We're doing fine in Iowa. Colorado, I think [Sen.] Mark Udall is just an exceptionally good candidate.
Brad Dayspring, a spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said Republicans may be the ones chuckling in the end.
"I would bet that [Louisiana Democrat] Mary Landrieu or [Arkansas Democrat] Mark Pryor would wonder why Majority PAC is spending so much money in New Hampshire if Harry Reid really does feel that way," he said, referring to the Democratic super PAC, run by Reid ally Susan McCue, that's dedicated to holding the Senate. Dayspring also pointed out that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has reserved $1 million in airtime in New Hampshire.
In a midterm cycle that's stacked against the Democrats, Reid says he's optimistic that his party will retain control -- and that he will keep the majority leader's post -- when the votes are counted in November. He's sanguine, in part, because of the caliber of the Democrats running in traditionally Republican states like Alaska, Georgia and even Mississippi, where Reid insisted that former Rep. Travis Childers has a chance at victory.
"Remember," Reid said, "they need to get six seats and they are not even close to that, especially with the fact that they are scrambling in Kentucky and Georgia."
The mobile nature of today's voters makes outcomes difficult to predict. And in the wake of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's (R-Va.) unexpected loss, Reid said he no longer puts too much stock in polls (Cantor's own pollster had him up by 34 points).
"I've never been a big fan of polling," Reid said. "Common sense dictates if you're under 35, and you have a stationary phone, what's wrong with you? Because very few people have stationary phones anymore that are young. And with all the laws the way they are -- who you can call, who you can't call -- how do you get an accurate count? I don't think polls are very accurate."
At the center of the push-and-pull for control of the Senate is Kentucky, where Reid's daily dueling partner, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, is in a close race to retain his seat. McConnell's challenger, Alison Lundergan Grimes, had previously said she'd used a private fundraiser to press Reid on coal, but a tape of the event surfaced showing that not to be the case, at least not during her public remarks.
Reid said that Grimes has, in general, been upfront about her support for coal. "And I understand why she feels the way she does, just as I understand why [Sen. Heidi] Heitkamp (D-N.D.) feels that way about coal, [Sen. Joe] Manchin (D-W.Va.) feels that way about coal. I accept senators representing their states," Reid said.
But he saved his sharpest words for taking McConnell down a peg, rather than bolstering Grimes. He scoffed at McConnell's insistence that if he were in charge, the Senate would work longer hours and be more productive.
"That's interesting coming from a guy who tries to get out of here Thursday quicker than anyone else," Reid said.
And when asked how McConnell would operate as a majority leader, his response was downright icy.
"I don't even contemplate that," he said, with trademark brevity.
McConnell's office responded by pointing The Huffington Post to a lengthy speech he made about the various reforms he would make to the Senate.
Dayspring, meanwhile, dismissed Reid's forecast. "Most election prognosticators would disagree with soon-to-be Minority Leader Reid's assessment," he said, arguing that Democrats are on the defensive in 12 states. While Democrats individually may be keeping those races close, President Barack Obama remains deeply unpopular, the economic recovery remains weak and conservatives have the bulk of the outside cash.
That latter point has been an obsessive concern of Reid's. He has taken to admonishing the Koch brothers weekly on the Senate floor, calling them un-American and subversive to Democratic governance. He has also accused Republicans of being cultish in their adherence to the industrialist brothers and addiction to their cash.
Reid told The Huffington Post that he has not received a call from anyone at Koch Industries to back off his crusade or to hash out the matter away from the C-SPAN cameras. Nor does he quiver in fear over the Kochs' political prowess. The cash they've put into television ads targeting Democrats hasn't moved the dial in most cases, he argued.
"Take, for example, North Carolina," said Reid. "The Koch Brothers spent pushing $20 million against [Sen. Kay Hagan]. We followed that very closely. Her polls overall since last fall changed four tenths of one percent."
Confident as he is in the lead-up to the elections, Reid said that he is bothered by one factor that's out of his control. "Time is going so slowly," he complained.
Want more updates from Sam? Sign up for his newsletter, Spam Stein.A.2 What does anarchism stand for?
These words by Percy Bysshe Shelley gives an idea of what anarchism stands for in practice and what ideals drive it:
The man
Of virtuous soul commands not, nor obeys:
Power, like a desolating pestilence,
Pollutes whate'er it touches, and obedience,
Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth,
Makes slaves of men, and, of the human frame,
A mechanised automaton.
As Shelley's lines suggest, anarchists place a high priority on liberty, desiring it both for themselves and others. They also consider individuality -- that which makes one a unique person -- to be a most important aspect of humanity. They recognise, however, that individuality does not exist in a vacuum but is a social phenomenon. Outside of society, individuality is impossible, since one needs other people in order to develop, expand, and grow.
Moreover, between individual and social development there is a reciprocal effect: individuals grow within and are shaped by a particular society, while at the same time they help shape and change aspects of that society (as well as themselves and other individuals) by their actions and thoughts. A society not based on free individuals, their hopes, dreams and ideas would be hollow and dead. Thus, "the making of a human being... is a collective process, a process in which both community and the individual participate." [Murray Bookchin, The Modern Crisis, p. 79] Consequently, any political theory which bases itself purely on the social or the individual is false.
In order for individuality to develop to the fullest possible extent, anarchists consider it essential to create a society based on three principles: liberty, equality and solidarity. These principles are shared by all anarchists. Thus we find, the communist-anarchist Peter Kropotkin talking about a revolution inspired by "the beautiful words, Liberty, Equality and Solidarity." [The Conquest of Bread, p. 128] Individualist-anarchist Benjamin Tucker wrote of a similar vision, arguing that anarchism "insists on Socialism... on true Socialism, Anarchistic Socialism: the prevalance on earth of Liberty, Equality, and Solidarity." [Instead of a Book, p. 363] All three principles are interdependent.
Liberty is essential for the full flowering of human intelligence, creativity, and dignity. To be dominated by another is to be denied the chance to think and act for oneself, which is the only way to grow and develop one's individuality. Domination also stifles innovation and personal responsibility, leading to conformity and mediocrity. Thus the society that maximises the growth of individuality will necessarily be based on voluntary association, not coercion and authority. To quote Proudhon, "All associated and all free." Or, as Luigi Galleani puts it, anarchism is "the autonomy of the individual within the freedom of association" [The End of Anarchism?, p. 35] (See further section A.2.2 -- Why do anarchists emphasise liberty?).
If liberty is essential for the fullest development of individuality, then equality is essential for genuine liberty to exist. There can be no real freedom in a class-stratified, hierarchical society riddled with gross inequalities of power, wealth, and privilege. For in such a society only a few -- those at the top of the hierarchy -- are relatively free, while the rest are semi-slaves. Hence without equality, liberty becomes a mockery -- at best the "freedom" to choose one's master (boss), as under capitalism. Moreover, even the elite under such conditions are not really free, because they must live in a stunted society made ugly and barren by the tyranny and alienation of the majority. And since individuality develops to the fullest only with the widest contact with other free individuals, members of the elite are restricted in the possibilities for their own development by the scarcity of free individuals with whom to interact. (See also section A.2.5 -- Why are anarchists in favour of equality?)
Finally, solidarity means mutual aid: working voluntarily and co-operatively with others who share the same goals and interests. But without liberty and equality, society becomes a pyramid of competing classes based on the domination of the lower by the higher strata. In such a society, as we know from our own, it's "dominate or be dominated," "dog eat dog," and "everyone for themselves." Thus "rugged individualism" is promoted at the expense of community feeling, with those on the bottom resenting those above them and those on the top fearing those below them. Under such conditions, there can be no society-wide solidarity, but only a partial form of solidarity within classes whose interests are opposed, which weakens society as a whole. (See also section A.2.6 -- Why is solidarity important to anarchists?)
It should be noted that solidarity does not imply self-sacrifice or self-negation. As Errico Malatesta makes clear:
"we are all egoists, we all seek our own satisfaction. But the anarchist finds his greatest satisfaction in struggling for the good of all, for the achievement of a society in which he [sic] can be a brother among brothers, and among healthy, intelligent, educated, and happy people. But he who is adaptable, who is satisfied to live among slaves and draw profit from the labour of slaves, is not, and cannot be, an anarchist." [Errico Malatesta: His Life and Ideas, p. 23]
For anarchists, real wealth is other people and the planet on which we live. Or, in the words of Emma Goldman, it "consists in things of utility and beauty, in things which help to create strong, beautiful bodies and surroundings inspiring to live in... [Our] goal is the freest possible expression of all the latent powers of the individual... Such free display of human energy being possible only under complete individual and social freedom," in other words "social equality." [Red Emma Speaks, pp. 67-8]
Also, honouring individuality does not mean that anarchists are idealists, thinking that people or ideas develop outside of society. Individuality and ideas grow and develop within society, in response to material and intellectual interactions and experiences, which people actively analyse and interpret. Anarchism, therefore, is a materialist theory, recognising that ideas develop and grow from social interaction and individuals' mental activity (see Michael Bakunin's God and the State for the classic discussion of materialism versus idealism).
This means that an anarchist society will be the creation of human beings, not some deity or other transcendental principle, since "[n]othing ever arranges itself, least of all in human relations. It is men [sic] who do the arranging, and they do it according to their attitudes and understanding of things." [Alexander Berkman, What is Anarchism?, p. 185]
Therefore, anarchism bases itself upon the power of ideas and the ability of people to act and transform their lives based on what they consider to be right. In other words, liberty.
A.2.1 What is the essence of anarchism?
As we have seen, "an-archy" implies "without rulers" or "without (hierarchical) authority." Anarchists are not against "authorities" in the sense of experts who are particularly knowledgeable, skilful, or wise, though they believe that such authorities should have no power to force others to follow their recommendations (see section B.1 for more on this distinction). In a nutshell, then, anarchism is anti-authoritarianism.
Anarchists are anti-authoritarians because they believe that no human being should dominate another. Anarchists, in L. Susan Brown's words, "believe in the inherent dignity and worth of the human individual." [The Politics of Individualism, p. 107] Domination is inherently degrading and demeaning, since it submerges the will and judgement of the dominated to the will and judgement of the dominators, thus destroying the dignity and self-respect that comes only from personal autonomy. Moreover, domination makes possible and generally leads to exploitation, which is the root of inequality, poverty, and social breakdown.
In other words, then, the essence of anarchism (to express it positively) is free co-operation between equals to maximise their liberty and individuality.
Co-operation between equals is the key to anti-authoritarianism. By co-operation we can develop and protect our own intrinsic value as unique individuals as well as enriching our lives and liberty for "[n]o individual can recognise his own humanity, and consequently realise it in his lifetime, if not by recognising it in others and co-operating in its realisation for others... My freedom is the freedom of all since I am not truly free in thought and in fact, except when my freedom and my rights are confirmed and approved in the freedom and rights of all men [and women] who are my equals." [Michael Bakunin, quoted by Errico Malatesta, Anarchy, p. 30]
While being anti-authoritarians, anarchists recognise that human beings have a social nature and that they mutually influence each other. We cannot escape the "authority" of this mutual influence, because, as Bakunin reminds us:
"The abolition of this mutual influence would be death. And when we advocate the freedom of the masses, we are by no means suggesting the abolition of any of the natural influences that individuals or groups of individuals exert on them. What we want is the abolition of influences which are artificial, privileged, legal, official." [quoted by Malatesta, Anarchy, p. 51]
In other words, those influences which stem from hierarchical authority.
This is because hierarchical systems like capitalism deny liberty and, as a result, people's "mental, moral, intellectual and physical qualities are dwarfed, stunted and crushed" (see section B.1 for more details). Thus one of "the grand truths of Anarchism" is that "to be really free is to allow each one to live their lives in their own way as long as each allows all to do the same." This is why anarchists fight for a better society, for a society which respects individuals and their freedom. Under capitalism, "[e]verything is upon the market for sale: all is merchandise and commerce" but there are "certain things that are priceless. Among these are life, liberty and happiness, and these are things which the society of the future, the free society, will guarantee to all." Anarchists, as a result, seek to make people aware of their dignity, individuality and liberty and to encourage the spirit of revolt, resistance and solidarity in those subject to authority. This gets us denounced by the powerful as being breakers of the peace, but anarchists consider the struggle for freedom as infinitely better than the peace of slavery. Anarchists, as a result of our ideals, "believe in peace at any price -- except at the price of liberty. But this precious gift the wealth-producers already seem to have lost. Life... they have; but what is life worth when it lacks those elements which make for enjoyment?" [Lucy Parsons, Liberty, Equality & Solidarity, p. 103, p. 131, p. 103 and p. 134]
So, in a nutshell, Anarchists seek a society in which people interact in ways which enhance the liberty of all rather than crush the liberty (and so potential) of the many for the benefit of a few. Anarchists do not want to give others power over themselves, the power to tell them what to do under the threat of punishment if they do not obey. Perhaps non-anarchists, rather than be puzzled why anarchists are anarchists, would be better off asking what it says about themselves that they feel this attitude needs any sort of explanation.
A.2.2 Why do anarchists emphasise liberty?
An anarchist can be regarded, in Bakunin's words, as a "fanatic lover of freedom, considering it as the unique environment within which the intelligence, dignity and happiness of mankind can develop and increase." [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 196] Because human beings are thinking creatures, to deny them liberty is to deny them the opportunity to think for themselves, which is to deny their very existence as humans. For anarchists, freedom is a product of our humanity, because:
"The very fact... that a person has a consciousness of self, of being different from others, creates a desire to act freely. The craving for liberty and self-expression is a very fundamental and dominant trait." [Emma Goldman, Red Emma Speaks, p. 439]
For this reason, anarchism "proposes to rescue the self-respect and independence of the individual from all restraint and invasion by authority. Only in freedom can man [sic!] grow to his full stature. Only in freedom will he learn to think and move, and give the very best of himself. Only in freedom will he realise the true force of the social bonds which tie men together, and which are the true foundations of a normal social life." [Op. Cit., pp. 72-3]
Thus, for anarchists, freedom is basically individuals pursuing their own good in their own way. Doing so calls forth the activity and power of individuals as they make decisions for and about themselves and their lives. Only liberty can ensure individual development and diversity. This is because when individuals govern themselves and make their own decisions they have to exercise their minds and this can have no other effect than expanding and stimulating the individuals involved. As Malatesta put it, "[f]or people to become educated to freedom and the management of their own interests, they must be left to act for themselves, to feel responsibility for their own actions in the good or bad that comes from them. They'd make mistakes, but they'd understand from the consequences where they'd gone wrong and try out new ways." [Fra Contadini, p. 26]
So, liberty is the precondition for the maximum development of one's individual potential, which is also a social product and can be achieved only in and through community. A healthy, free community will produce free individuals, who in turn will shape the community and enrich the social relationships between the people of whom it is composed. Liberties, being socially produced, "do not exist because they have been legally set down on a piece of paper, but only when they have become the ingrown habit of a people, and when any attempt to impair them will meet with the violent resistance of the populace... One compels respect from others when one knows how to defend one's dignity as a human being. This is not only true in private life; it has always been the same in political life as well." In fact, we "owe all the political rights and privileges which we enjoy today in greater or lesser measures, not to the good will of their governments, but to their own strength." [Rudolf Rocker, Anarcho-syndicalism, p. 75]
It is for this reason anarchists support the tactic of "Direct Action" (see section J.2) for, as Emma Goldman argued, we have "as much liberty as [we are] willing to take. Anarchism therefore stands for direct action, the open defiance of, and resistance to, all laws and restrictions, economic, social, and moral." It requires "integrity, self-reliance, and courage. In short, it calls for free, independent spirits" and "only persistent resistance" can "finally set [us] free. Direct action against the authority in the shop, direct action against the authority of the law, direct action against the invasive, meddlesome authority of our moral code, is the logical, consistent method of Anarchism." [Red Emma Speaks, pp. 76-7]
Direct action is, in other words, the application of liberty, used to resist oppression in the here and now as well as the means of creating a free society. It creates the necessary individual mentality and social conditions in which liberty flourishes. Both are essential as liberty develops only within society, not in opposition to it. Thus Murray Bookchin writes:
"What freedom, independence, and autonomy people have in a given historical period is the product of long social traditions and... a collective development -- which is not to deny that individuals play an important role in that development, indeed are ultimately obliged to do so if they wish to be free." [Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism, p. 15]
But freedom requires the right kind of social environment in which to grow and develop. Such an environment must be decentralised and based on the direct management of work by those who do it. For centralisation means coercive authority (hierarchy), whereas self-management is the essence of freedom. Self-management ensures that the individuals involved use (and so develop) all their abilities -- particularly their mental ones. Hierarchy, in contrast, substitutes the activities and thoughts of a few for the activities and thoughts of all the individuals involved. Thus, rather than developing their abilities to the full, hierarchy marginalises the many and ensures that their development is blunted (see also section B.1).
It is for this reason that anarchists oppose both capitalism and statism. As the French anarchist Sebastien Faure noted, authority "dresses itself in two principal forms: the political form, that is the State; and the economic form, that is private property." [cited by Peter Marshall, Demanding the Impossible, p. 43] Capitalism, like the state, is based on centralised authority (i.e. of the boss over the worker), the very purpose of which is to keep the management of work out of the hands of those who do it. This means "that the serious, final, complete liberation of the workers is possible only upon one condition: that of the appropriation of capital, that is, of raw material and all the tools of labour, including land, by the whole body of the workers." [Michael Bakunin, quoted by Rudolf Rocker, Op. Cit., p. 50]
Hence, as Noam Chomsky argues, a "consistent anarchist must oppose private ownership of the means of production and the wage slavery which is a component of this system, as incompatible with the principle that labour must be freely undertaken and under the control of the producer." ["Notes on Anarchism", For Reasons of State, p. 158]
Thus, liberty for anarchists means a non-authoritarian society in which individuals and groups practice self-management, i.e. they govern themselves. The implications of this are important. First, it implies that an anarchist society will be non-coercive, that is, one in which violence or the threat of violence will not be used to "convince" individuals to do anything. Second, it implies that anarchists are firm supporters of individual sovereignty, and that, because of this support, they also oppose institutions based on coercive authority, i.e. hierarchy. And finally, it implies that anarchists' opposition to "government" means only that they oppose centralised, hierarchical, bureaucratic organisations or government. They do not oppose self-government through confederations of decentralised, grassroots organisations, so long as these are based on direct democracy rather than the delegation of power to "representatives" (see section A.2.9 for more on anarchist organisation). For authority is the opposite of liberty, and hence any form of organisation based on the delegation of power is a threat to the liberty and dignity of the people subjected to that power.
Anarchists consider freedom to be the only social environment within which human dignity and diversity can flower. Under capitalism and statism, however, there is no freedom for the majority, as private property and hierarchy ensure that the inclination and judgement of most individuals will be subordinated to the will of a master, severely restricting their liberty and making impossible the "full development of all the material, intellectual and moral capacities that are latent in every one of us." [Michael Bakunin, Bakunin on Anarchism, p. 261] That is why anarchists seek to ensure "that real justice and real liberty might come on earth" for it is "all false, all unnecessary, this wild waste of human life, of bone and sinew and brain and heart, this turning of people into human rags, ghosts, piteous caricatures of the creatures they had it in them to be, on the day they were born; that what is called 'economy', the massing up of things, is in reality the most frightful spending -- the sacrifice of the maker to the made -- the lose of all the finer and nobler instincts in the gain of one revolting attribute, the power to count and calculate." [Voltairine de Cleyre, The First Mayday: The Haymarket Speeches 1895-1910, pp, 17-18]
(See section B for further discussion of the hierarchical and authoritarian nature of capitalism and statism).
A.2.3 Are anarchists in favour of organisation?
Yes. Without association, a truly human life is impossible. Liberty cannot exist without society and organisation. As George Barrett pointed out:
"To get the full meaning out of life we must co-operate, and to co-operate we must make agreements with our fellow-men. But to suppose that such agreements mean a limitation of freedom is surely an absurdity; on the contrary, they are the exercise of our freedom. "If we are going to invent a dogma that to make agreements is to damage freedom, then at once freedom becomes tyrannical, for it forbids men to take the most ordinary everyday pleasures. For example, I cannot go for a walk with my friend because it is against the principle of Liberty that I should agree to be at a certain place at a certain time to meet him. I cannot in the least extend my own power beyond myself, because to do so I must co-operate with someone else, and co-operation implies an agreement, and that is against Liberty. It will be seen at once that this argument is absurd. I do not limit my liberty, but simply exercise it, when I agree with my friend to go for a walk. "If, on the other hand, I decide from my superior knowledge that it is good for my friend to take exercise, and therefore I attempt to compel him to go for a walk, then I begin to limit freedom. This is the difference between free agreement and government." [Objections to Anarchism, pp. 348-9]
As far as organisation goes, anarchists think that "far from creating authority, [it] is the only cure for it and the only means whereby each of us will get used to taking an active and conscious part in collective work, and cease being passive instruments in the hands of leaders." [Errico Malatesta, Errico Malatesta: His Life and Ideas, p. 86] Thus anarchists are well aware of the need to organise in a structured and open manner. As Carole Ehrlich points out, while anarchists "aren't opposed to structure" and simply "want to abolish hierarchical structure" they are "almost always stereotyped as wanting no structure at all." This is not the case, for "organisations that would build in accountability, diffusion of power among the maximum number of persons, task rotation, skill-sharing, and the spread of information and resources" are based on "good social anarchist principles of organisation!" ["Socialism, Anarchism and Feminism", Quiet Rumours: An Anarcha-Feminist Reader, p. 47 and p. 46]
The fact that anarchists are in favour of organisation may seem strange at first, but it is understandable. "For those with experience only of authoritarian organisation," argue two British anarchists, "it appears that organisation can only be totalitarian or democratic, and that those who disbelieve in government must by that token disbelieve in organisation at all. That is not so." [Stuart Christie and Albert Meltzer, The Floodgates of Anarchy, p. 122] In other words, because we live in a society in which virtually all forms of organisation are authoritarian, this makes them appear to be the only kind possible. What is usually not recognised is that this mode of organisation is historically conditioned, arising within a specific kind of society -- one whose motive principles are domination and exploitation. According to archaeologists and anthropologists, this kind of society has only existed for about 5,000 years, having appeared with the first primitive states based on conquest and slavery, in which the labour of slaves created a surplus which supported a ruling class.
Prior to that time, for hundreds of thousands of years, human and proto-human societies were what Murray Bookchin calls "organic," that is, based on co-operative forms of economic activity involving mutual aid, free access to productive resources, and a sharing of the products of communal labour according to need. Although such societies probably had status rankings based on age, there were no hierarchies in the sense of institutionalised dominance-subordination relations enforced by coercive sanctions and resulting in class-stratification involving the economic exploitation of one class by another (see Murray Bookchin, The Ecology of Freedom).
It must be emphasised, however, that anarchists do not advocate going "back to the Stone Age." We merely note that since the hierarchical-authoritarian mode of organisation is a relatively recent development in the course of human social evolution, there is no reason to suppose that it is somehow "fated" to be permanent. We do not think that human beings are genetically "programmed" for authoritarian, competitive, and aggressive behaviour, as there is no credible evidence to support this claim. On the contrary, such behaviour is socially conditioned, or learned, and as such, can be unlearned (see Ashley Montagu, The Nature of Human Aggression). We are not fatalists or genetic determinists, but believe in free will, which means that people can |
the war against ISIS] it has arrested more than 1,000 people in Turkey and carried out waves of air raids in neighboring Syria and Iraq. But most of those arrests and air strikes, say Kurdish leaders, have hit Kurdish and left wing groups, not ISIS. *** Kurds are an ethnic minority that live in parts of Syria, Iraq, Turkey and Iran. They have been persecuted for decades — from Turkey’s suppression of Kurdish identity and banning of Kurdish language to Saddam Hussein’s use of chemical weapons on Kurdish communities. Their leaders, from the numerous different parties and rebel groups that represent them, have long sought an independent Kurdish state encompassing that territory and have fought against their respective governments to try to achieve that. *** Hoshang Waziri, a political analyst based in Erbil, says the Kurds’ recent territorial gains in Syria along Turkey’s border and their increasing political legitimacy in the eyes of the West, have made the Kurds a bigger threat to Turkey than ISIS. “The fear of the Turkish state started with the Kurdish defeat of ISIS in Tel Abyad,” says Waziri. *** “The image in the West of the Kurds as a reliable ally on the ground is terrifying for Turkey,” says Waziri. “So before it’s too late, Turkey waged its war — not against ISIS, but against the PKK.” *** Some see the war against ISIS simply as a cover for an attack on Kurdish groups. Of the more than 1,000 people Turkey has arrested in security sweeps in recent days, 80% are Kurdish, associated either with the PKK or the non-violent Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), says?brahim Ayhan, a member of parliament for the HDP. *** Ayhan says the AKP needs a state of “chaos” to perusade voters that it is the only bulwark against chaos. As of yet no new government has been formed in Turkey and if that doesn’t happen in the next few weeks, new elections will be called. By that time Ayhad fears many of the leaders of his HDP party will be in jail and some even worry the HDP will be outlawed. At the same time, Erdo?an and his AKP hope they will have shown only they can defend Turkey from internal and external threats.
The Wall Street Journal reports:
Turkey’s military activity against Islamic State does not stem from sudden realizations about threats from ISIS but appears designed to elicit international support for its fight against the Kurds. The Kurdish Workers’ Party, known as the PKK, was locked in a bloody war with the Turkish state from the mid-1980s until 2013. The cease-fire has, for all intents and purposes, been destroyed. Turkey is battling both ISIS and the PKK under the guise of fighting terrorism. Yet Turkish attempts to conflate ISIS and the PKK–even in the wake of the suicide bombing in a Kurdish border town that killed 32 young people–effectively ask people to overlook some salient facts: The Kurds are Islamic State’s ideological opposites. The Kurds have been fighting ISIS in Syria and Iraq for some time; in particular, the Kurdish People’s Protection Unit (YPG) in northern Syria has been among the most effective forces at repelling ISIS efforts to take control of the Syrian-Turkish border. Kurdish military resistance in Syria and, to a lesser extent, the Kurdish autonomous government in Iraq have shouldered the lion’s share of the ground conflict against Islamic State, standing their ground at high cost and with limited support from the Western coalition. *** A declaration of a state of emergency in Turkey would give the Justice and Development Party (or AKP), which lost its parliamentary majority in June elections, more flexibility to crack down on political opponents such as the Kurdish majority People’s Democratic Party. More than 1,300 people have been detained recently under the guise of cracking down on domestic PKK and ISIS elements in Turkey. The AKP has declared the peace process with the Kurdish separatists dead and is trying to discredit the only recognized political representatives of the Turkish left and the Kurdish population; the Kurdish People’s Democratic Party won a 13% share of the Turkish parliament in the June elections–a sign of its rising popularity not only among Kurds but also with increasingly disgruntled Turkish liberals. *** If a governing coalition isn’t formed, early elections will be held. The AKP appears to be hoping for that–under the thinking that a majority of voters would seek to maintain the status quo in a time of uncertainty and potential civil war, and that AKP’s standing in parliament would, in turn, be strengthened.
So Turkey isn’t really going after ISIS … instead, the ruling party is going after its main political threat – the Kurds – and continuing its long-term effort to overthrow Syria’s Assad.Romney, Obama: When Wooing Female Voters, Check Marital Status First
Enlarge this image toggle caption David Maxwell/EPA/Landov David Maxwell/EPA/Landov
What do women want, electorally speaking?
We know that women, like men, are "not some monolithic bloc," to quote the current occupant of the White House.
But as a group they are reliably influential voters, more risk-averse than men, and — pollsters tell us — generally more likely than the opposite sex to vote for Democrats, oppose the use of military force and support government programs.
In 2008, unmarried women, one of the nation's fastest-growing demographic groups, were a key to Barack Obama's presidential win.
They broke for the Democratic senator from Illinois over Republican Sen. John McCain, 70 percent to 29 percent; married women preferred McCain, 50 percent to 47 percent.
Four years earlier, unmarried women — those who are single, separated, divorced or widowed — preferred Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry, 62-37 percent. The margin was similarly tilted in favor of Democrat Al Gore in the 2000 White House contest.
But — and this is key — married women supported Republican George W. Bush in both those earlier elections by measurably wider margins than they went for McCain.
In 2004, for example, they preferred Bush over Kerry by 11 percentage points.
So it's no surprise that female voters have been a focus of both parties going into a presidential contest that promises to be exceedingly close.
Democrats have been fueling their Republican-war-on-women narrative; Republicans are counterprogramming with a focus on how women have been walloped as the economy continues to falter.
Instead of just asking what women want, the more salient question may be a two-parter:
Will unmarried women, estimated to number 55 million and representing about a quarter of the nation's eligible voters, retain their ballot-box ardor for Obama? And will their married counterparts give Republican candidate Mitt Romney more electoral love than they gave McCain?
We put those questions to pollsters who have been tracking voter preferences in this presidential year. Here's what we've come away with at this point in the race:
Republicans will most likely continue to have marginal opportunity for inroads with unmarried women, even given the faltering economy.
Unmarried women present Republicans their most vexing combination — voters who are predominantly young, or youngish, and women. "Both groups are very difficult for Republicans," says Iowa-based pollster J. Ann Selzer, who conducts surveys for Bloomberg News.
Enlarge this image toggle caption Jae C. Hong/AP Jae C. Hong/AP
In some ways, the task is even more difficult than trying to peel away African-American votes from the Democratic Party. "They have more opportunity with Hispanics than with women," Selzer says, noting, however, that Romney may have room to increase his margin with "affluent white women."
Says ABC pollster Gary Langer of Langer Research Associates: "A Republican candidate is a hard sell among unmarried women because they are so rooted in the Democratic Party."
Romney has the opportunity to gain ground with married women.
Langer argues that incumbents like Obama typically get the benefit of the doubt when people make Election Day choices. If voters decide they're satisfied with the incumbent, "you move on, you're done." The challenger gets a look only after that initial calculation.
"But I think Obama loses some of the natural advantages of incumbency because of the economy," Langer says. And, among women, those who are married "are more movable, and present more opportunity for the Republican Party," he says.
ABC's late May survey that showed a Romney rebound among women (though he still trailed Obama in favorability, 52-41 percent) largely reflected Republican women coalescing around the candidate at the end of the party's primary season battles.
But, Langer says, those moving to Romney also included a not-insignificant number of non-Republican women, independents, and "even some Democratic women expressing a more favorable view."
A Selzer survey for Bloomberg released in March showed that women view the Democratic Party only a bit more favorably than they do the GOP.
The female-vote gap may benefit Obama in states where contraception and abortion issues were local.
A new Quinnipiac University Polling Institute survey taken in Pennsylvania cited Obama's strong support among women and independents as fuel for his 46-40 percent lead over Romney in the Keystone State.
Enlarge this image toggle caption Carolyn Kaster/AP Carolyn Kaster/AP
Tim Malloy, the institute's assistant director, says that comments made in March by the state's GOP Gov. Tom Corbett defending a bill that would have required women to have an ultrasound before an abortion contributed to the president's hold on a steady lead. (Corbett said that an ultrasound is not that big an issue because women "just have to close your eyes" during the procedure.)
"I'm not saying there's a war on women, but this perpetuated the perceptions that Democrats have pushed," Malloy says. The "war on women" narrative is a "long-term strategy," Selzer says, "and Democrats are working to provide the evidence that it's true." That included pushing the "Paycheck Fairness Act" in Congress last week.
Polling in Pennsylvania, however, also shows that Romney is outperforming Obama on the question of who is better on the economy, while the president's personal popularity continues to exceed Romney's.
The economy will be the key for men and women, and it's up to the candidates to make their case.
"The economy overwhelmingly is the issue of the election," Langer says, noting that more than half of people he surveyed named it as the most important issue, with all other issues measuring in the single digits. "In the later spring," he notes, "we've had a period of increasing economic discontent with a slowdown of earlier-year improvements in the job market — and that's weighing fairly heavily on women."
The president, he says, is vulnerable on the economy. "Mitt Romney will get a look, but he has not seized the opportunity and proven that he can do better," Langer says. "The question is, can he make the case that he can?"
What women, married and unmarried, want isn't very different from what men want, what all Americans want, he says: a return to economic opportunity and an ability to get and hold a job.
There is opportunity for both Obama and Romney, with a narrow but important cadre of female voters, largely married, largely moderate, to help swing November's vote in their favor.People usually think of religion in terms of a lifetime of commitment, but could you learn anything from trying one out for a month?
The call to prayer sounds from Eyup Mosque in Istanbul and local Muslims gather on the marble square outside for prayer. Men on one side, women the other, they crowd on mats for the Friday ritual.
Among them this week though are a few faces looking less than confident about what comes next.
Barbra Taylor, from Hawaii, and Terry Goldsmith, from Bury, Greater Manchester, are two of them. They're not Muslim, but guests for nine days.
This is part of Muslim for a Month - a programme from social enterprise group The Blood Foundation where participants get to "test-drive" a religion.
"Coming away to do this process, some of my friends have questioned it and said, 'Are you crazy? Aren't you going to the enemy camp?'" Taylor says.
I was bemused that something that we take as sacred as religion could become like a shopping mall H Masud Taj, Participant
"They feel anyone who's even remotely affiliated with the Muslim faith is a terrorist. I just felt this programme is interesting to me - I had an interest in Turkey and also I felt there was a misunderstanding about perhaps the second largest religion in the world."
For Goldsmith it was his changing surroundings at home that inspired the trip.
"One of the things is that there are a large number of Muslim people in the area I live in," he explains.
"I don't really know much about the people and I'd like to learn something of the religion and the culture."
Participants pray, fast, have lectures from Muslim scholars and spend time with Turkish families. Most are here for their first taste of Islam, but some for a deeper understanding of the Sufi culture of Turkey.
H Masud Taj is an architect from Canada, brought up Muslim in India. There were a number of questions about why he needed to become Muslim for a Month.
"My first response was that I was bemused, frankly," he says. "I was bemused that something that we take as sacred as religion could become like a shopping mall - try this out for a month.
"It really seemed a very post-modern phenomenon, but, once here it really envelops you with its own world view so I think it's fascinating."
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Barbra Taylor encountered concern from some friends when she took part
Like many of the participants, Taj felt that Turkey was the place to hold this course. It may not have worked in other Muslim countries.
There were tougher moments for participants; some women found being separated from the males in the group somewhat jarring. The organisers say this is all part of the experience.
"I mean these are very hot points that often if they're not dealt with can be blown out of all proportion," says Ben Bowler of the Blood Foundation.
"The difference is sticking with that and working through that and certainly there is an element of how women are treated in a religious sense in Islam, which is different from what we would expect in our culture. But this is the point of a cultural exchange - if it was exactly the same it wouldn't be interesting."
Taylor says she's taking home a different outlook, although she won't be pushing it with her friends back in America. The subject's still too sensitive, she says.
"I've really learnt a lot this trip. We've been fully immersed - praying in a mosque, the ladies coming to show us what to do, really it's been a real eye-opener for me in a positive way."
But the organisers say it's been a tough ride. The title Muslim for a Month has put many people off, with some parts of the travel industry refusing to promote it because of the unease surrounding Islam in some quarters.
"Sufi for a month" is going to start running as an alternative and plans for "Sikh for a week" are under way.An attorney for Kenny Rogers says his client knows he made "a stupid decision" when he sent a fellow Mississippi State booster a text of Cecil Newton's payment plan to secure a commitment from his son, Cam Newton, to the Bulldogs.
In a phone interview with The Associated Press Thursday, Doug Zeit says Rogers sent the text after Cecil Newton insisted he do it. Zeit says Rogers sent the text to Bill Bell requesting $80,000 the day after Cam Newton signed with MSU, $50,000 30 days later and another $50,000 30 days after that.
Zeit says no money ever changed hands.
The Newtons' attorney, George Lawson, told WSB-TV of Atlanta on Thursday that he is "1 million percent" certain Cam Newton -- who signed with Auburn -- did not take any money. Lawson says if Cecil Newton discussed money, his son "knew nothing" about it.
Lawson told the Atlanta TV station that the Auburn quarterback has not taken any money in exchange for playing college football.
"No money has been offered to Cam Newton," Lawson told WSB-TV. "Cam Newton [hasn't] asked for any money."
Wednesday, ESPN.com reported that Bell, a Mississippi State booster and former player at the school, told the NCAA he received a text message from a man claiming to represent Newton's father, Cecil, that outlined a payment plan designed to bring the quarterback to the Bulldogs.
Bell said Rogers told him Cecil Newton wanted money for his son to play at Mississippi State. Bell told ESPN.com he also shared a series of voice mail messages from Rogers with the NCAA last week. Bell said Cecil Newton never specifically asked him for money, but that Cecil Newton was present during three-way calls in which Rogers discussed a pay-for-play scheme.Six Nations Championship 2014
Dates: 1 February-15 March Coverage: All matches live on BBC TV, radio and BBC Sport website
Wales coach Warren Gatland says it is unlikely captain Sam Warburton will feature in their opener against Italy in Cardiff on 1 February.
The 25-year-old flanker, who has been out since the end of November with shoulder damage, is confident he will be available for selection but Gatland is not sure.
"Probably he won't be available for the Italian game," said Gatland.
"We'll just see how next week pans out."
Gatland says he has discussed with Warburton the possibility of playing for the Cardiff Blues as part of his bid to get up to speed for the start of the Six Nations.
"He hasn't had a lot of rugby but he's not going to be too far away," said Gatland.
"We've discussed that and he feels himself he might need a bit of rugby and it might be a game with the Blues."
If Warburton does not make the Italy game Gatland is happy with the cover he has in the Wales squad for the back-row forward.
Wales' Six Nations fixtures 1 Feb: Italy (H)
Italy (H) 8 Feb: Ireland (A)
Ireland (A) 21 Feb: France (H)
France (H) 9 March: England (A)
England (A) 15 March: Scotland (H)
"We're lucky enough in that position," said Gatland.
"Sam can play at six as well and we've got the quality of Justin Tipuric as well.
"It's a pretty attritional position in terms of players picking up knocks and bangs and we've just got to make sure that Sam's right and hopefully we won't pick up too many injuries as the tournament goes on."
Wales are going for their third straight Six Nations title - a feat which has never been done before.
Gatland says it will be tough to achieve but is something his squad is focusing on as they prepare for the tournament.
"For us it's nice to be able to come into a campaign with a sort of a single focus and the single focus is to do something that's potentially special," said Gatland.
"But it's a really hard tournament to win, we haven't started yet, so it's nice to have that sort of focus right from the start, so there's a huge amount of excitement at the moment and a lot of motivation as well."Forget the Targaryens, the Greyjoys and *spit* the Lannisters, Game of Thrones’ best clan is undoubtedly the Starks. Game of Thrones season 7 may yet reunite the North’s favourite family – we’ll have to wait and see – but the closest we’ll get until then is the Starks together looking all happy (for once) in a new photo, and the cast revealing what a Stark reunion might look like.
Entertainment Weekly have shared a wonderfully joyous shot of the four remaining members of the Starks enjoying themselves (though Bran appears to have forgot the memo to smile). I’m currently praying to the Lord of Light to let us see them back together for realsies.
But what would a Stark reunion look like in season 7? Jon Snow, Bran, and Sansa weighed in and their responses ranged from half-joking (board games), to traumatic (hoping there won’t be another Red Wedding), to realistic (a mahoosive feast). See the video for yourself below. It’ll warm your cold, cold heart – especially after that Game of Thrones season 7 trailer.
.@GameOfThrones stars imagine what a Stark family reunion would really look like! https://t.co/Wqk8xv1DAW #GameOfThrones pic.twitter.com/8d45X0HAyt25 May 2017
Image: HBO/Entertainment WeeklyWhile grocery shopping with my sister and her husband at Kuhn�s Market in Hopewell Shopping Center, my sister experienced a seizure.
She felt it coming on, as she had experienced others prior to this episode.
I calmly called out for help, because my sister was standing and asked that I try to prevent her from falling.
A young man nearby grabbed my sister underneath her arms and prevented her from falling to the floor.
The seizure continued for some time, but my sister was alert enough to recognize that a total stranger came to her assistance.
Once we got her seated, and while waiting for the ambulance, my sister told me to go find the young man and get his number so she could thank him later.
He refused; said he was raised that such behavior as he exhibited was expected, and to be without reward.
My sister wishes to express her most sincere gratitude for this young man�s concern and kindness.
All we know is his name is Jeff.
Linda Childress
Hopewell TownshipAnother Free Speech Win In Libel Lawsuit Disguised As A Trademark Complaint
from the free-roaming-anti-SLAPP-law-pitches-in dept
Unless the Supreme Court decides to weigh in on this long-running SLAPP lawsuit (highly unlikely -- and unlikely to be appealed to that level), it looks like it's finally the end of the line for Dr. Edward Tobinick and his quest to silence a critic of his questionable medical practices.
Quick recap: Dr. Tobinick claimed he could treat Alzheimer's, strokes, and other neurological maladies by repurposing an immunosuppressant drug. Dr. Steven Novella disagreed with Tobinick's unsubstantiated claims and wrote a few blog posts detailing his problems with Tobinick's treatments.
Tobinick is not a neurologist, and yet he feels it is appropriate for him to treat multiple neurological conditions with an experimental treatment. It is generally considered unethical for physicians to practice outside of their area of competence and expertise. He is trained in internal medicine and dermatology and is certified in those specialties. He has never completed a neurology residency nor is he board certified in neurology. Despite his lack of formal training and certification, he feels he has ushered in a “paradigm shift” in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease – a disease that has proved challenging for actual neurologists for decades.
Novella is not alone in his criticism of Tobinick's untested treatment methods. Early on in the case, Marc Randazza summarized the general medical community mood.
Dr. Novella’s critical opinions of the Plaintiffs are not outlier views. In fact, the prevailing view seems to be that Dr. Tobnick is, at best, irresponsible. On the first page of Google alone, there are numerous other articles written by other authors, entirely unrelated to the article at hand, that also express critical and unflattering opinions of Tobinick and Plaintiffs’ “medical” practice.
Hoping to avoid an anti-SLAPP ruling or the judicial scrutiny that normally comes with defamation complaints, Tobinick tried to frame his censorship pleas as trademark law violations, claiming Novella's blog posts were "commercial speech" designed to interfere with his ability to earn an income treating people with questionable drug repurposing.
The lower court didn't care much for Tobinick's arguments. It found no merit in his severely-stretched Lanham Act claims and, better yet, applied California's anti-SLAPP law to the lawsuit Tobinick filed in Florida.
Tobinick appealed. And all he's really succeeded in doing is generating more legal fees he'll be responsible for. The Eleventh Circuit Appeals Court has upheld [PDF] the lower court's decision, handing Dr. Novella, attorney Marc Randazza, and the First Amendment a significant win. (If you're a fan of oral, the arguments can be found here.)
Appellants Edward Lewis Tobinick, MD (“INR CA”), INR PLLC (“INR FL”), and M.D. Edward Tobinick (“Dr. Tobinick”) (collectively, the “Tobinick Appellants”) appeal the district court’s orders striking INR CA’s state law claims pursuant to California’s anti-SLAPP statute, twice denying amendment of the Tobinick Appellants’ complaint, denying relief pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (“Rule”) 37, 56(d), and 60 due to potential discovery-related abuses, and granting summary judgment against the Tobinick Appellants on their Lanham Act claim. We affirm the district court in all respects.
As for Tobinick's attempt to keep an anti-SLAPP law from another state from killing his Florida lawsuit, the appeals court points out that if this was an issue Tobinick wanted addressed, he needed to raise it with the lower court, rather than use the appeals process to develop unexplored options.
The Tobinick Appellants waived their challenge to the district court’s application of California’s anti-SLAPP statute based on the Erie doctrine. The Tobinick Appellants did not raise the Erie claim in their response to Dr. Novella’s special motion to strike INR CA’s state law claims, nor do the Tobinick Appellants now contend that they ever raised the issue before the district court. Moreover, when asked by the district judge “what about the issue of anti-SLAPP statutes applying in diversity cases in federal court?” the Tobinick Appellants’ counsel responded “[t]here seems to be a plethora of case law that suggests that it is allowable in diversity actions in federal court.” No exception to waiver saves the Tobinick Appellants’ claim. The Tobinick Appellants have not identified any miscarriage of justice resulting from a finding of waiver, nor do we see one, given the weakness of the Tobinick Appellants’ state law claims.
The appeals court is even less kind to Tobinick's Lanham Act violation accusations -- all of which hinge on defining Novella's blog posts as commercial speech. Not only did Tobinick repurpose trademark law in an attempt to turn a baseless libel lawsuit into something that might survive the first motion to dismiss, but his Lanham Act arguments rely on a conspiracy theory Alex Jones himself might find implausible.
As a preliminary matter, there is no factual dispute as to where the articles were displayed online, how the websites were set up, and whether the websites generated revenue through advertisements and membership subscriptions. The Tobinick Appellants describe a complex “funneling” scheme to generate profit for Dr. Novella, in which the Tobinick Appellants claim that the two articles are connected to other websites through hyperlinks in a way that readers are directed to websites that generate revenue for Dr. Novella, such as through advertising or membership subscriptions. This funneling theory, which attempts to connect the articles to revenue sources, relies on such a level of attenuation that it fails to demonstrate economic motivation in the commercial speech context.
Even if it were more easily-connected, Novella's speech would still be protected and not in violation of the Lanham Act. The court points out Novella's medical practice has no overlap with Tobinick's. Furthermore, the content of Novella's articles -- the examination of a potentially-dangerous misapplication of immunosuppressant drugs -- is very much in the public interest, which only strengthens its First Amendment protections.
As the court points out, finding critical speech that results in revenue a violation of the Lanham Act would do serious harm to the most famous beneficiaries of the First Amendment.
To be sure, neither the placement of the articles next to revenue-generating advertising nor the ability of a reader to pay for a website subscription would be sufficient in this case to show a liability-causing economic motivation for Dr. Novella’s informative articles. Both advertising and subscriptions are typical features of newspapers, whether online or in-print. But, the Supreme Court has explained that “[i]f a newspaper’s profit motive were determinative, all aspects of its operations—from the selection of news stories to the choice of editorial position—would be subject to regulation if it could be established that they were conducted with a view toward increased sales. Such a basis for regulation clearly would be incompatible with the First Amendment.” Furthermore, as our sister circuits have recognized, magazines and newspapers often have commercial purposes, but those purposes do not convert the individual articles within these editorial sources into commercial speech subject to Lanham Act liability.
This puts Dr. Tobinick back where he was in October 2015: on the hook for legal fees because he figured the best response to speech he didn't like was a bogus Lanham Act lawsuit. And, as is of particular relevance given recent events, more courts are applying states' anti-SLAPP laws to baseless lawsuits, regardless of the jurisdiction in which they're filed.
Filed Under: anti-slapp, defamation, edward tobinick, florida, free speech, libel, marc randazza, slapp, steven novella, trademarkEach year more than 6.6 million people die before their fifth birthday. Nearly half of these children, says a new report from the World Health Organization, lived in just five countries: India, Nigeria, China, Pakistan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. And, nearly half of these deaths were linked to malnutrition.
Even among these five countries, says a release from the WHO, India stands out. The infant mortality rate in India, according to the CIA, is 44.6 deaths per 1000 births. In the U.S. it’s 5.9 per 1000. The WHO says that 56 of every 1,000 Indian children will die before they turn five. This isn’t the highest rate—that unfortunate award goes to Angola, in southern African, where on average 164 of every 1,000 people die by age 5. Though, by sheer scale, more children are lost in India each year than any other country in the world—22 percent of deaths in children under five take place in India.
There’s some good news, though. The rate of child mortality is dropping fast. In 1990, says the WHO, 12 million children under age 5 died. In 2012, we lost 6.6 million. They say that more progress could easily come with increased access to basic health care, such as vaccines and antibiotics, and to increased access to nutritious food.
More from Smithsonian.com:
Canada’s Forgotten Experiments on Malnourished Indigenous Kids
Great Depression Had Little Effect on Death RatesHow to start an Open Science revolution! An interview with patient advocate, Graham Steel.
Continuing our Open Science Stars interview series, today we’re happy to bring to you Graham Steel, a relentless campaigner for all things Open!
Hi Graham, and thanks for joining us here! Could you start off by letting us know a little bit about your background?
For 25 years, my background (as in day job) was dealing with insurance claims for various insurers, legal firms and service providers. In my spare time as of around 2001, I became involved in research/science outreach and as of now, I would class myself as an open science enthusiast. From Jan 2015 – August 2016, I acted as Community Manager (then Social Media Manager) for ContentMine.
When did you first hear about open access/data/science? What were your initial thoughts?
In order, I first heard about open access late 2006, open science the following year and then open data. My initial thoughts were that all these entities were much needed and refreshing alternatives to all that I had seen or read about such topics up until then, i.e., closed access, prohibitive paywalls, “data not shown” etc.
You’re what some people call a ‘Patient Advocate’ – what is that, and what’s the story there?
The terms Patient Advocate and Patient Advocacy broadly speaking can mean a number of things. By definition, “Patient advocacy is an area of lay specialization in health care concerned with advocacy for patients, survivors, and carers”. For myself personally, this began in 2001 and mainly concerned bereaved relatives and then patients and their family members. See here for further details.
You relentlessly campaign for various aspects of open science – what drives you in this?
My means of background, I would say with certainty that during the period of around 2008 – 2011, the (sadly now deceased) social media aggregator site Friendfeed was the space in which the foundations for a lot of my current thinking were set out. Prior to that, having already been primed with open access and open data, that’s pretty much where open science really took off in earnest. Science and indeed research in the open is without question the way forward for all.
Science and indeed research in the open is without question the way forward for all.
You’re not exactly silent in your angst against some publishers for their business practices. What are the major issues that you have here?
With regards to the “angst” you mention, I have been become a more mature/level headed individual these days in this respect compared to a few years ago. Looking through my blog posts over the years, these have mainly been about ‘pro open’ issues rather than ‘bashing certain publishers’. As a prolific tweeter though, I may have put out <ahem> ‘a few’ ones where I have not exactly been ‘silent’ as you say.
How does social media play a role in your daily activities as an open advocate?
What is this thing called social media that you mention? Having joined Twitter in January 2008, initially I didn’t use it that much but that has certainly changed over time. “@McDawg posts an average of 53.51 tweets per day” according to one of many free online tools. Social media is pretty much essential for what I and many many others do pretty much everyday.
How does open access play into the bigger picture of open knowledge and open culture?
Great question! Firstly, I thought about a comment (in part) I made in an interview back in 2012. “OA itself however is just one cog (but a significant one) in the wheel of Open Science!!” In my mind, I don’t think it’s easy to ‘timeline’ as you were the onset and development of all things open. I’ve not studied free/open culture in vast detail myself. A good source in this area (not surprisingly) is Lawrence Lessig. See here for details. The history of open access dates back to around the 1950s. When ArXiv.org started in 1991 that was the precursor to what we know as open access today. In short, I would say that open access is a foundation stone to the grander scheme of things.
I would say that open access is a foundation stone to the grander scheme of things
You’re a major player in communities such as OpenCon – what position do you think these play in the development of open initiatives across the planet?
I think it’s important to have a number of open communities/initiatives across the planet and that there should be synergy between them wherever possible. Specifically, OpenCon “was convened in response to incredible desire from the next generation to advance these issues.” [Open Access, Open Data, and Open Education]. Other than the annual OpenCon event which has taken place every year since 2014, the community hold regular calls online (open to anyone with an internet connection) as well as many satellite events around the planet before, during and after the main event each year. I am extremely encouraged by such activities.
You once said at OpenCon SpotOn London that getting younger students and researchers to practice open science was the real revolution – what did you mean by this?
What I meant by that is reflected by the answer to it. In context, that was a short comment I made when live-streaming a Panel Discussion, “What do you need to start a revolution?” in 2012 in London. VIDEO. Transcript of what I said:- “A question for Ethan (Ethan Perlstein) from an Open Science Enthusiast to an Open Scientist. What can we do to further encourage upcoming younger researchers to be open scientists? That’s the revolution!”
Ethan replied, “For sure. I mean to me, the first step was simply getting on Twitter and realizing there’s a community of solidarity out there ‘cause otherwise, you’re just stewing in your own thoughts. So that’s my definition of the first step. And then from there, people are going to have more specific interests and you’ll find a sub group within the larger community that you can then complement the social network activity with real face to face activity and then you can start to do important things. The only thing I can say is that you need to first find that community of solidarity and Twitter is the easiest way to find them.”
How can younger students commit to open research practices without the fear of career or scooping risk hanging over them?
In reverse order, the issue of scooping. My advice would be to get your work/data/code out there on the internet as quickly as possible. This could be via an Open Notebook, on GitHub, or somewhere within the many platforms of Wikipedia etc. In terms of research papers, there are now many options to choose from in terms of uploading a preprint of your work. With regards to the fear of career risk, be bold! Take a ‘wear open on your sleeve’ attitude. I can highly recommend watching Erin McKeirnan’s talk from OpenCon 2015. Also check out her project Why Open Research?. Also from that event, I would suggest watching Michael Eisen’s talk, Wear Open on Your Sleeve.
How have policies in the UK with regards to open science changed over the last few years? What do you think the most influential factors here have been? Do you think they are generally progressive policies?
This is a complex issue with so many players involved. When I first started to follow the UK’s position with regards to open access many years ago, most of the key research funders had a reasonably strong position on ‘encouraging’ open access. (The exception being Wellcome Trust who started mandating open access in 2005). That wasn’t largely effective (as elsewhere) which in part led to The Finch Group/Report around 2012. The outcome of Finch was a preference for Gold open access.
Since then, there have been influential factors by funders such as Wellcome Trust, the world’s largest medical research charity funding research into human and animal health. Wellcome’s progressive policies/position on open access can be found on various pages on their website such as here, here, and here. This year, they announced their own unique open access publishing |
Rated R, and provided additional songwriting and lyrics to the group, in addition to lead vocals on several songs.
Release and marketing [ edit ]
In September 2002, Josh Homme explained the band's goals with the release of the album:
“ I've been thinking of this album since the first album, not necessarily the radio thing, but to me that isn't the full concept, the full concept is the diversity of it all, I think we're supposed to be pushing buttons over the three records. I've always looked at our first three records as a set: the first one was to distance ourselves from Kyuss, the second album fanned out the music into different areas and this one takes that out even a little further, I think.[17] ”
In the same month, Nick Oliveri explained the band's aims in an interview with retail company HMV:
“ We're still doin' the same thing we always did, which is play music that we wanna hear but we can't buy it in the stores so we have to make it. We're not trying to cater to anybody — I wouldn't know how to do that because I've never sold records, you know what I mean? 'Let's write a single!' I don't know what that is — I've never had one.[18] ”
Between them, Homme and Oliveri had different opinions on the usage of fake radio excerpts between tracks on the album, the former believing it gave the album "fluidity". According to Oliveri, they are a jibe at "how a lot of stations play the same thing over and over. We don't get played on the radio, so I figure we should talk shit about them."[19]
Several songs that appeared on the album were re-worked forms of tracks previously recorded and released in The Desert Sessions, a side project of Josh Homme with various guest collaborators. "You Think I Ain't Worth a Dollar, But I Feel Like a Millionaire" was the opening track of Volume 5: Poetry for the Masses (Sea Shed Shit Head by the She Sore), with vocals originally performed by Mario Lalli instead of Oliveri. "Hangin' Tree" first appeared on Volume 7: Gypsy Marches.[20] Also, both "A Song for the Deaf" and "Go with the Flow" were previously performed as early as 2001 with the former having very different lyrics and vocals completely by Mark Lanegan.[21] The main riff for "No One Knows" comes from another Desert Sessions track, "Cold Sore Superstars".[22]
The album was initially planned for release on August 13, 2002,[23] but was eventually postponed for two weeks.[24]
Artwork [ edit ]
The cover art for the U.S. double LP version of the album is different from the CD version, featuring a red Q (with a sperm cell as the line in the Q and an egg cell as the circle) on a black background with no other text. It was released on red vinyl. The UK vinyl version cover is the same as the CD cover. The dashboard/interior with superimposed logos is that of a Fiat 124 Sport Spider, a 1960s–1980s mass market Italian sports car. The person on the album disc is musician Dave Catching, who performs on the album.[25]
Both the CD and LP cover have a Parental Advisory seal on most copies, due to the word "fuck" appearing in the title track "A Song for the Deaf" and "Six Shooter", as well as for the violent lyrics of the latter track.
There were also three different album covers that were made for the CD version of Songs for the Deaf. All of the interior artwork for each of the three versions is the same, but there were covers printed in red, magenta, and orange. The most common copy of the album sleeve is the red cover.[citation needed]
Reception [ edit ]
Songs for the Deaf was Queens of the Stone Age's breakout album and garnered the band international recognition. Upon its worldwide release in late August 2002, the album peaked at number 17 on the Billboard 200 album chart.[37]
Songs for the Deaf received critical acclaim and is often cited as one of the band's greatest albums to date.[38] On Metacritic, which assigns a rating out of 100 from aggregated critic reviews, Songs for the Deaf is assigned a score of 89, indicating "universal acclaim",[26] making the album the third highest-rated on the site from 2002.[39] Josh Tyrangiel of Entertainment Weekly called it "the year's best hard-rock album", giving it an A.[29] Splendid said "the bottom line is that QOTSA turns in another genre-demolishing, hard-as-titanium album in Songs for the Deaf. This is not your father's metal. It's better."[40] Mojo listed the album as the year's third best.[41] Kludge ranked it at number six on their list of best albums of 2002.[42] NME placed the album as the sixth best, with the three singles each making the magazine's "Tracks of the Year" list over the course of 2002/2003.[43] Kerrang! rated the album at number 1 on its "Best albums of 2002" list.[44] Music critic Steven Hyden called the album the greatest hard-rock record of the 21st century.[45]
The album met with great success earning the band's first gold certification in the US on January 27, 2003, shifting over 500,000 copies, as well as platinum certification in the UK on September 20, 2002, with sales exceeding 100,000 of units sold.[46] and platinum status in Canada.[47] As of June 2007 the total amount of sold copies in the US is estimated at 1,186,000 according to Nielsen Soundscan.
The album received two Best Hard Rock Performance Grammy nominations for singles "No One Knows" (2002),[48] and "Go with the Flow" (2003).[49]
To celebrate the twentieth anniversary of its "Hottest 100" poll, Australian radio station Triple J ran a "Hottest 100 of the last 20 years" poll in June 2013. Songs that were released between 1994 and 2013 were eligible for the poll and "No One Knows" was voted into eleventh position.[50][51]
Accolades [ edit ]
The information regarding accolades attributed to Songs for the Deaf is adapted from Acclaimed Music.[52]
Publication Country Accolade Year Rank Dagsavisen Norway The 21 Best Albums of the 21st Century[53] 2005 16 VPRO Netherlands 299 Nominations of the Best Album of All Time[54] 2006 33 HARP United States 50 Most Essential Albums since 2001"[55] 2006 48 NME United Kingdom The 100 Greatest Albums of the Decade[56] 2009 15 Uncut United Kingdom Uncut's Albums of the Decade[57] 2009 28 Pitchfork United States The Top 200 Albums of the 2000s[58] 2009 134 Decibel Magazine United States The 100 Greatest Metal Albums of the Decade[59] 2009 7 Rock Hard Germany The 500 Greatest Rock & Metal Albums of All Time[60] 2005 380
Track listing [ edit ]
All tracks written by Joshua Homme and Nick Oliveri, except where noted. Lead vocals by Joshua Homme except where noted.
International Bonus Track No. Title Length 15. "Everybody's Gonna Be Happy" The Kinks cover) 2:35
US Vinyl Bonus Track No. Title Length 15. "Bloody Hammer" Roky Erickson cover)
UK Bonus Tracks No. Title Length 15. "The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret" (Live at the Troubadour) 3:38 16. "Everybody's Gonna Be Happy" The Kinks cover) 2:35
Japan Bonus Track No. Title Length 17. "Gonna Leave You" (Spanish version)
Limited-edition bonus DVD - North American Track Listing No. Title Length 1. "Monsters in the Parasol (Live at The Troubadour)" 2. "No One Knows (Live at The Troubadour)" 3. "Lost Art of Keeping a Secret (Live at The Troubadour)" 4. "Quick and to The Pointless (Live at Vintage Vinyl)" 5. "Queens of the Fucking Stone Age"
Limited-edition bonus DVD - International Track Listing[61] No. Title Length 1. "Monsters in the Parasol (Live at The Troubadour)" 2. "No One Knows (Live at The Troubadour)" 3. "Lost Art of Keeping a Secret (Live at The Troubadour)" 4. "Quick and to The Pointless (Live at Vintage Vinyl)" 5. "Ode to Clarissa (Live)"
Tour Edition - Bonus CD No. Title Length 1. "No One Knows (Live)" 5:09 2. "Autopilot (Live)" 4:34 3. "The Sky Is Falling (Live)" 5:47 4. "Another Love Song (Live)" 2:54 5. "Better Living Through Chemistry (Live)" 8:18 Total length: 26:39
Notes [ edit ]
"The Real Song for the Deaf", which is essentially Track 0, is located in the pregap of Track 1 as a hidden track. The hidden track can be found by rewinding the first track to roughly -1:33. A voice comes on and says: "Huh? What?" and a pattern of low-frequency bass plays and modulates for the rest of the song. This track, as well as being omitted from some pressings of the album (see track listing), is difficult to listen to on all but conventional CD players. Most software CD players do not allow rewinding of this nature, and most MP3 "ripping" software will not include the data. The track was not hidden on the album's cassette tape release, playing before "You Think I Ain't Worth a Dollar, But I Feel Like a Millionaire". On most digital distribution platforms, this track is included as part of the entire album. In the US, Spotify and the iTunes Store include it as a separate track. On the UK iTunes Store, it is included as part of "You Think I Ain't Worth a Dollar, But I Feel Like a Millionaire".
The intro to track #4, "A Song for the Dead", is an homage to Black Flag; the drum rhythm that takes off after the intro solo is lifted directly from the Black Flag song "Slip It In". [62]
Following a period of silence after the end of track #13, "A Song for the Deaf" a short hidden outtake of "Feel Good Hit of the Summer", from the band's previous album Rated R is played with all vocals replaced with deranged laughter. The song was similarly reprised on Rated R following the track "In the Fade" on that album.
is played with all vocals replaced with deranged laughter. The song was similarly reprised on following the track "In the Fade" on that album. The song "God Is In The Radio" contains a Backmask message by Josh Homme: "I've been dying to watch you. Look over your left shoulder in the apartment. I'm in Eric's room. You're inside my hands... This is your God."
Unlike most edited versions, the edited version of Songs for the Deaf uses loud "bleeps" to censor lyrics, as if it were a live radio broadcast, as opposed to quietly muting the audio track. This sound is used to mask all instances of the words "fuck" and "kill". For the case of "Six Shooter", the lyrics are heard as "[BEEP] this road! And [BEEP] you too! I'll [BEEP]ing [BEEP] your best friend! What you [BEEP]ing going to do!", as opposed to hearing the words "fuck" and "kill".[63]
Personnel [ edit ]
The following people contributed to Songs for the Deaf:[25]
Chart positions [ edit ]
Certifications [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]Two upsacale Mission district businesses, Gracias Madre and Salumeria, have been tagged with graffiti in as many days. The writing on the former reads "White People Trying to Be Mexican, Fuck You." Over at Salumeria, as spotted by a tipster to Uptown Almanac, read "Dear Hipster$ You still suck. Go Home."
Gracias Madre arrived on Mission Street between 18th and 19th Streets in 2010; Salumeria on 20th between Alabama and Florida in 2012. The Gracias Madre graffiti appeared today while the Salumeria graffiti showed up yesterday.
Few would call Gracias Madre, a vegan Mexican restaurant, highly traditional. Yet the 2010 spinoff of Café Gratitude, a small chain of vegan eateries known for sourcing much of its ingredients from an organic farm in Vacaville, has been pretty popular and well received from the beginning. The Chron's Michael Bauer, who enjoyed the restaurant after its opening, recently returned for a follow-up review, still giving it two stars for "bold and sophisticated" seasoning but finding the service lacking.
Salumeria, the European-style deli project from Flour + Water, comprises two locations. The charcutier peddles meats, cheeses, and lunch items, such as a signature salumi sandwich. Some sandwiches can cost $12, as many like Uptown Almanac have been keen to note.
But it's still true that upscale businesses are still getting flack in the traditionally working class Mission, despite the gentrification ship having sailed in the 'hood over a decade ago. A notable recent example: Local's Corner, who, tired of graffiti reading "Die,” “Get Lost,” and “Keep the Mission Brown" and plagued with other problems, threw in the towel at their 23rd and Bryant outpost last November.It may already be 19 years since he last played for the Chicago Bulls, but Luc Longley still remembers it clearly, especially how his move to the team made him fall in love once again with the game of basketball. After his forgettable stint with the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Australian international was traded to the Bulls back in 1994 and played a huge part in winning their second three-peat following Michael Jordan’s return from his first retirement.
Longley went on to become their starting center and learned a lot from his teammates and Phil Jackson. He recently shared his experience in The Windy City, via Nick Metallinos of ESPN, where he talked about having supportive teammates who played unselfish basketball.
“I get to Chicago and it’s entirely the opposite [of Minnesota]. Everyone is vocal and supportive of everybody else.” “It was back to being basketball involved, spacing, movement and sharing the ball and back to playing basketball. The experience that I had when I first got into the league – and it happens with teams that aren’t very good in the NBA – is that you play isolation 1-on-1 bully-ball, hero ball; which is not fun if you’re not the hero. So you tend to be not involved.”
He also discussed how his confidence grew after he joined the winning team and what it meant to his game.
“Phil [Jackson] had a very different command of a group of young men’s minds to anything I’d ever experienced before. I immediately felt accepted, and it pumped up my tires. It got me feeling confident, and when you’re confident you play better, and when you play better you feel [more] confident.”
As it turned out, Longley became a pioneer of Australian basketball and paved the way for future players from his country to also be noticed, and have a chance to play in the NBA.
With his playing career now over, he is currently an assistance coach for the Australian Boomers and still having his life revolve around basketball. He may be a three-time champion and part of the his country’s basketball Hall-of-Fame, but he will always be thankful for being part of the Bulls in the 1990s, where he played at his best and helped him become the person that he is now.Defense Secretary Ashton Carter announced today that all combat roles will be opened to women, with no exceptions. This has lead to a reply from many conservatives that women should have been careful what they wished for, as now there is no longer any reason to exclude them from the draft.
I pointed out the delusion of the idea in the comments at Instapundit. The idea that women will ever be drafted into combat against their will is pure fantasy. All women who want to avoid being drafted need to do is fail the physical test. When they do, everyone will point out that women and men are different after all. Men in theory could also fail the physical tests, but in practice this will come with a stigma for men that women will never face.
Two other commenters at Instapundit described how this worked for men in the past. Comanche Voter explained:
Dalrock points out that all the woman has to do is fail the physical test. I have a friend whose granddaughter was in basic training at Ft. Sill. Came the end of basic, she failed the physical test. And was promptly given an honorable discharge. And she had volunteered and wanted to be a soldier. Back in my basic training days (1969–I want to be an airborn ranger and live a life of danger in Viet Nam and all that) if you flunked the physical, they put you in a special training company until you could pass the physical. For guys who were seriously out of shape that might take some time–and in some cases the only way out was to get a truly disabling injury. These days with an all volunteer army (sorry libtards but the current military’s education achievements and intellectual level is above the national average) if you can’t cut the physical requirements/PT test at the end of basic, they simply discharge you. I suspect a lot of women are going to get discharged—unless they lower the standards.
MTByrne followed up with a more recent example of the mechanism used to ensure that men had strong incentives to not fail out:
When I went through Marine Corps Recruit Training in 1998, they weren’t discharging physically unfit recruits if they failed the PFT (which was about 8 weeks into boot camp.) Those recruits were recycled into a platoon just starting the training cycle. Same with the “unks” on the rifle range. It was a good incentive to make sure you passed or hey guess what, you get to do it all over again.
We may see selective service changed to include women as well as men. We may even see a situation where women are drafted alongside of men. What we won’t see, ever, is a situation where women have high or even significant pressure applied to motivate them to pass physical requirements if they don’t personally want to be there.
What this is about, and what this always has been about, is envy of men. It is about eradicating the idea of masculine virtues, and more importantly, erasing all sentiment of gratitude for what the men in the military do. To a feminist feeling gratitude to men is unbearable. This is why every unit, especially elite forces and combat infantry, must include women. When Seal Team Six took out Bin Ladin feminists were forced to bear the unbearable; public officials expressed gratitude for the “men who risked their lives to accomplish the mission”, and feminists couldn’t chime in with “and women too!”
Never again.
Since the goal is to erase the concept of masculine virtues, the new bargain the introduction of women into combat represents isn’t to have women join equally or even seriously in the fighting and dying. The new bargain is that men will continue to be the ones who fight and die, but they must not feel a sense of masculine pride in either doing this or having this obligation. Registering women for selective service alongside men serves this goal, as does drafting women and letting those who don’t want to be there fail out. The imagined downside for feminists is only a fantasy.
AdvertisementsPolice are on high alert across Pakistan after a deadly suicide attack on a Sufi Islamic shrine in the eastern city of Lahore.
Security has been increased in Lahore and at Sufi shrines across the country, after 42 people died at the Data Darbar shrine on Thursday.
Protesters have demonstrated outside the shrine, in anger at what they say were lax security measures.
Wider demonstrations were expected for later in the day, after Friday prayers.
Analysis No group has yet said that it carried out the attack, but the finger of blame is being pointed at the Taliban. The type of target, a Muslim shrine, is unusual. There are some elements among Islamist extremists, including the Taliban, who believe that worshipping at the shrines of saints is un-Islamic, and this is one theory why this shrine was attacked. There was another sectarian attack just over a month ago in Lahore in which 80 people died, when two mosques used by Ahmadi Muslims were hit by militants. This could be a battle within a battle that the militants are having with the Pakistani state.
The popular shrine holds the remains of a Persian Sufi saint, Abul Hassan Ali Hajvery.
It is visited by hundreds of thousands of people each year from both Sunni and Shia traditions of Islam.
The impact of the two blasts ripped open the courtyard of the shrine. Rescuers had to clamber over rubble as they carried out the victims.
The first attacker struck in the underground area where visitors sleep and prepare themselves for prayer, officials said.
As people fled, a second bomber detonated his explosives in the upstairs area.
The bombers are thought to have used devices packed with ball-bearings to maximise the impact of their attack.
A volunteer security guard at the shrine described scenes of devastation.
"It was a horrible scene," said Mohammed Nasir. "There were dead bodies all around with blood and people were crying."
The attack is the biggest on a Sufi shrine in Pakistan since militant attacks began in 2001.
"Those who still pretend that we are not a nation at war are complicit in these deaths," said Farahnaz Ispahani, a spokeswoman for President Asif Ali Zardari.
No group has said it carried out the attack, but correspondents say the attacks continue a growing trend among militants to target members of other sects as well as minorities.
The attack may also feed the pervading anti-American sentiment, a sense that US interference in the region is indirectly to blame, says the BBC's Jill McGivering.
US officials said they were still committed to helping Pakistan fight militants.
"We condemn this brutal crime and reaffirm our commitment to support the Pakistani people in their efforts to defend their democracy from the violent extremists who seek to destroy it," US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a statement.
The US embassy in Islamabad said the attack "demonstrates the terrorists' blatant disregard for the lives of the Pakistani people and the future of this country".
Last October the US committed to a five-year, $7.5bn (£4.94bn) aid package to be spent on development projects.
The US has pressurised Pakistan to take action against Taliban insurgents using bases in the rugged border area along Afghanistan.
Lahore has been hit by a series of bomb attacks, including a suicide blast at anti-terrorist offices in March, when at least 13 people died.
BIG MILITANT ATTACKS 28 May 2010 - 93 people killed in attacks on two Ahmadi mosques in Lahore
19 Apr 2010 - At least 23 die in suicide bombing at market in Peshawar
1 Jan 2010 - A bomb at a volleyball match kills about 100
28 Oct 2009 - At least 120 die in car bomb attack on packed market in Peshawar
15 Oct 2009 - About 40 die in a series of gun and bomb attacks
9 Oct 2009 - At least 50 die in Peshawar suicide blast Pakistani militants return to roots
In May, more than 90 people were killed in a double attack on the minority Ahmadi sect in the city.
Earlier, security chiefs had been congratulating themselves after June was the first month in two years in which there had been no suicide bombings in Pakistan.
They said it was proof the militant networks had been disrupted.
Last year Pakistan launched a major military offensive against militant strongholds in South Waziristan.
In December the military said they had achieved victory, but subsequent reports have suggested the militants remain active in the region.The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will take action to deal with the rising cost of prescription drugs, the agency’s head said on Monday.
FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said high drug prices are “a public health concern that FDA should address.”
Gottlieb said the agency will take steps to speed up the regulatory approvals of certain kinds of generic alternatives to pricey “complex” drugs. The goal is to increase competition, which could help to slow the growth or even lower the price of prescription drugs.
“[A]ny steps we can take to encourage the development of generic competitors to complex drugs will have an outsized impact on access, and prices,” Gottlieb said in a blog post.
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“If consumers are priced out of the drugs they need, that’s a public health concern that FDA should address,” he said.
Gottlieb's actions are largely unprecedented as the FDA has mostly stayed out of the drug pricing debate. The agency has historically focused on making sure products are “safe and effective,” leaving the pricing issues to Congress.
Congressional outrage over rising prescription drug costs has been a bipartisan concern, but the parties are divided over whom to blame and solutions.
Democrats want greater price controls and want to allow certain drugs to be imported from overseas. Republicans want to increase competition in the marketplace and encourage the development of generic alternatives.
So far, no bills have passed.
During his presidential campaign, Trump railed against the pharmaceutical industry and its prices, saying they are “getting away with murder."
In June, the Trump administration floated a draft executive order that would have cut regulations in order to speed up drug approvals or lower the price of expensive prescription drugs.
The order was never published, but experts said the policies were considered to be friendly toward the pharmaceutical industry.CNET
Google is unloading Motorola Mobility onto Chinese PC maker Lenovo.
Google confirmed on its site that it has sold Motorola for $2.91 billion, consisting of $660 million in cash and $750 million in Lenovo shares, with the remaining $1.5 billion paid in the form of a three-year promissory note. Reuters earlier reported on the deal.
Lenovo gets the Motorola brand, as well as its portfolio of devices, including the Moto X and Moto G. In addition, it will also receive more than 2,000 patent assets, while Google will retain control of a majority of the patents it originally obtained when it acquired Motorola several years ago.
A deal instantly gives Lenovo, which has a thriving smartphone business in China but few other places, an established global brand. Google, meanwhile, will shed a business that has continually dragged down its profits.
The deal marks one of the worst investments in Google's history. In 2012, Google completed its acquisition of Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion. At the time, it was thought that the primary reason for the acquisition was the treasure trove of Motorola patents that would help Google defend it and its partners against Apple.
The patents, however, have proven to be less than effective in warding off lawsuits, and much of the legal fighting as gone on between Apple and Samsung, with Google only tangentially related. Google and Samsung recently signed their own cross-licensing pact.
Troubled handset business
The handset side of Motorola, however, has always been a stress point between Google and its partners. While Google said it maintained a division between its Android group and the Motorola unit, other vendors have privately expressed irritation that a partner was also a competitor.
Google did legitimately try to revive the once vaunted Motorola brand with unique products, including the Moto X, which was built in the US and could be tweaked with different colors and covers, as well as the ultra-low-cost Moto G, geared toward emerging markets and lower-income consumers looking for a competitive smartphone.
Motorola
Throughout the last year or so, Motorola has continually posted losses. In the most recent quarter, Motorola posted an operating loss of $248 million, wider than the year-earlier period. Google reports its latest results Thursday.
Still, the move is a surprising one, given that Google has been moving toward becoming more of a hardware company. Beyond smartphones, the company is pushing its Google Glass headset and its Chromecast media dongle. It just purchased Nest for $3.2 billion to get into the smart thermostats and smoke detectors.
"This would be at odds with its recent push to hardware," said NPD analyst Stephen Baker. "Everybody was thinking they would get more hardware-oriented. This may signal a reversal."
Gaining a global brand
Lenovo, meanwhile, could conceivably jump-start its smartphone ambitions with the purchase of Motorola. As the inventor of the cell phone, Motorola has a rich legacy and a still well-known brand that Lenovo could exploit.
"The acquisition of such an iconic brand, innovative product portfolio and incredibly talented global team will immediately make Lenovo a strong global competitor in smartphones," Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing said in a statement.
Indeed, Lenovo actually has a strong smartphone business itself, but one that is largely limited to China. Still, the market is big enough that it ranked No. 5 among global smartphone vendors in the fourth quarter, seeing its share rise to 4.7 percent from 4.2 percent a year ago, according to Strategy Analytics.
Lenovo's CEO said in May 2013 that it would bring its smartphones to the US within a year, but it hasn't updated its timing since then.
By buying Motorola from Google, Lenovo is repeating the same play is successfully pulled off in 2005, when it entered the global PC business by acquiring IBM's PC business. The deal instantly made Lenovo a major player with PCs, building on the business-centric ThinkPad with the consumer-facing IdeaPad.
"Lenovo intends to keep Motorola's distinct brand identity--just as they did when they acquired ThinkPad from IBM in 2005," Google CEO Larry Page said in a statement.
Lenovo reportedly attempted to purchase BlackBerry, but a deal was supposedly squashed by regulators sensitive to a Chinese company owning phones widely used by government agencies.
The Chinese computer giant is the world's biggest PC vendor, with about 17 percent share of the market, according to IDC.
Lenovo said earlier this month that it will buy IBM's server business for $2.3 billion.
With Motorola, Lenovo could use the company's established track record and contacts in the wireless industry to push its phones around the phone. And it doesn't have to build its own brand from scratch.
"We tend to think of the Chinese companies as rigid, but Lenovo has been adaptable in a lot of brands and geographies," Baker said.
Update 2:14 p.m. PT: Added confirmation from Google that it has sold its Motorola unit to Lenovo.VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Aug. 23, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Harvest One Cannabis Inc. (TSX-V:HVST) ("Harvest One" or the "Company") is pleased to advise that the Patent Cooperation Treaty ("PCT") application submitted by the Company’s Swiss-based subsidiary Satipharm AG ("Satipharm") in February 2017 has now been published. This comprehensive patent application is directed at Satipharm’s proprietary Gelpell-CBD product technology, and covers oral formulations utilising both singular and/or a combination of cannabinoids. Once granted, the patent will be owned equally by Satipharm and its manufacturing partner Gelpell AG ("Gelpell") and will also cover, via an exclusive agreement, the cannabis-derived prescription drugs developed by PhytoTech Therapeutics Limited ("PTL").
The unique Gelpell-CBD product technology enables flexibility in manufacturing a wide range of doses at various ratios of cannabinoids that can be used for multiple indications and personalised medicine.
In 2016, Satipharm signed an exclusive license agreement with Gelpell (the "License Agreement") to develop and sell products using Gelpell’s proprietary technology, for the treatment or prevention of any medical condition or disease in humans and animal and for food and dietary supplements. Under the terms of the licence, the parties agreed that all intellectual property generated under the licence will be jointly owned between Gelpell and Satipharm, but Satipharm will maintain exclusivity to any licenced intellectual property. Satipharm has, in turn granted PTL the exclusive rights to exploit the Gelpell IP in the worldwide pharmaceutical field (excluding Canada).
Andreas Gedeon, Harvest One’s CEO commented, "This patent progression is a key development for our research and development team, and reaffirms the Company’s commitment to strengthening its intellectual property portfolio. We remain focused on expanding our R&D capabilities and we look forward to providing further updates on this division in due course."
Harvest One advises the Company will provide a comprehensive corporate update to the market in the coming weeks.
About Harvest One
Harvest One Cannabis Inc. (TSX-V:HVST) controls operations across the entire cannabis value chain through three business units, with Harvest One serving as the umbrella company over horticultural arm United Greeneries and medical arm Satipharm AG. Each business is strategically located in favourable jurisdictions with supportive regulatory frameworks in place. United Greeneries has received a Canadian medicinal cannabis cultivation license, making Harvest One one of only a few companies globally with the capacity to commercially cultivate cannabis in a federally regulated environment.
Certain statements contained in this press release constitute forward-looking information. These statements relate to future events or future performance. The use of any of the words "could", "intend", "expect", "believe", "will", "projected", "estimated" and similar expressions and statements relating to matters that are not historical facts are intended to identify forward-looking information and are based on the Company's current belief or assumptions as to the outcome and timing of such future events. Actual future results may differ materially. In particular, this release contains forward-looking information relating to the PCT application. The forward-looking information contained in this press release is made as of the date hereof and the Company is not obligated to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities laws. Because of the risks, uncertainties and assumptions contained herein, investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The foregoing statements expressly qualify any forward-looking information contained herein.
Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
For more information on Harvest One Cannabis, please contact: Colin Clancy Communications Manager +1 (778) 855-2408 cclancy@mmj.caIn the five months since 1984 Olympic road champion Alexi Grewal announced he was making a comeback to racing at age 50, he has been hard at work. “There’s all the things you’ve got to do if you’re a privateer bike rider,” Grewal told VeloNews ahead of his comeback race this week. “I’ve been busy. Good busy.”
In the five months since 1984 Olympic road champion Alexi Grewal announced he was making a comeback to racing at age 50, he has been hard at work. “There’s all the things you’ve got to do if you’re a privateer bike rider,” Grewal told VeloNews ahead of his comeback race this week. “I’ve been busy. Good busy.”
For Grewal, who hasn’t raced for almost two decades and whose only “cycling” equipment comprised a mountain bike, flat pedals, heavy boots and a construction worker’s hard hat, his “busy” included putting together all the modern paraphernalia that goes with bike racing today.
He has received great support from his community in Loveland, Colorado, including a dentist who’s been fixing his teeth, and from several benefactors in the bike industry. So when he lines up for this Thursday’s opening stage of the Callville Bay Classic in Nevada, he’ll be astride a carbon-fiber Leopard road bike, wearing Pearl Izumi and Curve clothing, and D2 custom shoes.
Besides putting together his equipment and getting entered into races, Grewal has been riding, riding, riding on an old Trek 2100, sometimes with a trailer for his timber framing tools in tow, through the cold, Rocky Mountain winter.
He went to California in late December to get in some group rides in warmer weather and even did a training race to get the feel for pack riding again.
“It was an hour-long race, a four-corner 2km crit,” he said. “I went right to the front like you’re supposed to. I didn’t have the punch to follow the real critical moves but it was the first real race that I’d done, and I’d just come out of the (Colorado) deep freeze; I think I’d had (only) 10 hours on the bike that week outside.
“I was riding my training bike that probably weighs 27 pounds … or something like that … with 36-spoke wheels, Maillard freewheel … but it was pretty clear that I could follow the pace, stay in a 1-2 field no problem. And that’s been thousands of mile ago. I’m a lot better now.
“I’m just laying base right now, but every now and then you pick someone up on the road for a few minutes and I punch it. The other day, I guy passed me on a TT bike, going fast. I’d been out for 180 kilometers already that day and had about 20K to go. And I’d done 200K the day before. And I punched it and went right by him … and that’s on my training bike.”
This past weekend, Grewal finally put together his racing bike from California builder Leopard with Hermes-Sport wheels and Shimano parts.”
. “It’s like 16 pounds,” he said. “These new bikes are so light. I don’t know what it’s gonna be like to ride.”
He found out on Sunday when he decided at the last minute to do the 100-mile CSU Oval group ride in Fort Collins — and had the first crash of his comeback. His bike was more damaged than his body, but Grewal said he is thrilled to be getting back in the peloton.
“I’ll get a better view of where I’m at in Calleville,” he said. “The (first) race is 47 miles — I can ride 47 miles before I wake up. Typically, now |
advisers who had helped him develop his economic plan.
“They have their own independent businesses, and I don’t want to compromise their confidentiality at this point,” Cain told host Chris Wallace. “When they tell me it is OK to mention their names publicly, I will mention it.”
Though Cain’s been unwilling to reveal the names of his advisers, he has held up the 9-9-9 plan as a model of transparency. On stage at the debate on Tuesday, Cain repeated a favorite line, that one of the steps to problem solving he often boasts is to “surround yourself with the right people.”
Cain also said on Tuesday that he had two potential nominees to appoint as Federal Reserve chairman, but he refused to name them, either.
“I got to keep them confidential,” Cain said.Leon Bailey is one of the contenders for the 2016 Golden Boy award. AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert
Manchester United are stepping up their interest in Racing Genk attacker Leon Bailey, sources close to the Premier League club have told ESPN FC.
Bailey, 19, has impressed for Belgian club Genk in the last 18 months and was named the best young player in Belgium last year.
He has attracted the interest of a host of Europe's top clubs with the likes of Manchester City, Chelsea and Liverpool keeping tabs on his progress, but sources have told ESPN FC that United are ready to steal a march on their rivals after watching him on several occasions in recent weeks.
United's chief scout, Jim Lawlor, watched the skilful forward score for Genk in last week's 3-1 Europa League win over Sassuolo after having seen him net a brace last month in the 3-2 defeat to Rapid Vienna.
Genk are bracing themselves for interest in the Jamaica under-23 international -- who was among the 40 nominees for the 2016 Golden Boy award -- when the transfer window reopens in January.AFP/Getty Images Tesla cars at Paris Motor Show on Sept. 30, 2016.
Tesla Motors Inc. posted its best sales quarter ever ahead of efforts to raise additional cash that it will need to begin production of the Model 3 sedan.
Chief Executive Office Elon Musk wanted a strong third quarter to help build his case for why TSLA, -0.30% should raise more money for the Model 3’s production line and for the Gigafactory. Global deliveries of Tesla vehicles more than doubled from the same quarter a year earlier to 24,500, the company said in a statement on Sunday.
Read: Driverless-car survey finds Americans are not ready to give up the driver’s seat
The Palo Alto, California auto maker said it delivered 15,800 Model S sedans and 8,700 Model X sport-utility vehicles during the July through September period. An additional 5,500 vehicles were in transit to customers and will be counted in fourth quarter results, the company said.
The results suggest the revelation on June 30 that a Model S was involved in an earlier fatal crash in Florida involving the car’s Autopilot hasn’t affected sales. Federal regulators are investigating the crash, which the company said was the first known fatality involving the company’s semiautonomous feature that can take control of the car in certain driving conditions. Tesla has since begun rolling out software updates to Autopilot that Mr. Musk say would have prevented the crash.
Read: Tesla falling behind rivals among key segment: the super rich
Tesla production in the third quarter rose to 25,185, a 37% gain from the second quarter. Tesla had previously said it expected to produce 50,000 vehicles in the second half of 2016 after delivering fewer than 30,000 vehicles during the first six months of the year.
Tesla on Sunday reiterated that guidance and said sales and production during the fourth quarter should be at or slightly better than the third quarter.
An expanded version of this report appears at WSJ.com.
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Hillary-Hatred Derangement Syndrome
China’s Richest Man, Dalian Wanda’s Wang Jianlin, Makes His Move on HollywoodImage copyright PA Image caption Stafford hospital was hit by a scandal over complaints by patients and staff
Public services still need to learn lessons from the Stafford Hospital scandal on how to handle complaints, says a committee of MPs.
Concerns about failings at the hospital - expressed by patients and local doctors - were ignored.
The Commons Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) wants changes including having a minister with responsibility for complaints handling.
It says there is a "culture of denial and failure" in public services.
The government said it was "committed to improving" services and the Stafford Hospital scandal had been a "turning point".
Call for revolution
In its report, the PASC says the NHS failed to "hear both the complaints of patients and their families and the complaints of their own staff", leading to "unspeakable disaster" at the hospital, run by the Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust.
As things are, most people believe there is no point in complaining Bernard Jenkin, PASC chair
The trust was criticised in February 2013 in a public inquiry headed by Robert Francis QC for causing the "suffering of hundreds of people" in its care between 2005 and 2008.
Across public services and in Whitehall, it notes, there is "complexity" and "confusion" over how to report a complaint and the terms used - "appeal" or "review" or "feedback".
"A complaint is a complaint... nobody should be shy of the term 'complaint'. Other euphemistic terms for 'complaint' should be banned," concludes the report, called More Complaints Please!
It says poor complaints handling alienates the public and affects the performance of an organisation,
The committee called for a minister for government policy on complaints handling to be appointed to provide "leadership from the top".
Committee chairman Bernard Jenkin said: "There needs to be a revolution in the way public services are run, and how the public perceives government.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Anna Bradley from HealthWatch tells 5 live: "Complaints are gold dust"
"As things are, most people believe there is no point in complaining.
"The shocking collapse of care at Mid-Staffs hospital should be a warning to the whole public sector that too many managers in public services are in denial about what their customers and their staff think about them.
He added that the Francis Inquiry report on the hospital "gave no comfort that the culture of denial does not exist across most of the NHS, though we hope that is now changing."
He said the government itself did not comply with "best practice", and warned it needed to "lead by example".
"Unless and until we have a culture of leadership in public services that listens to, values and responds to complaints, from service users and staff, there will always be the potential for tragedies like Mid-Staffs, and opportunities to improve services and public confidence will be missed again and again," Mr Jenkin added.
A government spokesman said: "We are committed to improving public services. The tragic events at Mid-Staffordshire were a turning point for the NHS and the Francis Inquiry showed just how important it is that there is an open and transparent culture where complaints are listened to, and action is taken to improve services - we are committed to taking this vital agenda forward.
"We welcome PASC's work in this area, and will respond to the committee's report in due course."Donald Trump was brushing aside claims of sexual assaults Friday, even as more women stepped forward.
Trump contended that he doesn’t know and never even met some of the women accusing him of sexual assault.
Meanwhile, two more women came forward Friday — including one woman who was a former contestant on the apprentice who talked about a meeting with Trump at a Beverly Hills hotel in 2007.
“He then grabbed my shoulder and began kissing me again very aggressively, and placed his hand on my breast,” said Trump accuser Summer Zervos.
Another woman, Kristin Anderson, said Trump groped her at a Manhattan club in the 1990s.
“So the person on my right, who unbeknownst to me was Donald Trump, put their hand up my skirt,” Anderson said. “And I got up and I moved and I continued to talk with my friends, and they say, ‘Oh, that’s Donald Trump.’ I was like, ‘Eew, he’s gross, he just put his hand up my skirt.”
Campaigning on Friday, Trump ridiculed Anderson’s claim.
“I was sitting alone by myself and then I went, ‘Wha?’ to somebody? I just heard this one,” Trump said. “It’s like, it’s like unbelievable.”
Trump also responded to Jessica Leeds, who told the New York Times Trump’s hands were all over her on a plane more than three decades ago.
“’I was sitting with him on an aeroplane, and he went after me on the plane,’ – yeah, I’m going to go after her,’” Trump said sarcastically. “Believe me, she would not be my first choice — that I can tell you.”
Another woman, Rachel Crooks, said Trump kissed her without invitation in 2006 when she was a 22-year-old receptionist for a real estate firm located at Trump Tower.
Trump vehemently denied the allegations, and demanded through his attorney that the story be retracted. At a rally in Ohio, Trump said the media had “slandered and lied about me with false accusations.”
He said he, “never met these people” and added he doesn’t “know who they are.” Trump said his accusers have “made up stories.”
Trump also said his team has “substantial evidence to dispute these lies” that will be “made public in an appropriate way and at an appropriate time very soon,” CBS News reported.
The Times refused to retract the story, saying its reporters worked diligently to confirm the women’s accounts.
In a letter, Times attorney David McCraw said Trump “has bragged about his non-consensual sexual touching of women” and that multiple women had already come forward.
The GOP nominee charged that the claims against him are false and a distraction from the hacked emails from the Clinton campaign.
“Let me state this as clearly as I can: these attacks are orchestrated by the Clintons and their media allies,” he said. “The only thing Hillary Clinton has going for her is the press. Without the press, she is absolutely zero.”
Still, as CBS2’s Jessica Layton reported, the claims have thrown Trump off track from his message – forcing him to address the allegations during two campaign speeches in North Carolina on Friday.
He said the timing was suspect.
“I am a victim of one of the great political smear campaigns in the history of our country,” Trump said.
Trump’s wife, Melania Trump, is also threatening to sue a separate publication over another woman’s allegation of assault by her husband.
Lawyers for Melania Trump demanded Thursday that People magazine retract and apologize for a story in which one of its writers, Natasha Stoynoff, describes being assaulted by Trump at their Florida home, Mar-a-Lago, in 2005.
Stoynoff wrote that she had arrived to interview the couple for a story, and that when Melania Trump left the room, her husband pushed Stoynoff against a wall and assaulted her.
The story also says the writer and Melania Trump later ran into each other in New York and had a conversation. Lawyers for the Republican nominee’s wife say no such encounter occurred.
Trump has denied the entire account all together.
“Look at her, take a look at her words, you tell me what you think,” he said. “I don’t think so!”
In a statement, People editor-in-chief Jess Cagle called Stoynoff “a remarkable, ethical, honest and patriotic woman, and she has shared her story of being physically attacked by Donald Trump in 2005 because she felt it was her duty to make the public aware.”
“To assign any other motive is a disgusting, pathetic attempt to victimize her again,” Cagle said. “We stand steadfastly by her, and are proud to publish her clear, credible account of what happened.”
Trump’s running mate Mike Pence has come to his defense.
Speaking Friday on “CBS This Morning,” Pence said, “before the day is out, there will be more evidence that calls into question these allegations.”
“Donald Trump has — has asserted that all of these recent unsubstantiated allegations are categorically false and I do believe him,” Pence said.
A new Fox News poll has Trump trailing Hillary Clinton by seven points in a four-way race. Clinton has 45 percent of support, up against 38 percent for Trump, 7 percent for Libertarian Gary Johnson, and 3 percent for Green Party candidate Jill Stein.
President Barack Obama was on the campaign trail today, attacking Trump.
“All he had time for was celebrities and now, suddenly, he’s acting like he’s a populist out there. ‘Man, I’m going to fight for working people!’” Obama said. “C’mon, man!”
Hillary Clinton and ally Michelle Obama also say Americans are learning more about Trump’s unacceptable behavior every day.
COMPLETE CAMPAIGN 2016 COVERAGE
“This is not something we can ignore,” Michelle Obama said. “Even a 6-year-old knows better. A 6-year-old knows this is not how decent human beings behave and this is certainly not how someone who wants to be president of the United States behaves.”
Clinton addressed the allegations against Trump in Seattle Friday evening.
“The whole world has heard how Donald Trump brags about mistreating women, and the disturbing stories keep coming,” Clinton said.
Meanwhile, Clinton is up against more embarrassing WikiLeaks releases.
In one of the latest released exchanges, pollster John Anzalone argued for Clinton changing her mind about the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal saying: “There are no other issues that labor cares about. This is it for them and they actually have voters on their side.”
Clinton did eventually change her position on the issue — something Trump has used against her ever since.
Other emails indicated that Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign had tried to move the Illinois Democratic primary to a later date, believing it might help her.
Clinton, in a pre-taped interview on the Ellen DeGeneres show, urged supporters not to be discouraged.
“There is a lot that is coming out, which is distressing on many levels, but I don’t want anybody to think that this election is over,” she said.
WikiLeaks says it has 50,000 hacked Clinton campaign emails and will release some every day until Election Day.
A new Marist poll came out Friday for two key battleground states. In North Carolina, Clinton is ahead of Trump by four points among likely voters. In Ohio, Clinton and Trump are within a point of each other.
Clinton had a fundraiser in Washington state Friday while Trump held two rallies in North Carolina. Donald and Melania Trump also met with Cardinal Timothy Dolan Friday morning, and was expected to attend the Al Smith dinner next week.
The candidates’ final debate is scheduled for next Wednesday.
(TM and © Copyright 2016 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2016 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)Dragonflies with translucent wings, cross sections of conch shells, layered ginkgo leaves or graceful koi with flowing tails…these are the things that Paul Liaw dreams up when he’s not at work.
By day, Liaw is a character sculptor in New York, creating models that are animated for film or commercial purposes. After hours, Liaw takes his passion for sculpture and funnels it into his jewelry design. He’s created a series of cuff bracelets in various metals with great detail and texture that he sells via the online 3D printing community and marketplace, Shapeways. He plans out his designs in Photoshop CC and until now has used a collection of other 3D software to print out 3D prototypes. These 3D printed prototypes help him further refine his designs and understand how they will look in their final form.
To date, Liaw has struggled with the process of taking what he painstakingly designed and turning it into a physical object. He has run into issues with scale or with the prototype printing out too thin and brittle. Iterations can be one of the biggest bottlenecks in his design process.
Just Click ‘Print’
For the past three decades, Adobe has been at the forefront of several publishing revolutions, enabling creatives to easily produce their creations in desktop publishing, web publishing, and digital media and photography. Today, as we announce some exciting new 3D printing capabilities, Photoshop CC revolutionizes 3D printing by radically simplifying the 3D print process for creatives. With this new release, it is no longer difficult to create and print a beautiful, physical object. As part of a major update to Adobe Creative Cloud, the new 3D printing capabilities available in Photoshop CC enable Creative Cloud members to easily and reliably build, refine, preview, prepare and print 3D designs. All you have to do is click “Print.”
Photoshop CC supports the most popular desktop 3D printers, including the MakerBot Replicator 2, and also supports the full range of high quality materials available on Shapeways including ceramics, metals, and full color sandstone. Whether you’re an inventor, product designer, architect, animator or jewelry designer – there are limitless possibilities available to you to provide clients and customers with 3D prototypes and models of your work.
“My design process is so much easier with the new 3D printing support options in Photoshop CC,” said Liaw. “I can make my jewelry designs look beautiful and automate the process of using the least amount of material without going under the printable threshold – this back and forth used to take about 80% of my time!”
Without the new functionality in Photoshop CC, it’s actually quite difficult to determine exactly how to take what you designed in 3D modeling tools and produce a high-quality 3D print. Until today, you had to be both a technical print and materials expert.
Solving the 3D Print Dilemma
Just one year ago, Photoshop team members Pete Falco (Lead Scientist) and Zorana Gee (Sr. Product Manager) took a trip to the UK and met with universities, high schools and design agencies that were already doing a lot of experimentation with 3D printing. The number one challenge they all faced was how staggeringly difficult it was to successfully prepare and print an object.
That trip to the UK inspired the team to create a solution that would require simply hitting the ‘Print’ button in Photoshop, automating what used to take days of work. The team wanted to ensure that they also preserved the color and texture of the 3D designs – elements that most manufacturing focused software didn’t account for. The ultimate goal was removing all barriers that had kept creative pros from producing beautiful objects.
“My kids think 3D printing is the coolest,” said Falco. “My son built a crude model in Minecraft and we recently extracted and 3D printed it using Photoshop. He was really excited about it because the physical print brought his character to life. You can imagine it’s the same feeling that artists feel when they see their designs turn into a physical object. There’s something compelling about holding an object you created in your hands.”
You Can Try It Out
Download the new Photoshop CC update today and start experimenting with your own 3D prints.
All controls for printing 3D models are available under the 3D menu. Photoshop automatically analyzes the model and goes through a number of steps to prepare a print such as: scaling the output to printer capabilities, repairing mesh to ensure the model is water tight or in a solid form for printing, controlling the printer itself (heat-up, materials choices, estimated print time) and re-rendering of the file for the printer you’re using. Photoshop also provides the option to automatically generate support structures (scaffolding and raft) to properly reinforce the model as it is being printed.
There are just a few simple steps to get you started.
Using a local 3D printer (MakerBot Replicator 2 in this example)
The MakerBot Replicator 2 prints with a single-color plastic, building up the 3D model from layers of plastic.
1. Open a 3D PSD file.
2. From the menu bar, select 3D > 3D Print Settings; the Print Settings controls will appear in the Properties panel.
3. Select MakerBot Replicator 2 from the Printer menu.
4. Note the printer-specific options available.
5. Click Scale to Print Volume to fit the model within the printer.
6. You’ll see the preview update to indicate both size and material.
7. You can have Photoshop handle the print volume (the physical size of the model) automatically, or you can manually specify the scene volume.
Using an online print service (Shapeways in this example)
Shapeways provides high-end 3D printing services to the public, producing models in single, two, or full color using a variety of materials: plastic, ceramics, sandstone, and metals. The 3D Print Settings in Photoshop support all Shapeways output options directly. Photoshop even provides a cost estimate.
1. Select 3D Print Settings from the menu bar.
2. In Properties panel, select shapeways.com from the Print To menu.
3. Set the volume and detail options.
4. Select Estimate Price from the bottom of the Printer menu — the menu will update to show prices next to each printer.
For more information on 3D printing in Photoshop, please check out the Photoshop Help / Print 3D Objects documentation.
If you have any questions for us as you venture into 3D printing, visit the Photoshop forum or provide us with feedback on your experience. We would love to see what you create. Happy printing!I look hotter in the patriarchy.
the ability to navigate the Matrix
First, though, let's quickly dispatch with the fallacy that there are such things as subjective observers and objective observers. There are two general ways in which this frustratingly pernicious myth is conveyed:1. Feminists (female and/or male) are always look for sexism, so they will always find it, the inaccuracy of which I previously addressed here 2. Those most targeted by expressed misogyny (women) are critically biased against being able to correctly identify it.The implicit suggestion, of course, is that men are unbiased—which conveniently ignores that they have the most to benefit from expressed misogyny, giving them every bit as much, if not more, reason to be biased toward denying its existence as women are biased toward exposing it.No one is, by virtue of their gender, more intrinsically disposed to be more objective—which exposes as the bullshit it is the whole idea that one must be an objective observer of sexism to correctly identify it (or that such a person can even exist).We're all biased—either because we are the potential targets or potential beneficiaries of sexism, whether we want to be or not. A woman who rejects the existence of sexism is no more unlikely to be oppressed by it than a woman who spends her days documenting it. A man who acknowledges and fights the existence of sexism is no more unlikely to passively benefit from other people privileging men over women than a man who actively marginalizes women. That's the reality of institutionalized sexism; it compromises us all.So: Toss out the idea that women/men are more subjective/objective observers of sexism.But, hey—didn't you say that sexism can be objectively determined? How is that possible if no one's objective?Institutionalized misogyny, like any endemic prejudice (racism, homophobia, ageism, ableism, sizism, etc.) should be viewed as a system, with rules and laws governing its existence—although, by virtue of cultural indoctrination, they generally aren't obvious unless one makes an effort to see them.The patriarchy is very like the Matrix, in that it is a false construct laid over the top of a reality, that makes things look very different. Viewing the same thing while fully and uncritically socialized into the patriarchy and while cognizant of its falsity creates two very different pictures.Like the Matrix, which Morpheus described as "everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room… It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth," the systemic sexism known as the patriarchy is so comprehensive and profound that "seeing it" actually takes some effort, some willingness to see it. And, like those who find themselves awakening from the Matrix, people who find themselves awakening from the patriarchy learn to identify its patterns, upon which it is dependent for the transmission of its ideals and its continual self-generation.Pattern-finding is one of the main reasons I do ongoing series about rape jokes, or " odd news," or disembodied things, or the imposition of impossible beauty standards. In addition to illustrating via critical mass the existence of patterns and subverting the ability to dismiss them as unimportant under the pretense any one incident is an anomaly, identifying and revealing the patterns provides the framework in which the existence of sexism can be objectively measured.Whether something is sexist (be it a word, a consumable item, a practice, or anything else) is neither dependent on how it is intended nor how it is received, but on whether it serves to convey sexism, which itself is determined by its alignment with existent patterns. When 2+2 has equaled 4 since time began, anyone claiming 2+2 suddenly equals 5 would be regarded, quite rightly, with suspicion. It is vanishingly unusual for someone to say/do something that fits perfectly with an ancient pattern of sexism yet is somehow not an expression of sexism.Let me quickly stipulate and clarify that one can unintentionally express sexism. That innocent intent, or ignorance of the history of how women have been marginalized, does not, however, in any way change the quality of what was being expressed. Something can still be expressed sexism even if the speaker's intent was not to oppress women. And particularly if it does fit neatly into a historical pattern, it necessarily conjures that pattern of sexism, intentionally or not.So: Toss out the idea that intent determines sexism. And the idea that any of us, or any of the things we say or do, can exist in a void.What we're then left with is the idea that if something fits into a historical pattern of sexism, unavoidably invokes such a pattern, and/or can be overtly quantified as marginalizing women, it is an expression of sexism.Women are generally better at identifying the patterns of misogyny by virtue of having been subjected to them for a lifetime. For example: By a very young age (usually around puberty), most girls intuitively understand the concept of women's bodies being treated as community property, even if they can't articulate it. But in addition to the expertise conferred by personal experience, there is such a thing as patriarchy-smashing book-learnin'.There are people—like your blogmistress—who have spent egregious amounts of time and effort acquainting themselves withthe language, imagery, rituals, and cultural cues, both subtle and overt, that are used to promulgate the patriarchy.Becoming intimately, actively involved with the methods by which sexism is conveyed is not unlike becoming fluent in another language. And just like how people who speak Arabic are better translators of Arabic than people who don't, people who have immersed themselves in the critical theories of gender are better translators of what is and is not sexism.Identifying and defining sexism is not, as "sexism is a matter of opinion" suggests, a speculative chore. There is an existing framework for recognizing and characterizing expressed sexism—and those who have made it their business to become fluent in it are the closest thing to objective experts as exist in any discipline.If you find yourself inclined to react to the identification of something as expressed sexism with "I don't see it," consider that your "blindness" has been carefully cultivated by the very system that is dependent on your (and everyone else's) not seeing it.The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it.—MorpheusThe red pill's on offer, if you want it.----------------------* My focus is on the denial of expressed sexism against women not because I find sexism against men unimportant, but because I have not generally seen significant disagreements here over expressed sexism against men. When I have blogged about, for example, sitcoms or adverts that cast men as mindless dopes, or rape apologia that casts all men as potential rapists, I have not been met with resistance on those premises either by men or women. We are, it seems, collectively better able to identify, grok, and agree to condemn expressed sexism against men.Former Oxford striker shakes hands in a two-year deal at Kenilworth Road
Following on from the earlier announcement that Johnny Mullins has signed for Luton, we can now announce that ex-Oxford United striker Danny Hylton has also signed for the Hatters!
Hylton scored 15 goals for Oxford last season – their third highest scorer - helping them along the way to promotion into League 1.
The 27 year old striker started his professional career with Aldershot Town in 2005 as a 16 year old. He remained with Aldershot until 2013, scoring 35 goals in 178 appearances.
Following short spells with Rotherham, Bury and AFC Wimbledon, Hylton joined Oxford, where he made 85 appearances in total, scoring 26 goals.
When asked about how it feels to join the Club, Hylton said “It’s an honour to join Luton – it’s a massive Club. Obviously last season I was playing against Luton, they’ve got a fantastic style of play especially since Nathan came on board, I’m excited to be here.”
“I like to think that I bring more than just goals to the team, I like to work hard and try and create goals for other players too. If other plays are scoring and we’re winning games, then that’s perfect.”
Hylton is well known as industrious player. “I give 100% every single game, I’m a big believer in that. I believe if you are running around, and working hard, then the rest will come – if there’s 11 players on the pitch doing that, then you’ll be successful”, he said.
On his second signing of the day, Nathan Jones said “Danny is a great signing for us and he is a player I have admired for a long time now. Danny had offers from clubs in League One but has chosen to join us because he believes in what we are trying to build and achieve here and wants to be a vital part of making that happen."
"Danny is another excellent character, he has a desire and hunger that I want to work with and his signing takes us further forward. Danny is a very talented player who played a key part in Oxford United’s promotion to League One and I am excited to be working with him.”
</body></html>In April 2015, the Indian Army mysteriously withdrew a press statement made just hours before announcing that it had successfully conducted an island launch of the BrahMos Block III supersonic cruise missile from India’s island territories, the Andaman & Nicobar. Neither the Army nor BrahMos Corp. offered an explanation for why the detailed statement, accompanied by photographs of the April launch, was withdrawn. Was the test a failure? The mystery quietly dissipated, but now stands solved. First, take a look at the video above. The April 2015 test did in fact take place, and was precisely how the Army announced it. In fact, the Army conducted two more identical tests a month later in May 2015. Livefist chanced upon never-before-seen footage of these two latter tests in BrahMos Corp’s 2017 official film displayed at the recent Aero India show, and subsequently shared in original form with your correspondent. Our map of the launch from 2015 depicts precisely how the land-to-land launch played out.
Top sources confirm that while the series of tests was fully successful, the reason the statement was withdrawn was that the tests weren’t meant to be announced publicly — certainly not as ‘extended range’ tests (BrahMos Corp recently conducted the first extended range test following India becoming signatory to the MTCR). The distance between Car Nicobar and Trak Island is well within the BrahMos Block III’s 290-km range, so the test actually wasn’t at any ‘extended range’. The other reason why the Army changed its mind about the test was environmental sensitivities that have prevailed over the use of the Andaman & Nicobar Islands for weapons tests. The use of the uninhabited Trak Island (really an atoll) for the test wouldn’t have gone down well with environmentalists (and perhaps departments within the government itself), even though a designated group of islands in the chain have been approved for such target tests.
The tests proved wholly successful though. And the footage you see here on Livefist for the first time confirms that the island strike tests went through without a hitch.Because it's 4.20 and I just wouldn't feel right if I didn't make at least one weed related post, some 4-year old found a bag of ganja in a used video game case his dad bought him from Blockbuster. Note to self: don't hide weed in rented video games. Oooh -- and buy more chocolate milk.
Andy Brown, 30, bought his son a used copy of Fight Night Round 4 from a local Blockbuster.
"He'd only been playing the game ten minutes when he came down with the bag in his hand and asked, 'Daddy, what's this?'" Brown told the Sun. "I checked and realized. I was horrified and took it off him straight away." "They should be checking all the boxes before they sell them," Brown told the Sun. "What if he'd thought it was sweets, and started munching away? It doesn't bear thinking about."
First of all, if your kid mistakes a bag of weed for sweets it's your fault for always telling him broccoli is candy. And secondly, you want to know what would have happened if he DID eat it? Not a whole lot, unless he was crushing that shit like Cookie Monster at a bake sale. Ever self-respecting scientist knows the human body is incredibly ineffective at metabolizing ingested THC that hasn't been bound to another fat. Now if he'd rendered the weed in butter and made pot brownies, that would be a whole different story. One that ends with your son convinced he's a boxer in a video game. Been there, done that, amirite? Suck it, Soda Popinski!
Boy finds marijuana in video game case [canoe]
Thanks to shackleford, who once ate 1/4 pound before realizing it was frozen spinach.Your local EDM Robin Hood is back with his dose of daily truth. As the first weekend of Tomorrowland kicks off, Deorro took to twitter to show his true feelings on what the event was doing. “food tokens” seemed to be the straw that broke the camels back as Deorro reports watching the festival give 9 tokens to an artist, but refused to give him one for his manager. Being a headliner at one of the biggest festivals in the world seems to only earn you 1 food token, according to the logic of Tomorrowland.
Hopefully just a misunderstanding, Deorro did not wait to express his true thoughts:
UPDATE: Deorro cancels main stage set over food token incident.
UPDATE 2: Deorro just announced on twitter that he is in fact not canceling his set.
Went to apologize to those I was rude too here and I admit my mistake. Now it's time to do this show. #LetsGo pic.twitter.com/NUmeY9ufeH — (@Deorro) July 19, 2014
Naturally, Deadmau5 could not resist himself to point out the obvious:
.@Deorro dude. How much are you getting paid to “professionally” operate a CD player to complain over 25 euros? 4 euros? — deadmau5 (@deadmau5) July 18, 2014TOKYO -- Sixty-nine years ago on Wednesday, the United States dropped the first of two atomic bombs on Japan. About 140,000 people died in Hiroshima.
A decade later, a movie studio channeled the nuclear paranoia in Japan, unleashing "Godzilla" on the big screen.
Dozens of re-makes followed, included one in 2014, but it all began with one man in a monster suit, CBS News correspondent Seth Doane reports.
In 1954, when "Godzilla" -- or "Gojira" in Japanese -- was released, the mutant sea creature terrorized audiences. Today, the original Godzilla can be found, out of costume, in a memorabilia-stuffed apartment on the outskirts of Tokyo.
Haruo Nakajima poses with Godzilla costume Courtesy of Haruo Nakajima
Haruo Nakajima was just 25 when he first played Godzilla. He went on to star in 11 other Godzilla films.
"The suit weighed 220 pounds," Nakajima told CBS News. "And I was [surrounded] by [hot] lights. "I stuck a thermometer inside the suit; 140 degrees!"
"Gojira" was released in a post-WWII Japan, which suffered defeat after the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and then Nagasaki.
"Godzilla is a creature of the Americans," Nakajima said. "Godzilla's breath is nuclear radiation. He showed our audiences that atomic bombs are frightening."
A Tokyo mall exhibition displays props from that first film. For shopper Chisato Owada, the display is a modern-day reminder of Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster.
"After seeing the problems caused by radiation and the meltdowns, my consciousness changed," Owada said. "Either we use nuclear power carefully or it will imperil us.
Matt Hester, an American stationed in Japan with the Air Force, remembers loving Godzilla as a kid.
"He's a very iconic character," Hester said.
Nakajima was not surprised another Godzilla film was released in theaters this year.
"I am reluctant to criticize other people's performances," he said, "but what I don't care for is wantonly destroying things. It's one thing to make a path for yourself so you can walk through, but tearing up buildings on purpose? I think that's bad acting."
They just don't make city-destroying mutant-sea-monsters like they used to.London 2012 |
aspiring to be the head of our nation," she said. "Mr. Obama leading us toward the presidency is like the Promised Land for us."
All About Martin Luther King Jr. • John McCain • Barack ObamaThe day may be getting a little closer when robots will perform surgery on patients in dangerous situations or in remote locations, such as on the battlefield or in space, with minimal human guidance.
Engineers at Duke University believe that the results of feasibility studies conducted in their laboratory represent the first concrete steps toward achieving this space age vision of the future. Also, on a more immediate level, the technology developed by the engineers could make certain contemporary medical procedures safer for patients, they said.
For their experiments, the engineers started with a rudimentary tabletop robot whose "eyes" used a novel 3-D ultrasound technology developed in the Duke laboratories. An artificial intelligence program served as the robot's "brain" by taking real-time 3-D information, processing it, and giving the robot specific commands to perform.
"In a number of tasks, the computer was able to direct the robot's actions," said Stephen Smith, director of the Duke University Ultrasound Transducer Group and senior member of the research team. "We believe that this is the first proof-of-concept for this approach. Given that we achieved these early results with a rudimentary robot and a basic artificial intelligence program, the technology will advance to the point where robots -- without the guidance of the doctor -- can someday operate on people."
The results of a series of experiments on the robot system directing catheters inside synthetic blood vessels was published online in the journal IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control. A second study, published in April in the journal Ultrasonic Imaging, demonstrated that the autonomous robot system could successfully perform a simulated needle biopsy.
Advances in ultrasound technology have made these latest experiments possible, the researchers said, by generating detailed, 3-D moving images in real-time.
The Duke laboratory has a long track record of modifying traditional 2-D ultrasound -- like that used to image babies in utero -- into the more advanced 3-D scans. After inventing the technique in 1991, the team also has shown its utility in developing specialized catheters and endoscopes for real-time imaging of blood vessels in the heart and brain.
In the latest experiment, the robot successfully performed its main task: directing a needle on the end of the robotic arm to touch the tip of another needle within a blood vessel graft. The robot's needle was guided by a tiny 3-D ultrasound transducer, the "wand" that collects the 3-D images, attached to a catheter commonly used in angioplasty procedures.
"The robot was able to accurately direct needle probes to target needles based on the information sent by the catheter transducer," said John Whitman, a senior engineering student in Smith's laboratory and first author on both papers. "The ability of the robot to guide a probe within a vascular graft is a first step toward further testing the system in animal models."
While the research will continue to refine the ability of robots to perform independent procedures, the new technology could also have more direct and immediate applications.
"Currently, cardiologists doing catheter-based procedures use fluoroscopy, which employs radiation, to guide their actions," Smith said. "Putting a 3-D ultrasound transducer on the end of the catheter could provide clearer images to the physician and greatly reduce the need for patients to be exposed to radiation."
In the earlier experiments, the tabletop robot arm successfully touched a needle on the arm to another needle in a water bath. Then it performed a simulated biopsy of a cyst, fashioned out of a liquid-filled balloon in a medium designed to simulate tissue.
"These experiments demonstrated the feasibility of autonomous robots accomplishing simulated tasks under the guidance of 3-D ultrasound, and we believe that it warrants additional study," Whitman said.
The researchers said that adding this 3-D capability to more powerful and sophisticated surgical robots already in use at many hospitals could hasten the development of autonomous robots that could perform complex procedures on humans.
The research in Smith's lab is supported by the National Institutes of Health. Other Duke members of the team were Matthew Fronheiser and Nikolas Ivancevich.A South Jersey gun club's billboard depicting a kneeling person aiming a rifle with the slogan "The only time we take a knee" has drawn criticism for mocking the ongoing national anthem protests involving NFL players.
A driver tweeted a picture of the South Jersey Shooting Club billboard Monday and a debate on social media ensued along with calls to have the advertisement removed.
"Tell them this billboard is racist," MoNeke Ragsdale said on Twitter. "Taking a knee is a protest to say NO to police brutality."
Ragsdale, a member of South Jersey Women for Progressive Change, urged people to call the club and demand the sign be removed.
Bar boycotts NFL in support of Veterans Day
"I think it mocks and disrespects people taking a knee to protest police brutality," said Meredith Meisenheimer, a SJWPC member. "The intent is to move the debate away from police brutality, particularly for people of color, and try to center the discussion around patriotism."
Meisenheimer said her group has more than 8,000 members on a private Facebook page and was formed "shortly after election 2016 by a small group of woman friends horrified by the election results to work to change politics for the better."
A request for comment Wednesday from South Jersey Shooting Club, the Winslow Township gun range advertised on the sign, was not returned. The billboard has been displayed along Route 73 in Voorhees and near routes 73 and 130 in Pennsauken.
Wesley Aducat, a man identified as the owner of the gun club, told Philly.com the billboard "has absolutely nothing to do with race. It's just support for our veterans."
Darnell Hardwick, president of the Camden County NAACP, isn't buying Aducat's claim. He said he's a veteran and the sign doesn't represent him.
"I served in the military and that's part of what we fought for, for people to have those freedoms," Hardwick said.
Meisenheimer and Hardwick said they both supported the gun club's First Amendment right to express their thoughts on the sign, but thought its members should also respect the right of the players to take a knee in protest.
Hardwick said President Donald Trump inflamed the issue after he goaded NFL owners in tweets to "stop disrespecting our Flag & Country, " and to demanded they "Get that son of a bitch off the field right now," if a player knelt.
"It wasn't a big problem until Trump became president," Hardwick said. "All this is doing is taking away an issue of social injustice and making it something it's not."
Bill Duhart may be reached at bduhart@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @bduhart. Find NJ.com on FacebookShelf Reliance Hot Dog Chili
Has this happened to you? Your company has arrived,dinner is almost ready and you realize that you have forgotten something at the store. Grrr…..how frustrating.
This weekend I fell into that very scenario. As the hot dogs were going on the grill I realized we didn’t have any chili and quickly thought about making my own chili with our freeze dried ground beef. It only took 5 minutes to make and tasted great. From now on we will definitely be making our own hot dog chili.
Ingredients:
3/4 Cup Water
1 Tbs Ketchup
1 1/2 tsp Chili Powder
1/8 tsp Salt
Combine all ingredients in a sauce pan over medium heat for 5 minutes. Remove from pan and blend in a food processor until you reach your desired consistency. You can return the chili to your pan to keep it warm before serving.Darknet Purchases Increasing as Drug War Continues to Fail
Shopping for drugs on darknet marketplaces is growing despite authorities’ concerted efforts to shut them down, according to a new survey.
Also read: OpenBazaar is Here but Darknet Markets Will Remain
The Darknet Lives
The Global Drug Survey 2016 (GDS) reports that almost one in 10 participants (9.3 percent) have purchased drugs on the internet at least once — up from 6.7 percent in 2015 and 4.5 percent in 2014.
Over 101,000 people from over 50 countries participated in the GDS, which claims to be the world’s largest annual survey of its kind.
The most commonly-purchased drugs online are cannabis, MDMA, LSD and more exotic substances such as 2C-B and DMT are the most commonly-bought drugs.
One figure bound to prick up public policy ears: 5 percent of survey respondents claimed they had not consumed drugs prior to accessing them through darknet markets (DNMs).
This fact suggests that DNMs are creating new markets for drugs, as well as serving existing ones — and that efforts to stop them are probably futile.
About the Global Drug Survey
The Global Drug Survey is an independent research organization with an international team of 40 researchers in 30 countries. It studies drug user behavior from the perspective of public health and harm reduction.
GDS founder Dr. Adam R. Winstock said:
“Online markets give people unprecedented choice and access to different drugs. But better quality drugs have their own problems and more drugs don’t always equal more fun.”
Dr. Winstock began surveying drug use in 1999 as part of his research into health issues surrounding British dance culture.
There has been an increase in use of MDMA and cocaine over the past three years, with higher-quality drugs leading to concerns over increasing risk of “acute harm.”
Female users of MDMA are 2-3 times more likely to seek emergency medical treatment than males, and there has been a four-fold increase in female clubbers requiring emergency assistance.
Failure of the War on Drugs
The “War On Drugs,” started by the US government in the early 1970s, and distinguished by its complete lack of success at preventing drug use ever since, has found a new battleground on which to lose — the Internet.
Despite the fact that drugs bought on darknet markets are usually shipped via standard postal services and often cross international borders, authorities seem powerless to stop more than the occasional token delivery.
There have been several high-profile prosecutions of darknet drug users, vendors and particularly site administrators, including a life sentence for the man convicted of operating the original Silk Road market, Ross Ulbricht.
At the time of Ulbricht’s arrest, Silk Road was by far the most prominent of just a handful of darknet markets selling illegal products.
Almost three years later, there are at least 50 markets.
Health advocates have recommended for decades that drug use be treated as a public health issue instead of a criminal one — recommendations frequently resisted by some (though notably not all) law enforcement agencies for which the drug war provides a reliable source of equipment and revenue.
Fighting the War On Drugs is estimated to have cost the US federal and state governments a total of $15 billion USD in 2010, with over $19 billion already spent in the first six months of 2016.
Shopping for Drugs Online
Darknet markets are generally accessed only via the Tor network. Known as the ‘darknet’ due to its by-design anonymity and invisibility to standard Internet browsers, Tor is accessed via special but readily-available browser software.
The network was initially developed by employees of the United States Naval Research Laboratory in the 1990s, and its now maintained by volunteer developers.
Each marketplace maintains its own forum on Tor for users to discuss purchases, vendors and other related issues, though DNMs are also discussed openly on the regular Internet on forums like Reddit.
Can authorities do anything to stop purchases on darknet markets? Is legalizing all drugs a viable solution to the health and crime problem?
Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/DEA, Pirate Printing Company.The author as a young comic book enthusiast
Growing up in the 1970s and early ’80s, I obsessively read and collected Marvel comics. I knew each hero’s origin story, rogue’s gallery, and costume details. I took pride in my knowledge of minor superheroes like Stingray, Jack of Hearts, and the Paladin, characters who didn’t have their own comics but who bounced around in the pages of more established titles. If they ever got their own comic book, I’d be able to say I knew them when.
As I grew up and my tastes in comics matured I lost interest in superheroes, but over the last decade, superhero movies have become a guilty pleasure. Although I thoroughly enjoyed Sky High and The Incredibles (arguably the best superhero movie ever made), I didn’t have the same connection with these heroes as I did with the Marvel characters of my childhood. But when the first X-Men movie was released in 2000 I got to have it all: a well-made superhero movie with characters that I knew intimately. I felt like I was 10 years old again. I had the same experience when Spider-Man came out two years later. It was like reconnecting with your best friend from third grade for a few hours. Even though both of us have changed—and frankly we might not be friends if we met for the first time today—we understand something fundamental about one another.
When I heard there was going to be a movie this summer based on The Avengers, one of Marvel’s most popular superhero teams (Thor! Iron Man! The Hulk! Captain America!), I was pretty psyched. And I wasn’t alone. With Joss Whedon of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame directing and a slew of A-list stars (Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Samuel Jackson, etc.), the buzz surrounding the movie has been off the charts since day one.* When The Avengers trailer was posted in October, it was downloaded over 10 million times in the first 24 hours.
I planned on seeing the movie the first week it opened. My daughters (ages 9 and 11) love the animated X-Men: Evolution cartoon series; The Avengers would be one movie we could all get excited about. Afterward, my girls would humor me as I’d explain to them that in the comic book, Hawkeye and Black Widow weren’t original Avengers and that Black Widow used to date Hercules (in the pages of The Champions). Then we’d go get ice cream.
Artwork by James Sturm.
Unfortunately this quaint summer idyll will not come to pass. I have decided to boycott The Avengers.
The history of comics is littered with defunct publishing houses. From putting together a decent product to finding distribution to keeping pace with current fads, so much can go wrong. But if a character hit a public nerve, fortunes could be made. DC Comics thrived thanks to Superman and Batman while operations like Dynamic Publications and Standard Comics folded. Without Jack Kirby, Marvel Comics may have folded as well.
The company, first known as Timley and then Atlas and finally Marvel, followed a business strategy throughout the 1940s and 1950s of publishing whatever genre of comic was most popular at that moment. Before superheroes began dominating the market in the 1950s, they sold no better than funny animals, lovelorn teens, horror stories, and monsters. The editor that ran the company during this time was Stan Lee. He’d been hired at the age of 19 by the publisher Martin Goodman, who was married to Lee’s cousin.
In 1961, Justice League of America (featuring Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman) was selling exceptionally well for DC, and Marvel decided it was time for another try with superheroes. Like many publishers, they had created a stable of heroes to fight the Nazis, but when the war ended reader interest in superheroes had waned. Lee turned to Jack Kirby, who was already working with him on various monster comics, and together they created The Fantastic Four (Mr. Fantastic! The Human Torch! The Invisible Girl! The Thing!). A Justice League get-together had the sterile feel of a Rotary club meeting, but the Fantastic Four was an actual family, and as in many families, there were deep-seated resentments and lots of screaming—the violent outbursts weren’t just reserved for the bad guys. Superhero comics would never be the same.
From that point forward, Kirby and Lee went on a cartooning bender that not only secured the future of Marvel but would profoundly influence popular culture. Within the next few years Kirby and Lee introduced The X-Men, The Incredible Hulk, Captain America, Thor, and The Avengers. There is disagreement as to the specifics of each man’s contributions, and their process of creating the books, later called the “Marvel Method,” makes it even harder to ascertain who has the right to be regarded as any given comic’s “author.”
At other comic-book companies like DC, a writer would type out a full script and hand it over to a “penciler” to draw. The artist was more of a director, trying to come up with dynamic shots while shoehorning all the writer’s text onto the page.
At Marvel, Lee would give his collaborator a brief story synopsis (or come up with one in conjunction with the artist) who would then draw the comic before a script was written. Comics is a visual medium, and telling the story first in pictures gave the work a fluidity that was lacking in other comics. After the comic was drawn, Lee would then add lively dialogue that would further shape the story and define the characters.
All that said, there is no doubt that Kirby’s artwork and ideas were essential to Marvel’s success, so much so that his style of drawing immediately became the house style, and Marvel came to be known as “the house that Jack built.”
Kirby himself earned the moniker “the King of Comics,” and for good reason. His style was completely original. His characters flew across the page with fierce purpose and yet total abandon, fighting their hearts out against a backdrop of crazy machinery and abstract depictions of elemental energy. Though lacking in finesse, the drawings possessed a brute force that made the reader feel a pulse-pounding urgency that other cartoonists could not elicit. Every panel propelled the story forward at warp speed. Other cartoonists’ work hit you with a water pistol; Kirby’s slammed you with a fire hose.
Even more remarkably, Kirby made you care for his outlandish characters. They seemed genuinely broken, brooding, driven, and noble. Reading certain issues of The Fantastic Four when I was 6 was as an intense of an emotional journey as watching The Wizard of Oz. I dreamed of someday working for Marvel and in 2003, I actually got to write a four-issue Fantastic Four miniseries. In tribute to Kirby, I even incorporated some of his actual panels into my story. At the time I had little reservation about working for Marvel. Since then, things have changed.
Writing in Origins of Marvel Comics, Lee discussed how cartoonists were compensated in the early days: “[T]here were no royalty payments at the end of the road … no residuals … no copyright ownership. You wrote your pages, got your check, and that was that.” Lee says his first scripts paid him 50 cents a page and that “[i]t wasn’t much different for the artists. Their rate of pay was somewhat higher than the writers but it took them longer to complete a page, so things seemed to even up.”
But things didn’t ever even up between Lee and Kirby. Over the years Lee, the face of the company, has been paid millions for his contributions. Kirby, on the other hand, was treated like a hired hand. Starting in 1976, Marvel refused to return artwork to artists until they signed a one-page statement that recognized Marvel as “the exclusive worldwide owner of all copyright.”
Only Kirby was sent a more aggressive four-page document to sign. Thousands of pages of art would not be returned unless Kirby agreed he “shall never contest or dispute, or assist others in contesting or disputing, Marvel’s complete, exclusive, complete and unrestricted ownership of the copyright in the Artwork or Marvel’s exclusive, complete and unrestricted worldwide right to exploit the Artwork in any manner or media, and the Artist shall never claim any right inconsistent therewith.”
If Kirby signed on the dotted line, his returned artwork would be considered a “gift.” But some gift: He would not be allowed to publicly display or even sell the work. Kirby never signed the four-page document, though years later he did sign a shorter agreement whose details were not made public. Between 1960 and 1970 Kirby drew approximately 8,000 pages for Marvel. Only about 1,900 pages were returned to him.
Kirby described Marvel in a 1986 interview with The Comics Journal, “[T]hey’re grabbers. They’ll grab a copyright, they’ll grab a drawing, they’ll grab a script. They’re grabbers—that’s their policy. They can be as dignified as they like. … They can act like businessmen. But to me, they’re acting like thugs.”
When Disney bought Marvel for $4 billion in 2009, the Kirby family, not surprisingly, was shut out from this massive windfall. A lawsuit followed. It wasn’t the first time Marvel was sued by a creator looking for a piece of the action, usually after a movie deal was announced. In the early 1980s Steve Gerber reached a settlement over his claim of ownership of Howard the Duck; more recently the courts decided that Gary Friedrich has no legal rights to his brainchild, Ghost Rider.
Kirby’s heirs hired attorney Marc Toberoff, who is also representing the heirs of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in their ongoing battle to reclaim the rights to Superman from DC/Warner. Last July, a federal judge sided with Marvel/Disney stating that all of Kirby’s work for Marvel was created as work-for-hire under the Copyright Act of 1909 and cannot be reclaimed.
I’m no legal scholar, so second-guessing federal judge Colleen McMahon is beyond me. But I know that Jack Kirby got a raw deal. McMahon herself noted the distinction between ethics and law in her decision, “This case is not about whether Kirby (and other freelance artists who created culturally iconic comic book characters for Marvel and other publishers) were treated ‘fairly’ by companies that grew rich off the fruits of their labor. It is about whether Kirby’s work qualifies as work-for-hire. …”
What makes this situation especially hard to stomach is that Marvel’s media empire was built on the backs of characters whose defining trait as superheroes is the willingness to fight for what is right. It takes a lot of corporate moxie to put Thor and Captain America on the big screen and have them battle for honor and justice when behind the scenes the parent company acts like a cold-blooded supervillain. As Stan Lee famously wrote, “With great power comes great responsibility.”
If Mitt Romney is right, and corporations are people, perhaps Marvel/Disney has the capacity to feel shame. In any event, a public flogging has already begun. Cartoonist and educator Stephen Bissette’s blog post calling for a boycott of The Avengers kicked up a lot of dust in the blogosphere. Tom Spurgeon, writing for his well-respected industry website Comic Reporter also framed the issue in moral terms, as did the cartoonist Seth: “The corporate lie about Kirby’s role in the creation of all those characters is abhorrent. It’s a bold faced lie. Everyone knows it’s a lie. No one is fooled. Everyone lying for the company should be ashamed. Stan Lee should be ashamed. What the Marvel corporation is doing might be legal but it certainly isn’t right.”
A boycott of The Avengers and other Marvel movies could conceivably strike a blow in the only place that truly hurts a corporation: its bottom line. But I don’t have high hopes of this happening. I think most people feel that if you look at how any company makes its sausages, you are going to find some pretty nasty stuff. And few people will feel strongly enough about Kirby’s treatment to keep them from seeing one of the summer’s biggest blockbusters. Even a lot of die-hard comics fans will probably feel that boycotters are doing little more than raining on their parade.
If I really wanted to spoil Marvel’s party, I’d take a page out of a comic book and exact revenge on the company in one fell swoop. All I would have to do is jump into a time machine, travel back 51 years, and transport Jack Kirby to an alternate dimension. Without Kirby, Marvel would cease to exist.
Correction, Feb. 8, 2012: This article originally misspelled Joss Whedon’s last name. (Return to the corrected sentence.)In the hallway outside the Michigan locker room, we the media huddled on the far side of the retractable dividers, a mass of cameras and notebooks and digital recorders. Inside, head coach John Beilein had a few minutes to speak in private with his players after they’d lost the national championship game to Louisville. When he was done, the players took their turns. Glenn Robinson III went first, which surprised the others because of his shyness. The theme of his speech and those that followed was constant: This was a great season, we’re brothers for life, we should be proud. When everyone had finished, they sang the fight song together. It was a postgame tradition normally reserved for a win, but it felt like the right way to end the season.
Then they hustled Beilein, Trey Burke, Tim Hardaway Jr., and Spike Albrecht to the official press conference room and opened the locker room doors to the hordes. We filed through a security bottleneck, shouted at by the usual array of hired security who enjoyed their power 10 to 25 percent more than they should have, and swept in through the doors. We saw a table littered with empty Powerade bottles, a bowl full of apples and bananas, and beyond that, the Michigan players standing in front of their lockers with tears in their eyes.
Back on the court, the Louisville players were still celebrating. The team that couldn’t lose, no matter which of its star players struggled or what obstacles were placed in its way, had won again. Rick Pitino won a national championship the same day he was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame. Luke Hancock had pulled off another miracle and, for his reward, held the trophy for Most Outstanding Player in his hands. They wore their championship T-shirts and hats, and their fans stuck around to roar their approval after every word.
But in the Michigan locker room, Nik Stauskas had barely stopped crying when the camera lights hit his face from all sides. His eyes have a young, wounded quality anyway, and now they were red. He tried to speak stoically, starting sentences with words like, “It’s tough [to] swallow, but we’re going to come back next year …” Then his voice would catch, and he’d start crying again. Talk about what Coach Beilein said to you in here, one of us would say. “He just said he was proud of every single one of us. He tried to stress the point that even though we lost this game, we can’t get down on ourselves ” And he’d crack again. He tried his best to follow the boilerplate script, but his emotions betrayed him at every turn.
Tim Hardaway Jr. stood against his locker, fresh off his latest NCAA struggle — 5-13 from the field, 0-4 from 3 — and answered the same questions, some of them good, some inane, on repeat. What was it like to have members of the Fab Five watching you from the stands? “It was good. They know how to get this far; it’s an inspiration to see them.” His voice was bland, his posture abiding but not friendly. What was the most difficult aspect of this loss for you? “The loss itself.” When will you make your decision about next year? “I’m not thinking about that right now.” Seeing Jalen Rose and the others in the crowd, what did that mean for you guys? And on and on.
But I never saw him raise his voice or scoff at a question. He was briefly annoyed once when a man shouted a question at him and a microphone hit his chin at the same time, but he suppressed that emotion the minute it flickered across his face.
The Question
This is clearly one of the most painful losses of your career. When it’s over, you have a few minutes to talk to each other, to be alone, and then it’s an onslaught of media. Your pain is still fresh. You can’t get mad, you can’t get annoyed, you can’t refuse, and it lasts a long time. What’s that like?
Trey Burke: “It’s definitely difficult; it’s definitely tough. But as a Michigan man — the type of character you have for yourself — you have to be able to handle that. You have to be able to lose with pride and win with pride. That’s what we did. After losses like this, it definitely hurts. But you have to be able to talk to the media and get it off your chest. You know, not really express your emotions that may be in your head. You can’t really — you might be mad, you might be sad, things like that — but you have to reflect on the season you had, you have to think about the good times and things like that. That’s the only way you’re going to be able to grow from it and learn from this experience.”
Nik Stauskas: “It was tough because I was still crying at that point, and it was just tough to even speak in front of the cameras and give my honest answer. So it’s really tough just trying to change your mind-set, change your emotions, that quick. I mean, even still right now, I’m a little bit emotional. I haven’t really gotten over it yet. It’s tough. We’re all human beings, we took this loss really tough, and it’s a really tough situation.”
Tim Hardaway Jr.: [Laughing.] “I mean, it’s not — I don’t want to say it’s brutal, but it is it’s a job. It’s their job, it’s your job to get stuff, so I mean, I’m not worried about it, I’m not afraid to talk about it, so that is the nice answer, but it’s honest, I’m honest about it. It’s part of what they do. It’s part of what everybody does, so I mean, I’m not worried about it at all.”
Hardaway’s laughter was satisfying, in a way, because it cracked his shell for a moment. It broke through the training, and it showed, for an instant, the real difficulty it presented. The laugh was part sarcastic, part “how could I possibly explain this to you?,” and part “it’s miserable and depressing, but I know better than to say that on the record.” It was also the prelude to shutting down again. I even interrupted him halfway through: “That’s the nice answer” — but he was careful not to take the bait a second time. Still, I got that one laugh.
Taking the long view, the Wolverines had little reason to be upset. They were facing the best team in the country, and they had already overachieved in the tournament. It took a miracle comeback to win the Kansas game in the Sweet 16, and then they got hot in a way that felt almost unbelievable. It continued 16 minutes into the championship game itself, when Spike Albrecht, whose previous career high was seven points, tallied 17 in one of the most incredible and unlikely displays in championship history. Like Wichita State before them, the Wolverines had a 12-point lead on Louisville.
But again, this is the team that doesn’t lose. Russ Smith goes 3-for-16? No problem. Michigan shoots 52.1 percent, Louisville shoots 45.9? No problem. There’s always a way, and when Luke Hancock hit four 3-pointers in two minutes to cut the lead from 12 to one at the end of the first half, you could almost chide yourself for forgetting. This is the team that doesn’t lose.
And Michigan was the no. 4 seed that came out of nowhere. Which is why it was hard, in the abstract, to pity them. Even Michigan fans would probably admit that Louisville would’ve experienced the greater tragedy with a loss. But confronting that maize-and-blue locker room, and the clash of private emotions laid bare by the onslaught of journalists, can’t help but give you a sympathetic jolt.
Jalen Rose wandered around with a somber expression on his face, hugging the players and offering muted condolences. But he was still wearing a foam Wolverine hat, the two buck teeth jutting out over his forehead. That was the closest thing to comic relief in the downcast room, but nobody was laughing.
The pain hit everyone. Brandon Verlinden is a Michigan senior and has been a team manager for all four seasons. His eyes were red, too, and he sat by himself with the other managers watching the scene play out around them. Somehow, they looked the most isolated. “All of us played in high school, [but] our playing careers are long over,” he said. “And this is … kind of the last chance we’ll have to be part of a team. Not too many of us are going on to pursue careers in basketball fields, so this is it.”
Matt Vogrich, another senior, was a starter in November, playing about 20 minutes per game. That time diminished quickly, and soon he was going entire games without playing at all. He hasn’t played more than seven minutes in a game since December, and saw just two minutes of action in the NCAA tournament. To make matters worse, I’d forgotten his name and made him suffer the indignity of reminding me. But he was polite, too, and spoke about the odd feeling of how he’d never have to come to practice again. Vogrich is a business major, and has a job as an IBM consultant waiting after graduation. But he’s going to help his high school team in the summer, so he’ll still be around the game.
Elsewhere, Mitch McGary held court next to a Coca-Cola refrigerator, Jordan Morgan answered his questions and then huddled at the base of a locker, and Trey Burke, because he’s the best player in the country and the one man in that locker room who held his own with all comers, took it all in stride.
That sense of composure, even amid the tears and the reality of the loss, was what stayed with me after I left. The situation in the locker room was not ideal, but the sport makes money because people care, and because people care, journalists have to ask their questions, and the players have to answer. And even though the players aren’t compensated like professionals, this particular bunch behaved like them. There’s strength in that, and you can’t help but be impressed. It’s a measure of their character and John Beilein’s, as well, and the same could be said for the winners. The first move Peyton Siva made, with two seconds left and Michigan having sagged its shoulders in concession as the refs adjusted the time on the clock, was to hug Burke in the backcourt. Chane Behanan followed, and so did Hancock. They moved from him to the other Michigan players, consoling them before the celebration. They had just played one of the best games in recent tournament memory — and the best first half of college basketball I’ve ever seen — and now they were proving something a little deeper.
The Love
Rick Pitino: “I think when you work as hard as we work, it builds a foundation of love and discipline, ’cause you have to suffer together. You’re always pressing to be honest with you, I’m just so amazed that they should accomplish everything that we put out there. I’m absolutely amazed as a basketball coach.”
John Beilein: “What is really unique, not only they love the coaching staff, the coaching staff loves them; they love each other. The word ‘love’ was used over and over and over. Two 19-year-old guys said, ‘I love you.’ That’s pretty deep stuff.”
That love, that class, or whatever you want to call it, made for a special battle on Monday. In a season when college basketball struggled to shine through the ugliness of defensive play and questionable officiating, the final 40 minutes gave us a chance, mercifully, to love the game again.Ryan Giggs admits he is “bamboozled” by Wayne Rooney’s suspension for swearing.
Giggs has seen it all in his two decades at Old Trafford – Eric Cantona’s kung-fu attack on a Crystal Palace fan, Roy Keane’s revenge tackle on Alf-Inge Haaland and Rio Ferdinand’s eight-month ban for missing a drugs test being three of the lowlights. Usually Giggs keeps his own counsel on these matters, but he shares the belief at Old Trafford that Rooney’s two-game ban for swearing at a TV camera is too severe. While not condoning the outburst, Giggs, 37, feels the FA have been heavy-handed, too keen to make an example of English football’s highest-profile player in their determination to clean up the game. “I’m not surprised by the furore surrounding it because of the profile Wayne has got,” said Giggs. “But a two-game ban? I’m surprised by that. It had just never been done before [a player being charged for swearing]. There was no precedent and that’s why we were bamboozled by it.”
The news that the FA had dismissed Rooney’s appeal to reduce his suspension took the edge off United’s Champions League quarter-final, first-leg victory over Chelsea. It means he will miss the FA Cup semi-final against Manchester City at Wembley next Saturday just as his form is coming to the boil. Rooney’s winner at Chelsea followed a hat-trick at West Ham and gave him 13 for the season – 10 in his last 12 games. Now he will miss the Premier League home clash with Fulham, return for the second leg against Chelsea, then drop out again for the FA Cup derby.
“Obviously it is a blow,” said Giggs. “You want your big players flying at this point of the season because it is big game after big game. You want your special players scoring and Wayne is in good goalscoring form. He is a special player.” Following the five-game touchline ban for manager Sir Alex Ferguson, Rooney’s suspension will create the kind of siege mentality at Old Trafford on which United thrive, according to their longest-serving player. Ferguson has proved a master at circling the wagons over the years in times of adversity and his teams have usually fired the last shots. “Maybe times of adversity do make us stronger,” said Giggs. “A lot more is made of it away from the club. We’re in the changing room, we just want to concentrate on football and that’s it.
“We have to get on with it. We can moan about it, but we have too many big games to dwell on it. “That’s where the experience of the staff and the older players and the manager, of course, comes in. “No matter what team you put out, you have |
pond to find a path forward. The US, on the other hand, still has the following statement up on the official Safe Harbor website, hosted by the Department of Commerce:
In the current rapidly changing environment, the Department of Commerce will continue to administer the Safe Harbor program, including processing submissions for self-certification to the Safe Harbor Framework. If you have questions, please contact the European Commission, the appropriate European national data protection authority, or legal counsel.
Despite the seeming recalcitrance of this statement, there are parties within the US government working towards bridging the gap with the EU. There are a variety of reports that President Obama, Vice-President Biden, and EU Chief Executive Juncker are all on the same page about working towards establishing Safe Harbor 2.0.
Where We Stand Today
Contrary to the clear support from Juncker’s office, several Data Protection Authorities (“DPAs”) have made strong statements against the US and seem to oppose any cooperation or compromise. Add to that sentiment the recent statements by the Dutch Justice Minister that negotiations will not be completed anytime soon, and the 2016 prospects are grim.
On top of that, country specific DPAs are rattling their sabers at US companies, with some fines already being levied. At the root of these proactive measures is Facebook, the company that prompted the Schrems decision to begin with. At the forefront of these efforts is Belguim, who levied huge fines of $250,000 EU per day, a decision that is currently being appealed.
Much to the dismay of Facebook, Schrems’ efforts have not come to an end, as he filed two actions against Facebook in the past few days.
Root of the Issue and Moving Forward
After two months of diplomacy without progress, it has become clear there are two core issues of contention: US data acquisition in the name of national security and the lack of any comprehensive US data protection law.
National Security
This particular sticking point appears to be quite the sticky wicket, but in reality it is a surmountable obstacle. The EU and US already cooperate on a tremendous number of national security issues, but need the framework in place for when the US want to view the data of an EU citizen. The real challenge here is twofold.
First, Juncker must ensure full DPA approval of whatever plan goes into place. Second, President Obama must wrangle some flexibility out of congress and get some time of data protection law passed, even if it solely addresses the EU. While these two tasks are certainly achievable, given the sheer number of ministers, congressmen, and functionaries involved, herding cats may be too generous of a metaphor.
National Data Protection Law
This issue is by far the greater hurdle to overcome. Contrary to its progressive counterparts, the US has resolutely stuck by sector-based privacy laws that tackle one issue, i.e. HIPAA. To date, every comprehensive data privacy law has fallen flat, often in the name of national security (ironic).
Odds are, the workable solution is to solve the national security issue through the resolution of the above obstacle, and work to segregate EU and US data. Otherwise, waiting on a joint DPA/US congressional effort to negotiate data privacy for Safe Harbor 2.0 could take years, if ever.
Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed in this guest author article are solely those of the contributor, and do not necessarily reflect those of Tripwire, Inc.Last night, Jon Stewart was quite exasperated at how Fox News is covering the story about the EPA using drones.
STUART VARNEY (6/5/2012): When you use the word "drone", what do you think of? You think terrorism. You think death from the sky.
MEGYN KELLY (6/5/2012): Spying on our nation's farmers? Republican lawmakers demanding answers today, after learning that the Environmental Protection Agency has been using aerial spy drones for years to spy on cattle ranchers. These are the same drones we use to track down al-Qaeda terrorists, flying over Nebraska and Iowa.
Those aren't the same drones, unless the EPA has Hellfire missiles on their drones! They don't! It's not the same thing!
Or is it?
6/5/2012: MEGYN KELLY: You gotta picture yourself, right, as one of these Midwestern farmers, because what's been in the news lately? The fact that President Obama has killed more terrorists with drones than any other President. That President Obama has a so-called "kill list". And that on that kill list, sometimes civilian casualties go as well.... Even an American terrorist, an American al-Qaeda, was killed by a drone. So now you're in the Midwest, and you know you're not a terrorist, but nonetheless you gotta get a little squeamish when you see a drone going overhead. STUART VARNEY: What are you supposed to think?
Who in their right mind would even make that connection?? That's what I'm saying!!
Look, guys, if the idea of a drone is scary to you, maybe we should find a less threatening face to put on the drone, make it seem less intimidating.
6/5/2012: JEANNE MOOS: Liftoff for the cat-copter, a remote-controlled helicopter made out of a dead cat. There's a propeller attached to each paw. BART JANSEN: I really love this cat, and for me, this is a way to actually make him eternal.
Remember, folks, at home if you're watching, remember to spay or neuter your drones.The hotel industry is notorious for guest complaints. If you’ve ever worked retail, you know the saying “the customer is always right.” This applies to the hotel industry as well since the customer is buying a room for a night or more. How customer complaints are handled is often key to keeping that customer and gaining more.
I recently stayed at The Damai Resort in Orlando FL and overheard a very upset guest’s reaction to the pool being closed for routine clean up. While I was also looking forward to the pool that day, I understand that routine maintenance must happen. But what I was most impressed with was how the staff member handled this upset guest and seemed to turn his attitude around by the end of the conversation. It seemed that by simply listening to the guy and giving value to his concerns and offering fun Orlando alternatives, the guest left happy and content.
Here’s what I learned:
THE EASY FIX
A guest calling to request an extra blanket or towel isn’t complaining, yet. But that request can turn into a complaint if not handled properly. At current hotel prices per night, a customer expects his request to be met quickly. Maybe the call was placed and the customer left the room for a few hours. That blanket should be on the bed waiting for the customer upon return. There should never be a second call for a simple request.
LISTEN AND L.E.A.R.N.
The word LEARN is an acronym for how best to handle a customer with a complaint. First, you need to L or listen. This is absolutely the most important because it’s only by listening that you can assess exactly how best to handle the situation. Allow the guest to explain the problem.
E or empathize is next. Be empathetic to the situation by recognizing the inconvenience or disruption. Don’t point fingers or try to explain why something isn’t your fault. It may be that the customer is upset about something else and the complaint is a way of blowing off steam. Regardless of reason, convey sorrow that the customer is upset.
A is for act. After listening and understanding, you must act. If the room is dirty or the bill is wrong, see to it immediately or as soon as humanly possible. Wasting time or putting off repairing the situation will only make it worse.
R means a report must be made. In order to keep the same thing from happening, report the problem to the supervisor so it can be addressed in a staff meeting. Sometimes, discussing a complaint can lead to innovative solutions and fewer repeats of the issue.
N is for notify. Notify the customer that the problem has been handled. If the customer is already aware that the problem is handled, simply check with the customer later. You can do this on the same day or the next, but be sure to find out if everything else is ok or if there is anything else that needs to be done. A little extra attention after a complaint goes a long way toward making the customer feel he matters.
ATTITUDE
The overall attitude of the staff has a lot to do with customer satisfaction. If guests hear staff gathered in groups complaining, it lowers the satisfaction level. When bringing a problem to the attention of staff, a guest doesn’t want to hear the staff complain or explain why something didn’t happen correctly. After all, it’s the guest paying for the room and amenities.
Bottom line is that there are several ways to turn around a disgruntled guest. Many times it ends up being something small that could have and should have been fixed and doesn’t. If you can manage to turn around a frustrated customer, you’ll have a repeat customer for sure and may even get new business from them as well. Whether it’s the fault of the staff or the hotel or not, the end goal should still be a happy guest. That is the goal of customer satisfaction after all.
–
This post was contributed by Carla C. Burton. Carla is a self-employed Mummy blogger with a BBA in Business Administration from Bond University. Although a Gold Coast native, Carla moved to Melbourne in 2008 to further her writing career and raise her children. Carla has become a top contributor to many blogs worldwide and thoroughly enjoys the freedom that self-employment has provided her. To find out more about Carla or to follow her other posts, follow her on Twitter @CarlaCBurton.Our new prefab homes with Seattle area designs, embodies respect for the environment and incorporates the work of local craftsmen, making each a unique jewel. GreenPod® homes are designed to the highest Built Green and LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certifications with our 5 Star Criteria for Living consisting of: Healthy Air, Energy Conservation, Sustainability, Water for Life, and Beauty.
We believe each home should be designed to optimize the site so all plans are customized. This concept differs from other new prefab homes in Seattle as GreenPod® also offers a variety of selected natural interiors products that promotes healthy indoor air quality. We have developed varying styles which complement the homes in different areas and landscapes.
What is a Pre-Fab home?
Short for Prefabricated housing, “Prefab” is a broad term that encompasses several different types of building.Technically, any home that has sections of the structure built in a factory and then assembled on site can fall under the “prefab” designation. Modular falls under the umbrella term of prefab, but has unique specifications. See below.
What is a modular home?
A modular home is one that is built in sections in a factory-like setting. The finished products are covered and transported to their new locations, where they are assembled by a builder. A modular home is not a mobile home; it is simply a home that is built off-site, as opposed to on-site. With modular building, the house is constructed in separate box-like modules which are then secured together to form a whole. Since the modules have to be transported on the backs of flat-bed trucks over highways, they generally have to be no longer than the truck and no wider than 16’.Three Jewish students urged undergraduate government officers Tuesday to issue public apologies, reach out to the Jewish community and co-sponsor a resolution decrying anti-Semitism in response to controversial comments about a Jewish student’s appointment at last week’s meeting.
Members of the Undergraduate Students Association Council unanimously appointed Rachel Beyda, a second-year economics student, to the Judicial Board last week after about 40 minutes of deliberation.
General Representative 3 Fabienne Roth, General Representative 1 Manjot Singh, Transfer Student Representative Negeen Sadeghi-Movahed and General Representative 2 Sofia Moreno Haq argued that Beyda’s affiliation with the Jewish community on campus could constitute a conflict of interest in cases the Judicial Board might rule on.
The board is the student-run judicial branch of the student government and hears cases on violations of USAC’s governing documents. USAC President Avinoam Baral nominated Beyda for the position, and the Appointment Review Committee approved Beyda with a 3-0-0 vote.
On Tuesday, three students from Hillel at UCLA made specific demands from Roth, Singh, Sadeghi-Movahed, Haq, and External Vice President Conrad Contreras whose proxy representative also voiced concern over Beyda’s affiliations at the Feb. 10 council meeting.
Yael Glouberman, a third-year communication studies student and a representative on the Hillel at UCLA student board, said she thinks the comments made about Beyda’s qualifications to serve on the Judicial Board were hurtful, discriminatory and anti-Semitic.
“When you assumed that the Jewish community has certain political affiliations, not only are you not doing your job as representatives of all students, but you’re discriminating against your own constituents,” Glouberman said
Last year, the Judicial Board ruled on a contentious case against councilmembers who voted on a divestment resolution after taking free trips to Israel while in office. Out of nine cases posted on the Judicial Board website since 2007, only last year’s case involved divestment or Israel.
Council voted twice on Beyda’s appointment at last week’s meeting. The first vote was dismissed after the votes were split down the middle.
After USAC Administrative Representative Debra Geller and Alumni Representative Laureen Lazarovici brought up concerns of discrimination against Beyda, the council voted unanimously to approve her appointment to the Judicial Board.
Following Tuesday’s meeting the councilmembers who opposed Beyda’s appointment said they were sorry they offended members of the Jewish community.
“I feel like the way the meeting happened and the way my words were interpreted were offensive and that’s out of my moral compass to offend any community,” Sadeghi-Movahed said.
The Jewish students at Tuesday’s meeting asked for Roth, Singh, Sadeghi-Movahed and Haq to issue a public apology in the Daily Bruin, and asked Contreras to denounce the comments his proxy made and apologize on his behalf.
Elyssa Schlossberg, a fourth-year psychobiology student and member of the Hillel at UCLA student board, said she thinks the councilmembers need to be educated about what constitutes anti-Semitism.
“I hope by now you know that the logic regarding Jews and their divided loyalties mirrors the same ideologies used in Nazi Germany to deny Jews government jobs,” Schlossberg said. “Although we would never suggest that your statements are on par with these notorious anti-Semites, we want to be clear that it is a slippery slope.”
The students also demanded the councilmembers take steps to mend their relationship with the UCLA Jewish community by attending Jewish student-led events, learning about the history and culture of Jewish students and being educated on the historical roots of anti-Semitism, said Natalie Charney, a fourth-year global studies student and one of the Hillel student board members.
“Hearing those words is so sad and so bad,” Roth said. “I can’t believe I said that. … I’ll be taking very seriously what the Jewish community wants from me.”
The students finally requested that the councilmembers who spoke against and initially voted against Beyda to co-sponsor a resolution against all forms of anti-Semitism.
They said the Jewish community is currently working on the language of the resolution and will bring it to council to vote on at next week’s meeting.Story highlights "If you tweet every day...you're going to be sidetracked," Santorum said
Trump took to Twitter Sunday morning after his trip abroad to attack the media
Washington (CNN) Former senator and Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum says he believes the Trump administration could be doing well, if only the President would stop doing one thing: Tweeting.
"If you tweet every day and complain about the media and complain about how you are being treated, you're going to be sidetracked and you're not going to get your deals done. That's the message," Santorum said straight into the camera during Sunday morning's "State of the Union" with Dana Bash.
"The last nine days have hopefully shown the President that if you stay on message, you stick to the script, you focus on policy, you drive home the messages that you talked about during the campaign and that people in America are excited about, you can be a great president."
The advice from Santorum comes just after President Donald Trump returns from a nine-day visit abroad, his first foreign trip as President.
Trump took to Twitter Sunday morning, soon after his return to the United States, to attack the media and say recent "leaks" being reported are all made up.
Read MoreAfter chugging a QUART of soy sauce on a dare, college student first to survive salt overdose without brain damage
University of Virginia student John Paul Boldrick was dared to drink a bottle of soy sauce while pledging Zeta Psi
He began foaming at the mouth and seizing after the prank
After sodium overdose, Boldrick was in a coma for three days but had no brain damage a month later
Doctors say a University of Virginia student who drank a quart of soy sauce on a dare is the first person known to have deliberately overdosed on salt and lived with no lasting brain damage.
John Paul Boldrick was 19 when he drank the soy sauce as part of an initiation to join the Zeta Psi fraternity house in February 2011. He ended up in a coma but survived with no lasting neurological problems, according to LiveScience.
A new case report in the Journal of Emergency Medicine details how Boldrick, after consuming such a high amount of salt, survived hypernatremia, a condition that arises when there is too much salt in the blood.
Sauced: A University of Virginia student who drank a quart of soy sauce on a dare is the first to have survived a sodium overdose without lasting neurological damage
Hypernatremia causes the brain to lose water, according to LiveScience. When there’s too much salt in the blood, the body tries to equalize the salt concentration and water moves out of body tissue and into blood. The brain shrinks as a result.
When Boldrick drank the soy sauce, he began seizing and foaming at the mouth, according to the case report. Brothers at Zeta Psi brought him to an emergency room and he was given anti-seizing medication.
Boldrick was already in a coma when he was taken to the University of Virginia Medical Center.
‘He didn't respond to any of the stimuli that we gave him,’ Dr David J Carlberg, who was working at the center when Boldrick was brought in four hours after consuming the soy sauce, told LiveScience. ‘He had some clonus, which is just elevated reflexes. It's a sign that basically the nervous system wasn't working very well.’
LiveScience reports the hospital flushed out the salt in Boldrick’s system using sugar water dextrose administered through a nasal tube. Within a half hour, 6 liters of sugar water were pumped into Boldrick’s body. After five hours, his sodium levels returned to normal.
Boldrick was in a coma for three days, but woke up on his own.
After a month, doctors said Boldrick seemed fine—back at school and doing well on his exams.
Overdose: Dr David J Carlberg, left, who treated John Paul Boldrick after he drank a quart of soy sauce, said Boldrick survived without brain damage because 'we were more aggressive'
Dr Carlberg told LiveScience he believes the young man survived without brain injury because the hospital was able to reduce his sodium levels so quickly.
'We were more aggressive than had been reported before in terms of bringing his sodium back down to a safer range,' said Carlberg.
Most people with hypernatremia have psychiatric conditions as well, Dr Carlberg told LiveScience. Usually, such sodium overdose happens gradually. LiveScience reports that doctors in the 60s and 70s used to accidentally cause hypernatremia when they gave salt to poisoned patients, causing them to vomit.August 18, 2015 ARCHDIOCESE OF PHILADELPHIA TO RELEASE UPBEAT
VOCATION NUMBERS AND ANNOUNCE NEW VOCATION PROGRAM
The Archdiocese of Philadelphia will release the latest new priestly vocation numbers and announce a new vocation grassroots and parish-based recruitment program building on the momentum of Pope Francis' visit to Philadelphia and Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary this September. The new vocation increases and the new grassroots vocation recruitment program build on the transformation now taking place at Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary. Some have wondered whether the increasing number of vocations is the result of Pope Francis' popularity or young people's renewed interest in service, or both. These and other topics will be addressed at the news conference.
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
11:00 a.m.
Saint Cyprian Church
525 Cobbs Creek Parkway
Philadelphia, PA
# # #
Founded in 1832, The Seminary has served as a leading institution in the formation of Catholic men for the Priesthood in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and dioceses throughout the country for over 180 years.For more information on Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary please visit http://www.scs.edu/. For more information about the Office for Vocations, please visit http://heedthecall.org
Contact
Stephanie Brophy
Associate Director of Communications
215-587-3747The banks have been here before, but pressure is growing once again as observers become increasingly worried about rising food prices and food shortages.
Barclays was last week's punchbag, as protesters from the World Development Movement (WDM) took it to task for being the biggest player in food commodity trading. Deborah Doane, WDM's director, attended the Barclays annual meeting to argue that food should not be treated like any other asset class. It's essential for survival, she said, so any hint food is effectively being hoarded by investors should be stamped on.
Feelings run high on both sides of the debate. There are those who argue that freely traded commodities keep prices down. Others claim that the market is not transparent enough to be sure it's working properly and believe a glut of financial speculators creates false demand – in other words, a bubble.
Banks argue that they are simply providing liquidity, saying that food prices are fundamentally driven by a rising global population and crop shortages brought about by extreme weather. In this vein, an OECD study has concluded financial market speculation did not cause the price bubble in agricultural markets in 2007-08 that led to rioting. It's also common for investors to claim that the charities and NGOs are criticising a system they don't understand.
However, people inside the financial industries have also spoken out of their concern. Food prices rose 25pc in 2010, they point out, and there has to be a cause beyond rising demand, which is growing at 1.6pc a year.
Michael Masters, the hedge fund manager who gave testimony to the US Senate on speculation and food prices in 2008, said: "Financial speculation now accounts for more than two-thirds of the market, and only about 30pc is physical hedgers.
"When billions of dollars of capital is being put to work in small markets like this, it amplifies price rises and if financial flows amplify prices of food stuffs and energy, it's not like real estate and stocks – when food prices double, people starve."
Volume of speculative interest is the biggest concern, since it's become easier and easier for people to invest in agriculture with the rise of exchange-traded products. Estimates suggest speculative interest in commodities increased 1,900pc between 2003 and mid-2008 from $13bn to $317bn (£190m), thanks to this kind of investment.
Exchange-traded products in agriculture are not physically-backed because of the perishable nature of foodstuff, but track an index, or basket of commodities. This in itself does not cause prices to rise.
But a US Commodities Futures Trading Commission report explains why this has an impact on the futures market: "Speculators who buy index instruments do not themselves purchase futures contracts. But the financial institutions who sell them the index instruments typically do. In the case of commodity index swaps, for example, swap dealers typically purchase futures contracts for all commodities on which an index is based to offset their financial exposure from selling swaps linked to those futures contracts.
"CFTC data shows that, over the past five years, financial institutions selling commodity index instruments have together purchased billions of dollars worth of futures contracts on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. The additional demand for wheat futures resulting from these index traders is unrelated to the supply of and demand for wheat in the cash market."
However, it's not a convincing argument that banks are right about the irrelevance of speculation to commodity spikes just because they are closest to the markets.
The very opposite was true of their understanding of the sub-prime mortgage crisis and collateralised debt obligations. And as that speculative frenzy showed, when markets work properly, all bubbles eventually burst.Filipina singer Charice has long been a source of pride for Filipinos: She had an international chart-topping single. She was featured on Oprah as one of the most talented young people in the world (alongside Justin Bieber). She was also cast as a member of the hit show Glee.
However, Charice admitted days ago in a sit-down interview on national television that she was a “tomboy,” and since then, the news has spread locally and internationally. If you read the comments section of local news articles, you’d think you were reading the Bible with all the verses copied-and-pasted by the same people who gushed about how proud they were of Charice back then. Then you realize how organized religion still has a major influence on Filipinos’s consciousness.
While most local and international celebrities have given her their support, the Catholic Bishop’s Conference of the Philippines issued a statement saying Charice was having an “identity crisis” and that she should be guided accordingly, while her homosexuality is not yet “terminal.” As if being a lesbian was equal to having cancer.
Welcome to the Philippines, the most “gay-friendly” nation in Asia — or so they say.
One of the country’s most famous celebrities is a loud, effeminate, cross-dressing gay man whose humor — mostly honed in comedy bars where insulting someone is considered hilarious — has successfully crossed over to mainstream television. He reinforces the stereotype that gay men have in the country’s entertainment industry: the joker who makes fun of everyone and himself, the leading lady’s best friend who always delivers the punch line, the token gay guy in a movie who was cast for comic relief. Their brand of comedy makes them tolerated in our country because they are entertaining — tolerated, but not accepted.
Gay women, on the other hand, aren’t afforded as much visibility in showbiz as gay men. In the Philippines, when you say the word “lesbian,” an image of a short-haired, cross-dressing butch who walks with an exaggerated swagger comes to mind. The vernacular word for it is “tomboy” — a masculine-acting homosexual woman — which is this country’s only idea of what lesbians are.
Similarly, homosexual relationships in the Philippines tend to adhere to traditional gender roles; one must act as the man, and the other, the woman. This explains why most homosexual relationships usually involve a masculine dude with a drag queen or a femme with a butch – a man, a woman. Thanks (or no thanks) to hundreds of years of Spanish colonization, the Philippines is a patriarchal society; one that perceives men as the dominant, authoritative figure, and it’s so tightly woven into everyday life it’s almost imperceptible. Our patriarchal culture dictates that every relationship has to have a male figure for it to work.
Since most middle- and upper-middle-class families send their children to exclusive all-girls or all-boys Catholic schools, homosexual relationships do happen within its walls.
However, people often argue that this is “only a phase,” and when these teens go to co-ed colleges, they would then become straight and restore balance to the world. It only becomes a serious issue when their children continue to date persons of the same sex even after they have been exposed to heteronormative society. It is only then that the issue of sexuality becomes real.
We Filipinos are not typically a confrontational people; we also have close family ties. When you add to that mix, one could easily imagine how closeted homosexuals feel inside their homes. One rarely hears a parent ask up front, “Are you gay?” The family just maneuvers around the big elephant in the room as they dust the image of The Last Supper hanging on the wall in the dining room or watch soap operas at night.
The issue of independence also comes into play. Due to the closeness to one’s family, most Filipinos do not move out of the house until they are married, and even that is not an assurance. The children run the risk of getting thrown out of the house if they admit to being gay so they would rather stay inside the closet — at least they’re not homeless. It’s no wonder successful “coming out” stories in this country are few and far between. One, because families would really rather not talk about it, and two, because if they do get around to talking about it, not all families are open to accepting that their child is gay. My god, what would the neighbors think? What would our church mates think? We’d go straight to hell just by breathing the same air.
Religious, conservative, patriarchal and traditional, these words are often used to describe Philippine society. These are words that have been the bane of homosexuals in the Philippines whose best hope is to be tolerated but not accepted. And yet, Filipinos currently find themselves in the midst of two forces pulling them in opposite directions — one of progress and liberal thinking, of being more open to same-sex relationships and the open use of contraceptives, and the other, of the Catholic Church that is now, more than ever, desperately asserting its influence on a nation that is beginning to think for itself.
With the passage of the controversial Reproductive Health Bill that empowers women through access to reproductive health care, and the recognition of Ang Ladlad (which means “those who have come out of the closet”), a political party for LGBT Filipinos, as a legitimate political party, these reflect a growing awareness of a society that is learning to think outside of religion and tradition.
Philippine society is also starting to recognize the lesser-known types of homosexuals, those that fly under the gaydar — gay guys who are into sports and cars and “manly” activities and gay girls who have long hair and wear make-up. While complete acceptance of LGBTs in the Philippines is still a long way ahead, their presence is becoming more and more visible in society. At least now they know we’re out there, that we dream of the same things, strive for the same ambitions, and feel the same feels. Who knows?
Given the progress we’ve made lately, maybe, in the near future, we’ll finally live up to the title of Asia’s Most Gay-friendly Nation.Get the biggest daily stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
Diabetes patients could face an increased risk of cancer, heart attacks and strokes by taking higher doses of insulin, Welsh experts have warned.
In a report published today in the journal of Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism, researchers from Cardiff University School of Medicine uncovered the link after analysing thousands of NHS records.
The paper suggests insulin has growth-promoting effects which could be to blame for an increased rate of tumour development and detection.
It also found that higher insulin doses could cause harmful side-effects such as thickening of the arteries and severely irregular heart rhythms.
Researchers identified the trend after scrutinising the medical history of 6,484 patients with type 2 diabetes extracted from the UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD).
Patients were on average aged 64 at the beginning of the study in 2000 and were followed for an average of three years from their first exposure to insulin.
Despite not knowing the exact insulin dosage each patient had received during their treatment, researchers calculated insulin dosage per day based on the quantity prescribed and the patients’ body weight.
The study divided the large cohort into four patient groups defined by the dose of insulin received, ranging from below 0.5 units per kilogram of body weight per day to doses exceeding 1.5 units.
Principal Investigator, Professor Craig Currie, from Cardiff University School of Medicine, said: “When compared to patients who received doses of less than 0.5 units, our findings indicate that patients receiving doses of between 1 to 1.5 units and more than 1.5 units were associated with a much greater death rate over time.
“An estimated 15% of patients taking a dose of between 1 and 1.5 units had a 40% increased risk of death compared with the under-0.5 unit group.
“And the 5% of patients receiving more than 1.5 units had a 75% increased risk of death when compared with the same group.”
Professor Currie has warned that the reasons behind the findings are still not entirely clear.
He added: “It’s plausible that patients on higher doses of insulin had pre-existing illnesses before they started on insulin, which could account for the spike in instances of death and cancer.
“Retrospective observational studies can only convey possible associations with adverse events such as these.
“It is also important to note that these findings do not relate to type 1 diabetes. These patients are typically much younger and absolutely require insulin.
“What this study does show is a need for prospective randomised controlled trials to investigate the cause behind these patterns to provide conclusive evidence as to the real effect insulin is having on the thousands of patients who rely on glucose controlling medication.”
Of the 6484 patients whose records were analysed, 1,110 patient deaths were recorded, as were 352 first major cardiovascular events and 382 cases of newly diagnosed cancer.
Insulin is an injectable medication used to lower blood glucose levels in type 1 and type 2 diabetes, taken in tandem with other medications or as a single therapy.
This study looked at patients with type 2 diabetes who administered insulin as their only treatment for the condition.
Simon O’Neill, Diabetes UK’s Director of Health Intelligence, said: “As diabetes is a progressive condition, those on larger doses of insulin may have had the condition for longer and have other underlying health problems that we do not understand and so we would need further, more robust, research before we could be confident that insulin really does increase risk of early death.
“But while the real-world relevance of this study is unclear, what is beyond doubt is that if you have type 2 diabetes then maintaining consistently low blood glucose levels is vital for reducing risk of devastating complications such as blindness, amputation and stroke and, ultimately, early death.
"This is why insulin is an essential treatment and we would stress that is incredibly important that people who have been prescribed insulin by their doctor continue to take it.”Image Source : AP Modi govt offers to buy 200 ‘Made in India’ fighter jets
The Narendra Modi government has expressed its willingness to buy 200 ‘single-engine’ fighter jets from foreign manufacturers if they are willing to produce these planes in India with a local partner.
According to news agency Reuters, the number of fighter planes, to be purchased by India, can go up to 300 as the Indian Air Force (IAF) plans to phase out all ageing Soviet-era aircrafts.
According to experts quoted by the agency, the deal could be anything from $13-$15 billion, making it one of India’s biggest aircraft deals.
Indian Air force is desperately trying to speed up acquisition of fighter jets in view of its depleting strength of ‘squadrons’.
The IAF does not want any further delay after the deal to buy high-end Rafale planes from France's Dassault was scaled back to just 36 jets from the original deal of 126 fighter planes.
According to media reports, the Narendra Modi govt wants any further military planes to be built in India with an Indian partner to kick-start a domestic aircraft industry, and end an expensive addiction to imports.
Lockheed Martin has expressed its interested in setting up a production line for its F-16 plane in India for not just the Indian military, but also for exports.
Similarly, Sweden’s Saab has also offered a rival production line for its Gripen aircraft. It has also reportedly offered to help India in developing its indigenous ‘Tejas’ fighter jets.
Ministry of Defence (MoD) is reported to have written to several companies asking if they would be willing to set up an assembly line for single-engine fighter planes in India and the amount of technology transfer that they are willing to offer.
"We are testing the waters, testing the foreign firms' willingness to move production here and to find out their expectations," an Air Force officer was quoted as saying by Reuters.See the International Space Station from your back garden tonight: ISS to shine brightly in UK skies for next few days
Sky-gazers in the UK will be able to see the International Space Station (ISS) shining brightly in the night sky tonight.
Between now and Monday the ISS will be entering a path which keeps it in almost constant daylight on the border between Earth’s day and night – known as the day-night terminator.
When it is in this zone, which happens once a year, it will be one of the brightest objects in the night sky, visible with the naked eye.
The International Space Station is seen flying through the constellation of the Plough (file picture)
It will be easy to see every time it passes, occasionally up to five times a night, as it tracks across the sky.
It will look like a moving star that will be as bright as Venus with each pass taking between two and four minutes.
The ISS takes just 90 minutes to make a full circle around the planet as it travels about 280 miles at 17,000 miles an hour above Earth's surface.
The space station is not always visible at night when it passes overhead, because it spends about 30 percent of its time cloaked by Earth's shadow.
In London, the Space Station will be visible at around 10.30pm tonight in the western night sky and will be extremely bright.
The space station is covered with lots of solar panels, which reflect sunlight.
The International Space Station (ISS) flies high above California. The station will be clearly visible from Earth for the next few days
At times, the ISS is the second brightest object in the night sky, surpassed only by the moon. It will be easy to distinguish from a passing plane as it’s bright glow does not flash.
To find out when the ISS will be visible from your exact location log on to http://spaceweather.com/flybys/country.php here.
The website can give you exact dates, times, viewing direction and even how bright the ISS will appear from your back garden.
Last month Space Shuttle Atlantis docked with the ISS and replenished supplies, delivering an equipment rack filled with fresh batteries for the station's solar |
coming period will witness massive waves of protests that will put the Indian working class on a par with the workers of Europe in resisting the onslaught of neo-liberal capitalism. The coming budget in March is likely to see more cuts in the so-called welfare programmes (which have always been austerity driven to begin with!).
The situation begs today for a complete revamp in the strategies and tactics for the Trade Union movement. Since 1991 the working class of India has come out and valiantly conducted general strikes against neo-liberal practices 15 times, but the leadership which is predominantly with the left parties is yet to show any intention of taking the struggle forward to challenge the capitalist system which is the fountain-head of neo-liberalism. It is time that the leadership of the left/communist parties realised that there is no halfway in the struggle against this system. Workers need organisations which draw the conclusion that the system of capitalism is rotten to its core and allows little or no room for reform. Its replacement with a democratic socialist system is the only way forward.
Last year’s protests against corruption and sexual violence that we saw happening outside of the usual parameters of organised working class action is an indication of the churning that is taking place in the society for a bolder and radical leadership. The left parties have an historic opportunity to lead the struggle encompassing all the emerging battles in the length and breadth of India - from the anti-nuclear struggle at Koodankulam to the anti-POSCO movement in Odisha.
Working class youth and even sections of urban middle class wage earners are no longer prepared to wait and watch; they are moving into action, unfortunately sometimes with reactionary leadership or no leadership. The left parties and their ranks have been found lacking. In Tamil Nadu owing to the outdated response of the leadership towards the attacks on Daliths, the issue of Sri Lanka’s genocidal war and the living struggle of people in Koodankulam, thousands of party card holders have rebelled and refused to renew their membership of the Communist Parties. Even minor splits have taken place in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, West Bengal and the Student/youth wing of CPI(M) in Delhi.
As we have pointed out in our previous articles, the coming period leading up to the 2014 general election will be an interesting time as the Indian ruling class battles to stay afloat against the stream of socio-political and economic unrest that is likely to grip the country. The issues of constant price hikes, of fuel price rises, cuts in subsidies, massive unemployment etc., are not only impacting on the working class, peasantry and the poor, but also on the salaried middle classes who are beginning to feel the pinch.
New Socialist Alternative calls for an end to all price hikes, the cancellation of all workers’ and small farmers’ debts, the nationalisation of banks and insurance companies and of the multinationals that attempt to get a stranglehold on retail and on farming. For a programme to fight elections on socialist policies that will benefit the 99% and do away with the power of the vastly over-privileged 1% of Indian society.
All the symptoms for a revolutionary upheaval in society is in the making, not only in India today, but around the globe. The only missing element is the lack of a genuine mass political alternative that can really show the way forward for the Indian working class. Many challenges lie ahead for the forces of genuine socialism to reach out to new layers of the youth and the working class.Here's what you need to know about Sub-ohm vaping
Sub ohm vaping is easily described as vaping with an atomizer that uses coils with a resistance of less than 1.0 ohms. There are many tanks on the market that come with sub ohm coils now, such as Kanger Sub Tanks Aspire Cleito, Smok TFV4, etc.
The most attractive features to sub ohm vapers is blowing big clouds. In order for this to work though, the wire used for the coil is much larger. There needs to be a larger coil to spread more heat around since much more e-juice needs to be vaporized when fired.
In order for this to work though, the wire used for the coil is much larger. There needs to be a larger coil to spread more heat around since much more e-juice needs to be vaporized when fired. The other reason people are attracted to sub ohm vaping is the flavor boost. This has a lot to do with the same reasons a bigger cloud is being produced. More dense vapor is being produced because of the size of coils, which in turn, produces a better flavor. This also causes a warmer vapor, compared to positive ohm vaping. Again, this is all due to the amount of heat shooting through the coil(s).
Sub ohm vaping is also a fun hobby!
Most people who partake in sub ohm vaping have taken the time learning how to build their own coils. There are endless ways to build different coil set-ups, such as dual coils, Clapton coils, quad coils, etc. The satisfaction from making the perfect build for flavor production or cloud production is unmatched!
Now, there are a few downsides to sub ohm vaping, too. One of the main reasons is the cost of initial set up. Box mods and Mechanical mods are not cheap, but for all of us vape “hobbyists” it’s more than worth the cost. You will also go through much more E-juice, since your atomizer is vaporizing juice so much quicker. Lastly, your batteries drain much quicker. Producing that much power takes a toll on your mod batteries. It is always a good idea to have back up batteries with you at all times!
Is sub ohm vaping dangerous? In short, it definitely can be! This style of vaping is recommended for advanced users, since they have spent more time learning about Ohm’s Law, battery maintenance, etc. Before you move to sub ohm vaping, take the time to research topics such as Ohm’s Law, coil building, and proper vaping techniques to make sure you truly enjoy your vape.
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Sub ohm vaping is definitely the fastest growing trend of the vape world.Why are people so attracted to this style compared to the original vape pens? Is it dangerous? These are questions many people are asking, and I am here to answer for you.
Are you already a Sub Ohm Master? Tell us what your favorite setup is below in the comments!The year was Two-Thousand and Sixteen A.D.
Catawba Brewing has announced the limited bottle release of Red Rhum Barrel-Aged IPA. Red Rhum is the Asheville, NC brewery’s first ever specialty 22oz bottle from their long-running Barrel Program. To date, Catawba barrel-aged beers have been offered only on draft.
Red Rhum bottles will be available for purchase at their Asheville South Slope brewery at 12pm on March 18. This beer is a rare find, so the brewery encourages customers to arrive early. Red Rhum will also see limited distribution in North Carolina.
This 2016 vintage REDiculous Red IPA (7.5% ABV) was aged for eight months in Flor de Caña Nicaraguan rum barrels. It was then dry-hopped, producing bright citrus notes to complement its rich molasses, vanilla, and oak. The beer is a collaboration with a popular rhum bar on the South Slope.
Catawba has cemented its reputation among the pioneers of barrel-aged beers in North Carolina. Their Barrel Program was first introduced in 2000, when Whiskey River IPA proved to be a revelation to the local beer scene.
Interestingly, it all started as a matter of necessity. In the early days, Catawba’s fledgling brewery couldn’t afford big stainless steel storage tanks or kegs, so they used cheap Jack Daniels barrels instead. The unique flavors imparted by the repurposed oak barrels were extremely well received, and inspired further explorations.
About Catawba Brewing Company
Founded in 1999 by the Pyatt family, natives of Western North Carolina, Catawba Brewing operates a main production facility in downtown Morganton, NC at 212 S. Green St; a boutique brewery/tasting room in downtown Asheville, NC at 32 Banks Ave; and a tasting room in Asheville’s Biltmore Village at 63 Brook St. A new Catawba brewery/tasting room will open in Charlotte’s Plaza Midwood neighborhood at 933 Louise Ave in March 2017. Catawba beers can be found in NC, SC, TN, AL, and coming soon to GA.The World Health Organisation and the Iraqi Ministry of Health are set to begin work on a pilot assessment of congenital birth defects in six Iraqi governorates.
A project to examine the rates of congenital birth defects such as heart and neurological problems is due to start next month, following a series of planning meetings held during 2011. The survey will cover six of Iraq’s governorates including Baghdad, Anbar, Basrah, Thi Qar, Sulaymaniyah and Dialah.
Significant international concern has been generated over reports from medical staff in cities such as Fallujah and Baghdad of spiralling rates of congenital birth defects. Fallujah, which lies in Anbar province, has become particularly notorious and medical staff and civil society organisations have argued that the increases are linked to environmental contamination from the US led attacks on the city in 2004.
During a workshop on the project in February, Dr Hawrami Minister of Health of the Kurdistan Regional Government said: “There is a need for a comprehensive programme to learn more about birth defects in Iraq that could shed light on the incidence of various conditions, such as congenital heart defects and neurological defects, in different geographic areas over time in Iraq.”
The WHO in Iraq has reported that priority will be given in the survey to measuring the magnitude and trend of congenital birth defects at selected district level, identifying possible risk factors of congenital birth defects and assessing the burden of these conditions and impact on the health status of care providers.
ICBUW welcomes this long overdue attention on these disturbing problems but emphasised that the process must be as transparent and wide ranging as possible to ensure that all environmental risk factors, including contamination from depleted uranium munitions and other toxic remnants of war are taken into account. Plans to analyse the health and social burden of these problems on communities are also welcome.
The project Pilot Assessment of Congenital Birth Defects (CBD) in Iraq has been split into two component parts, the first of which has been funded by the United Nations Development Group (UNDG) Iraq Trust Fund, which is administered by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on behalf of itself and other United Nations Organisations. The first part of the project is expected to cost US$336,350 and will focus on:
Drawing initial baseline data from selected districts in 6 governorates and understanding the trends of birth defects in the selected governorates in Iraq;
Analyzing spatial and temporal trends and detect changes in the incidence of birth defects in Iraq
Capacity building of Ministry of Health national public health TORCH (Toxoplasmosis, Rubella, Cytomegalo and Herpes virus) laboratory and technicians
The second phase will aim at:
conducting observational and analytical epidemiological and laboratory investigations to understand underlying risk factors; strengthening the disease registry/surveillance for birth defects in Iraq and finally the proposed study will assist in assessing the burden of the problem on Iraqi health system, medical services and communities and formulating evidence-based recommendations to address the problem.
The initial research part of the project is expected to be complete by late summer but it is unclear when the first results will be made public.Skin guns. Organ printers. Pig dust. Biochemist Alan Russell believes tools like these could one day be standard-issue for the battlefield medic. The skin gun would heal burns. The organ printer would replace badly wounded livers, kidneys, even hearts. And the pig dust? That could help regrow body parts for the estimated 1,000 veterans who have come home from Iraq and Afghanistan missing them. It's all part of the vision of the $250-million Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine (AFIRM), a consortium of 30 research institutions established in March by the U.S. Department of Defense. Russell, who directs the University of Pittsburgh's McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, will help lead AFIRM's efforts to develop therapies for the regeneration of bones, muscles, tendons, nerves and blood vessels, as a way to heal wounded soldiers faster and more effectively than with conventional treatments.
The idea of regrowing limbs sounds "kind of Star Trek-y," Russell admits, but he says that it's within the grasp of science. He points to his colleague at McGowan, Stephen Badylak, a pathologist and fellow AFIRM researcher, who shocked the medical world last year when he reported that a powder culled from pig bladders helped resprout the severed fingertips of two patients in their 60s. Normally, when a person loses a limb, scar tissue forms over the wound, leaving a permanent stub. The pig powder contains signaling molecules that attract cells and proteins known as growth factors and override the scarring process, telling the cells to grow instead. (Badylak settled on pigs because their molecules are similar to those found in humans and easy to obtain.) The pig dust was so effective that, with just a light dusting every other day for two weeks, the fingertips grew back entirely—fingernails and all—six weeks later, Badylak reported. For already scarred-over limbs, researchers have developed an enzyme that eats away scar tissue so they can dust the healthy cells below. With AFIRM's backing, Badylak next hopes to figure out how to stimulate the growth of more complicated muscle tissues found in arms and legs.
AFIRM won't stop at salamander-like limb regeneration. For injuries to organs, Wake Forest University tissue engineer and AFIRM researcher Anthony Atala (who nabbed this magazine's 2006 Best of What's New Grand Award for his artificial bladder) is building an inkjet printer capable of creating an entire organ on demand. The device uses cartridges filled with cells from various types of tissue, along with a mix of growth factors and special nutrients, to "print" organs layer upon layer. The printer has so far managed structures as complex as a rudimentary rat heart. Within the next five years, Atala aims to build a portable version for the battlefield that will print layers of skin tissue directly onto deep flesh wounds. For surface wounds, such as burns, the consortium is developing a handheld spritzer that sprays a thin layer of immature skin cells over the wound. These cells, called keratinocytes, are extracted from the patient's skin and stimulate healing in the wound. In a recent clinical test of the gun on 16 burn patients, all showed "excellent healing" after one to three weeks. The conventional approach of grafting, in comparison, takes just as long but requires three times as much skin and often results in patchwork scarring.
The Pentagon's five-year investment in these and other regenerative techniques is based on military needs, but the end goal is to help soldiers and civilians alike. "Conventional medicine cannot return people to the way they were before," Russell says. For amputees, "readjusting to a new reality is not acceptable."Author's note:
A special thanks to FuryTheRedhead, who pointed out all the shit in my fanfiction and helped me make it better. If this chapter reads any better than the last, it's thanks to him / her.
Jenni the Stryder continued its sprint along the steel beams of the ravaged refueling station. Debris marred its path, railgun rounds from Kodai's orbital defence cannons continued to tear apart the very station they were built to protect.
None of that mattered, though. What mattered was the soldier on her back and the monstrosity of a starship that would soon be waiting for her. She could see it silhouetted against the gas giant that was Carlyle, preparing to jump.
Just a little further!
She leapt from one beam to a stray panel of rubble. Another leap saw her soar through the void and onto another beam. Her left arm came up to bat smaller fragments of metal away from her face.
And then the space in front of her seemed to narrow and contract. For a moment, Carlyle was a pinprick in the distance - and then everything came rushing back and the Dawntreader loomed in front of her. A panel in the side of its hull opened like a cave at the foot of a cliff.
"Hold on tight!" she grunted to Seeley.
Jenni the Stryder's dash rockets erupted and she shot from the edge of the refueling station across the void and into the hangar.
"We're in!"
"They're in," repeated Sophia. "Punch it!"
"This is your captain speaking," giggled the Dawntreader. "Please fasten your seatbelts, stow any luggage underneath your seats and prepare for another jump in three, two, one, MARK!"
In a single instant the stars collapsed into a pinprick in the distance. The next, they were amongst them.
"ETA to Venice 3?" asked Sophia.
"That depends how fast you want to go. You wanna go really fast? You'd have to be in cryo, but I could probably make the jump in 26 hours."
"Twenty-six hours for an interstellar jump?!"
"Yep," replied the Dawntreader proudly.
"Not bad a find," commented Jenni, elevator doors sliding open to reveal the Pilot and the soldier she'd managed to evacuate. She took a couple of unsteady steps across the bridge.
"You… you okay?" asked Sophia, eyeing the Pilot from her seat.
"Yes. Why would I-" began Jenni, looking down.
She was saturated with sweat. Beads of liquid ran down her flushed face, her underarmor glistened with the liquid.
"You… look like you've been working quite hard."
Jenni laughed. "I hadn't efen noticed." She brought a hand to her forehead, closed her eyes. Exhaled. "I will be fine. I just need to rest." She took a step, collapsed into an empty seat on the bridge, and immediately fell asleep.
"No," cried Sophia, shaking her awake. "I've got something important to ask."
"Well, ask it quickly."
"We can make the jump in 26 hours, but we'd have to be in Cryo."
Jenni groaned. "Alright. You know, I really hate Cryo."
A door to the side of the bridge opened. "The Bridge's Cryopods are in here," offered the Dawntreader's AI.
Sophia helped Jenni up. The five - Sophia, Jenni, and the three soldiers that had survived the carnage - staggered over to the Cryopods.
Off came their clothes. The five were too tired to care about each other's nakedness. Each pulled the IV tube from the side of their cryopod, each slipped the needle into their arms. Sophia felt the liquid seep into her veins, felt the cold wrap around her body like a snake underneath her skin.
She dipped a leg into the cryopod's gel, realised just how numb she was already feeling. Dipped the other leg in, slid into the freezing bath. Let her breath out, dipped her head underneath the gel and inhaled.
It was kind of cold, and yet, somewhat warm. Her heart began to slow, her thoughts began to run together like water.
It's been a long day, she thought. But, we found the Dawntreader. I found the Dawntreader. Funny that. Dawn-treader. There aren't any Dawns in space. There are Dawns on planets, but not in space. What a silly name for a starship.
"I want to take control over Lawrence's Run," announced Dr. Hammond, striding into the office of Dr. Jones, the man who'd revived him from Cryosleep. "I need," the elderly engineer began, counting on his fingers, "3.2 gigagrams of plastics, 6.3 gigagrams of metal - nuclear iron should do - a gigagram of assorted synthetics, five construction barges,.. maybe... two battleships and five cruisers, just to be on the safe-"
"Wait a second." interrupted Dr. Jones, looking up from his monitor, eyes dulled in confusion. "Why the hell do-"
"Because," sighed Hammond, "the IMC board has decided to trust me. They want me to build them some legacy drives. But I've got a better idea."
"No they haven't!" cried Jones, searching through his communicator for the important message that he must have missed. "They're still in the meeting!"
"Oh, they'll decide that they want my help," dismissed Hammond. "So, when they leave that meeting," Hammond checked his watch, "...which they already have, but you'll only get the update in… what, thirty seconds' time..? When they leave the meeting, they'll tell me that they trust little ol' back-from-the-dead me, and they'll want me to build them some legacy drives."
Jones' communicator dinged. He looked at it in a mix of shock and horror.
"Tha- that's exactly… that's exactly what they decided!"
"Exactly. What kind of resources am I allowed access to?"
"Well… uhh, you're supposed to ask me for resources, and then I let you know if you can have him," Jones muttered, eyes scanning his monitor, sweat beginning to drip from his forehead. "I'm not allowed to let you know exactly how much of our resources you can have…"
Hammond put his fingers to his temples.
Hammond AI core, online. How may I help you, Sir?
What kind of resources will the IMC give me?
According to the microphones in their meeting room, they will grant you access to up their second fleet, plus everything they have on one of their manufacturing planets. No more. They are being generous in what they'll give you, but they do not wish for you to ask for all of their resources at once. They would prefer it if you requested resources as you needed them. They want to remain in control.
Thanks. Unfortunately, that's not how I work.
The whole exchange took roughly three seconds, and it looked to Dr. Jones as if Hammond had merely taken a moment to think.
"So, one fleet and one planet, if my memory serves me correctly…" Hammond muttered.
"How the fuc- I, I mean, how do you know that?" gasped Jones.
"A magician never reveals his tricks. So. What's the closest manufacturing planet to Lawrence's Run?"
"That would be Brink…"
"Very well then. I need to get to Brink as soon as possible. That is, If the IMC wants to regain control of the frontier, which I imagine it does. I need to take control over Brink, and I need to be ready to build a station around Lawrence's run. I'll be done in a few weeks, at which point the IMC's fleets should meet me there, ready for battle."
"A few weeks?" mumbled Jones weakly.
"7 days? 168 hours? Oh, I'll also need some new clothes, a transport to Brink, authorisation to mobilise the IMC's second fleet and the IMC's manufacturing barges on Brink, access to the IMC accounts to buy resources for the project… oh, and a lawyer. Can you get all that for me?"
"I - a lawyer? What for?"
"Well, the IMC is a branch of Hammond Robotics, and I was the CEO and owner of Hammond Robotics before I went into Cryosleep. I'd like to steal my company back from your employer, if that's okay. Thanks for the help!"
Hammond turned, left Jones' office with a smirk creeping across his lips.
"Decelerating to orbital speed in three, two, one, mark!"
The Crow-class Dropship's jump drives switched off and it materialised amidst the fleet of stolen Kodai starships. Its forward rockets fired and the dropship began to slow to a halt.
Outside the two fleets exchanged shots from afar. Kodai's defence fleet hung in the air to the east; the stolen starships - their autopilots now following IMC orders - orbited to the west. Railgun shots flashed through the space between them, lasers melted through radiators, missiles exploded against hulls. Each fleet was constantly moving, cycling undamaged starships to the front lines while automated repair barges sealed the torn hulls and replaced the radiators of the damaged starships.
The largest starship, a Dreadnought, hung in the middle of the IMC fleet. She had been built specifically to be the central starship of a fleet. Unlike the cuboid battleships the Dreadnought bent to the side like a banana. Its curve was its greatest asset. The long side of the curve faced toward the Kodai feet and housed the majority of the Dreadnought's armor and weaponry, in stark comparison to the battleships, whose armor and weaponry was distributed around their hulls. The shorter side of the Dreadnought, where all of the Dreadnought's exhaust vents and radiators were housed, was protected from the enemy fleet by the thicker armor curving in front of it. It would be easy to cripple the Dreadnought in an attack to its short side, if the Dreadnought were not protected by the swarms of cruisers and destroyers and frigates that made up the fleet around it. Likewise, it was incredibly difficult to cripple such a Dreadnought from its curved side, and as it just so happened, this Dreadnought's curved side faced Kodai's fleet.
An IMC cruiser lay dead in the space, its radiators unable to cope with the lasers that had been trained on it. A repair barge - only just larger than a Destroyer - made a move forward to retrieve it. A Kodai logistics cruiser warped a squadron of frigates amidst the IMC fleet; a pair of IMC destroyers broke away from their formation to pursue the troublemakers.
Aisling stared around the dropship. Two of the Three IMC pilots had survived. 22 of the original IMC soldiers had been killed over the course of the last four hours; by shrapnel, bullet or laser. She'd barely noticed them from inside the Samson, laying down their lives to protect the Assault truck with the radio dish on its roof. There were only eight IMC soldiers left, making a total of just thirteen people aboard the dropship.
"Come in, Dreadnought," said Rimjob over the Crow's lasercomms.
"Dreadnought AI speaking," replied the enormous Dreadnought's AI in a smooth, feminine voice. "How may I help you?"
"I'm your new owner," Rimjob lied. "First, you are the largest starship in my newly-purchased fleet, right?"
"Affirmative. Captain, I must interrupt. The last orders I received were to rendezvous with your dropship, even if the enemy fleet opened fire. Is this correct?"
"Yes. Minimise your losses and wait for us."
"Very well."
"Also, I'm renaming you to the IMS Restoration, and I'm raising your designation to the flagship of this fleet. If that were not clear already."
"Very well. Informing the other starships. Starships informed. Captain, you are now 30 seconds away from me. I am opening a hangar now. A suitable entrance path has been relayed to your Crow's computer."
"Thanks. We'll be inside shortly."
Danniek sat on the floor, head in hands. Aisling sat down beside him.
"Hey," she began. After a moments' silence,
"Hey," he replied.
She opened her mouth to speak but couldn't think of anything to say.
After a minute,
"I don't know what to think," he confessed. "He was… always there in front of us. Always leading. He never faltered for a second. And now…"
He grit his teeth, inhaled, exhaled.
"With him down, it's either Rimjob or Me for command. I'll be honest with you, I don't think I'm ready for that kind of responsibility."
"Nobody ever feels ready," she said, trying to reassure him. "And nobody ever is ready."
"I guess." He sighed, forced a smile for her. "Oi, Rim. ETA to the Restoration?"
"5 seconds."
"Right-o." Danniek got to his feet, helped Aisling up and grabbed a handhold as the shuttle's engines switched off, returning them to a weightless state.
The Crow began to drift inside the Restoration's open hangar.
"Captain?" came the Restoration's AI's voice. "Docking is commencing. Be advised, our fleet has taken moderate damage from the enemy fleet. Nothing we cannot repair, but enough to be a problem in further engagements. You should also know that we only have enough fuel for three jumps."
"Cool," grunted Rimjob. "Just get us out of here as soon as possible."
"Certainly," replied the Restoration. "Warp drive capacitors are at 32% and climbing."
The Crow's forward thrusters burned slightly, bringing it to a halt inside the Restoration's hangar.
"Commencing pre-jump preparations. Brace for acceleration in three, two, one, mark."
Aisling felt herself being pushed toward the Restoration's thrusters as they ignited to push the starship away from Venice 7 and toward Venice 3. Outside, the rest of the fleet began to do the same. Frigates, Corvettes and Destroyers moved inline with the Cruisers, Battleships and Dreadnoughts, their AI's each planning to capitalise on the larger starships' jump drives. Inside, the crew of the Crow found themselves falling to the floor.
"Warning," said the Restoration's AI. "This hangar is unpressurised. Please ensure that all personnel have oxygen supplies."
"Ugh, helmets on again everyone," ordered Rimjob. "Then lets get inside."
He waited a second, then pulled the Crow door open and jumped out onto the floor of the hangar. Aisling, flanked by the rest of the crew, followed him out. Felt herself being pulled to the floor by the power of the starship's thrusters.
"Restoration, where's the Bridge?" asked Danniek, helping two injured soldiers limp to the hangar airlock.
"And where's the medical room?" asked Rimjob, reaching the airlock a second later, a woman leaning on him, too.
The Airlock closed, hissed, then opened to reveal the corridor directly behind the hangar. Its interior was constructed with pipes and wires, covered with panels of plastics and synthetics. Tools and spare parts hung off the walls by velcro straps and zipties. A moment ago they had all been weightless; now they hung from the walls, the Dreadnought's fusion rockets pulling them down.
"The Bridge is up the elevator on floor 7," informed the Restoration. "The medical bay is down the elevator on floor 19. I can dispatch medical drones if you wish."
"Do it," grunted the Pilot, stumbling down the corridor with the wounded.
"I'm taking the Bridge," announced Danniek, sprinting down the corridor in the opposite direction. "Phillip," he called through the radio, "make your way to the bridge as soon as possible. Nathan, Aisling, give Rim a hand with whatever he needs. Restoration, open the elevator shaft on this floor."
Outside, the fleet extended in a long line facing its destination, the smaller starships preparing to utilise the superior warp drives of their larger allies. All began to accelerate away from Venice 7 and the other fleet that hung around it.
"Warp drive capacitors at 50% charge," called the Restoration's AI. "Be advised, the battleships in our fleet are at 72% charge."
Danniek leapt into the elevator shaft. He sprinted up the walls, jump kit flaring, feet flying underneath him.
"Restoration, open the elevator shaft door on floor 7!"
"Opening elevator shaft door on floor 7."
He caught the edge of the floor, hauled himself up and onto the floor that housed the Dreadnought's bridge. Continued his sprint across the deck to the command centre of the starship, slid into the captain's seat.
"Restoration. Divert all power to the warp drives."
"All power?" asked the Restoration. "Or a safe amount of power?"
"Everything but the medical bay. We'll survive a few minutes without life support."
"Very well. Diverting all power to warp drive capacitors and medical bay. Warp drive capacitors at 82% charge."
"Keep going. Where are the wounded?"
"Safe," replied Rimjob over the radio. "The medical drones have them."
"Good." Danniek returned his attention to the consoles in front of him. "Damage report."
Charts and figures poured onto the consoles. "Dreadnought Restoration is unscathed. Battleships one, and two have taken moderate levels of damage and will require maintenance. Battleship three is unscathed. Heavy laser platform one is unscathed. Cruisers one, two, four, six, seven and eight have taken moderate levels of damage. Cruiser five is crippled. Cruisers three and nine are unscathed. Medium laser platforms one, two, and three are unscathed. One repair barge has been destroyed. Three repair barges require resupply. Six repair barges are operational but will require resupply soon. Six destroyers have been destroyed. Four destroyers have been crippled. Ten destroyers are unscathed. 36 frigates have been destroyed. 20 frigates have been crippled. 80 frigates are unscathed."
"Gotcha. Warp drive capacitors?"
"99% char- 100%."
"Make the jump."
Every single starship in the fleet activated their warp drives at once, discharging capacitors into Einstein-Hammond mass relays. Dozens of black holes flickered into existence in an instant; space itself twisted and stretched and writhed around the fleet. Fusion rocket outputs doubled; the crew of the Restoration felt themselves be pulled downward even harder than before. The stars stretched into columns of light - and they were gone.
High above Venice 3 hung four Militia cruisers. Planetary defence cannons launched shell after shell through the atmosphere; the cruisers' computers ensuring that they dodged each shell by mere millimetres as to expend the least amount of fuel possible. Their own railguns fired back, but Venice 3's atmosphere ensured that only the largest of shells scraped their targets' armor without burning up.
Below the fleet, two enormous starships slid out of the sky.
"All personnel, we have hit the atmosphere!" announced Field Commander Graves through his communicator, gripping his armrests with white knuckles. "Repeat, we have hit the atmosphere! Evacuate the Retaliator immediately!"
I have to evacuate as many people as possible!
The Retaliator's hull blazed a blinding orange as it broke the sound barrier. Its hull - never designed for atmospheric re-entry - creaked and groaned and erupted in flames on both the outside and inside of the starship. Lifepods fled the starship in droves, their occupants clutching their hand rests and praying to whatever gods they believed in.
Merely a hundred metres away, the Austraeus - four times longer - slid out of orbit alongside the Retaliator, dwarfing the battleship. Panels of thin Borium armor tore from the Austraeus's hull and dissolved like glowing ashes. Astraeus was the Greek Titan of stars, planets and wind. Now wind tore her apart.
"ETA to ground?" growled Captain Roberts, restraints buckled tight to hold him in place on the bridge.
No response. Only the rattle and rumble of the starship through the atmosphere.
"Oh, that's right," grumbled Roberts. "Overwatch's out of power." With a flick of his left hand's fingers a calculator appeared on one console, with a flick of his right hand's fingers, statistics from the Austraeus's functional sensors appeared.
Altitude / vertical velocity should give me a rough approximation of how long we've got.
He leaned in to his communicator. "Shipwide broadcast," he rasped. "Aside from our Pilots and Titan engineers, is anyone not in a lifepod?"
"There are six engineers on floor six who are trapped under some rubble!" replied Nina Stone frantically.
Altitude's 60 kilometres… velocity's at 7.5 kilometres per second… but not all of that'll be directly downward, we're mostly still orbiting. I've got 20 minutes, judging from the camera feed from outside.
The Austraeus's hull was melting into a single mass, its armor gone. Hangar doors caved in, allowing the heat to enter the starship itself. Airlocks failed, support beams vaporised.
"Screw it! Titan pilots, you are cleared for launch! Lifepods, launch when the Titans fall!"
Hopefully, anyone watching won't notice the larger Titan pods amidst the lifepods.
"But Sir-" began Stone, "The engineers!"
"They can launch if they manage to escape!" roared Roberts. "Launch now!"
"Titan pilots, you are cleared for launch!" crackled Robert's voice over the radio.
An IMC pilot looked over at his mechanic. The mechanic nodded, and the Pilot nodded back. Climbed up into his Atlas's cockpit, flicked the startup switch.
"Titan boot successful. Drop mode initiated."
"All Titans!" shouted a mechanic on the floor of the titan hangar, addressing the docile Titans. "Confirm that you're ready to drop!"
Each pilot keyed in their combination of trigger pulls and pedal bumps to confirm that yes, they were ready to dive.
"Alright! We're loading you into your drop pods now!"
The mechanic ducked as sparks erupted from a light above his head. Mechanics began to load each crouching Titan into a drop pod.
"Titan Lucy is ready to drop!" roared one mechanic.
"Dropping!" called its Pilot, pulling the triggers on her joysticks.
"Titan Lucy away!"
"Titan Ramses is ready to drop!"
"Dropping!" called the Pilot named Ramseys, pulling his triggers.
"Titan Ramses away!"
Something on one of Graves' consoles caught his eye. He looked up, saw hundreds of life pods erupt from the Austraeus like fireworks. For some curious reason, some life pods were bigger than others.
But there was no time to contemplate this. A fire erupted on the bridge of the Retaliator, sparks flew from one of the doors to the bridge, panels of metal dropped from the roof.
Time to go.
Graves hauled himself out of his seat, clambered over the rubble that had began to collect on the floor of the bridge. Took a left as he exited, lurched down a corridor toward the last life pod |
Ukraine’s new democratic government fails, discrediting the whole notion of popular movements. That is his real motive, not any vision of patriotism. To that end, he could invade the eastern part of the country. But it may be enough for him to create enough uncertainty about his intentions to keep Ukraine permanently on edge, not allowing the situation to stabilize and its new leaders to succeed.
A true Russian patriot and Slavic brother would see the world differently. He would welcome the rapid development of a democratic, prosperous Ukraine. He would see it as a positive model for a Russia that could live in peace with its neighbors, and that could nurture the conditions for new economic growth based on deepening rather than dwindling ties with the outside world.
In the hands of a true national leader, patriotism can be a powerful constructive force. But all too often, as Samuel Johnson famously pointed out, “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”
Russia now has its scoundrel, fully exposed.People wait outside the border crossing between North Korea and Dandong, China. The pace of daily life has not changed since international sanctions were imposed on Pyongyang in March, according to eyewitnesses. File Photo by Stephen Shaver/UPI | License Photo
SEOUL, Nov. 16 (UPI) -- Everyday life appears to be stable in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, according to recent visitors to the country.
A diverse group of travelers say life for city residents is moving along at an uninterrupted pace, Voice of America reported Wednesday.
A Western diplomat in Pyongyang who requested anonymity and Keisuke Fukuda, the Japanese editor of weekly magazine Toyo Keizai, said the price of goods remains unchanged after sanctions in March.
Fukuda said the exchange rate had stayed at about 8,000 North Korean won to the dollar, and the price of consumer goods seemed to have stabilized, according to the report.
Kyung-Ae Park, a professor at the University of British Columbia who recently attended an international conference in Pyongyang, said she saw new high-rise buildings and many tourists in October.
Park said she stayed at the Koryo Hotel in Pyongyang, but because of the significant number of people in the area the rooms were all booked.
Leonid Petrov, an academic with Australian National University, said that there are a total of 12 taxi companies, and the number of North Koreans who work as cabdrivers has risen.
North Korean authorities allow taxis with a license plate ending in an odd number to operate on dates ending in an odd number – and vice versa, according to Yonhap.
Others who interviewed with VOA said the power supply in the city has improved dramatically and blackouts they experienced lasted a maximum of 5-6 minutes.
More North Koreans are also using mobile phones and credit cards, the eyewitnesses said.
Nagi Shafik, a former World Health Organization Pyongyang office project manager, said there are signs the international sanctions are having little effect on the country, according to Yonhap.The race to replace Johnny Manziel as starting quarterback at Texas A&M is down to two, after the school announced Wednesday that Matt Joeckel will transfer from the program.
The Arlington, Texas, native and former three-star recruit played in four games last season, connecting on 22 of 37 passes for 293 yards and two touchdowns.
"Matt is a great Aggie and he has decided to transfer," coach Kevin Sumlin said in a news release. "We wish him all the best."
Editor's Picks Aschoff: Aggies down to two to replace Manziel With Matt Joeckel transferring, Kenny Hill, who is suspended indefinitely, may still lead in the race to replace Johnny Manziel, writes Edward Aschoff.
With Joeckel out of the picture, the competition at quarterback falls to Kenny Hill and Kyle Allen.
Hill, a 6-foot-1 sophomore from Southlake, outside of Dallas, played in four games as a freshman, completing 16 of 22 passes, including one for a touchdown. He also ran the ball seven times for 37 yards.
But Hill took a significant step backward late last month when he was arrested for public intoxication and soon thereafter suspended indefinitely.
Allen, the No. 1 quarterback in the ESPN 300, enrolled at Texas A&M in January and was able to compete throughout spring practice, which ended on April 5.
Sumlin has not set a timetable for naming a starter. Whoever it is will have enormous shoes to fill after Manziel's storied two-year reign at the position that yielded a Heisman Trophy and numerous school and conference records on offense.
Joeckel, who finished his undergraduate degree in December, will have immediate eligibility to play in his senior season. His brother, Luke Joeckel, was the second overall pick of the 2013 NFL draft by the Jacksonville Jaguars.
"I have loved my 4½ years at Texas A&M," Matt Joeckel said. "I am glad I had the opportunity to play for Coach Sumlin, Coach [Jake] Spavital and the rest of the coaches. I am proud to have my degree from the Mays Business School and I'll always consider myself a member of the Aggie family."Here's a look at today's minor moves from around baseball.
The Tigers have signed catcher Ronny Paulino to a minor-league deal, CBS Sports' Jon Heyman tweets. Paulino, 32, hit.250/.337/.348 in limited action at the minor-league level in 2013. He last appeared in the Majors with the Orioles in 2012, and he has a career big-league line of.272/.324/.376.
have signed catcher to a minor-league deal, CBS Sports' Jon Heyman tweets. Paulino, 32, hit.250/.337/.348 in limited action at the minor-league level in 2013. He last appeared in the Majors with the Orioles in 2012, and he has a career big-league line of.272/.324/.376. The Dodgers have signed catcher J.C. Boscan to a minor-league deal and invited him to spring training, MLBTR's Tim Dierkes tweets. Boscan hit.232/.297/.270 in 258 plate appearances for the Cubs' Triple-A Iowa affiliate in 2013. He has 30 career big-league plate appearances.Gemma Soldati, a 25-year-old who works in marketing and is a comedian, posted an open letter to her parents on Facebook. “Dear Mother & Father, I’ve studied at your school for 25 years,” she starts.
She goes on to say that her parents took her to anti-war rallies, taught her that “equality is more important than security,” that “it was cool to vote for Ralph Nader,” and “that women should never be under anyone’s thumb.”
She ends her long list of lessons from her parents with a series of questions:
“So, why are you voting for Hillary Clinton?
Did I miss a lesson?
Did I miss the part where resistance got confused with idealism, where practicality trumps values and where identity politics outweigh revolutionary idea?”
Soldati, a Bernie Sanders supporter, is part of a generation of young, liberal women, who do not see Clinton as “their” candidate, who say they will vote for a woman, but only when the right one comes along.
“When my mother says she’s going to vote for Hillary Clinton because she’s a woman, to me that is identity politics at its worst,” Soldati tells Quartz. “It’s putting the value of a female president over the value of a president with your values.”
Instead of joining the ranks of some older feminists who are eager to see a female president for the first time in the US, these young women are opting en masse for Sanders, a candidate who captures their imagination with his promises of political revolution. He swept their vote in the Iowa caucuses, winning the support of 84% of women under 30, and in the New Hampshire primary, where he beat Clinton by nearly 60 points in the same demographic, according to exit polls. In Nevada, despite Clinton’s comfortable win, young voters (a gender breakdown was unavailable) continued to turn out for Sanders, giving him 82% of their votes.
Already, this election’s Democratic nomination process is showing that women cannot be treated as a distinct voting block.
Already, this election’s Democratic nomination process is showing that women cannot be treated as a distinct voting block, as Hillary Clinton’s candidacy brings an intergenerational feminist schism into public view. While many older women are thrilled to see a woman having a shot at the presidency during their lifetime, for many younger women, gender matters less. For them, “women’s issues,” as they’re classically defined, are taking a back seat to a much broader understanding of the term.
Why young women refuse to vote “gender first”
In a widely discussed incident in February, Madeleine Albright, 78, the first female US secretary of state, said at a rally for Hillary Clinton: “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other.” It’s a phrase Albright has used many times before, but this time it struck an especially negative chord. Young women were insulted. (Albright has since apologized)
Tayarisha Poe, a 25-year-old African-American photographer and filmmaker from Philadelphia, says voting “gender first,” is “asking people to separate themselves from their other identities.”
“If you’re asking me to put my gender first, you’re asking me to ignore my sexuality. If you’re asking me to put my gender first, you’re asking to ignore my race,” Poe, a former classmate of mine, says. “How can you ask me to separate them from each other when all of those things work together to create one person?”
Poe is describing what many of the Sanders voters see as their version of feminism. It connects multiple forms of discrimination, like sexism and racism, and talks about how they work together, something that’s referred to as “intersectional” feminism. This more layered understanding of identity puts young women at odds with Clinton, Albright and Gloria Steinem. They see their older peers as representatives of a now outdated second wave of feminism, one that has its roots in the 1960s and 70s.
Lianna Schwartz-Orbach, 27, who works in a biology lab in New York City, thinks Clinton’s brand of feminism is “based on being a middle-class white women.” This archetypal middle class white woman is focused on making progress within the current system. Today’s brand of young feminists wants to disrupt it.
“Feminism to me is a dismantling of power structures based on gender, race, class, sexuality, disability,” says Schwartz-Orbach.
And as far as they’re concerned, Clinton stands at the apex of the establishment pyramid, one that is entrenched in the power politics of Washington, far removed from the average young American. She’s just another politician, and that class as a whole should not be trusted.
“I think that youth in this country, particularly young women, women of color deserve more than just the current establishment has been providing for years and I think Hillary Clinton really represents that establishment,” says Varshini Prakash, 22, a climate justice organizer from Boston.
“I don’t see her being a woman in charge affecting in a positive way a lot of the women who I know.”
“I don’t see her being a woman in charge affecting in a positive way a lot of the women who I know,” adds Poe.
The changing nature of “women’s issues”
Hillary fans say that having a woman at the helm in the White House would provide much stronger support for policies that are critical for women, like equal pay, paid maternity and family leave, universal child care, and reproductive rights.
Clinton supporter Emily Crofoot, a 24-year-old who works at a reproductive rights non-profit organization in Washington DC, finds herself in a minority among her liberal-minded friends. (Her boyfriend also supports Sanders). Referring to her generation, she says that “they kind of assume that abortion rights will always be there, but they won’t be. You clearly have to fight for it.”
Clinton has a longstanding pro-choice record. For years she has been vocal about repealing the Hyde Amendment, for example, a federal law that makes it very hard for poor women to get an abortion.
“I wonder if we at all change in terms of which issues we focus on…as we get older and experience different things?”
Young women grew up in a different world than that of Clinton’s generation. Society pressures them less to get married or have children, the gender pay gap among their peers is 93%— far smaller than for the overall population, notes Rebecca Traister, author of a new book about the political power of unmarried women, “All The Single Ladies.” Naturally, they focus on different battles than those that have defined the feminist fight throughout Clinton’s political career.
They’re also at a different stage in their lives. Joanne Bamberger, author of “Love Her, Love Her Not: The Hillary Paradox,” who is in her fifties, says it’s understandable that younger women don’t focus on issues such as equal pay or paid family leave. “Those things were not on my radar when I was in the 18-30 demographic,” she says. “I wonder if we at all change in terms of which issues we focus on and which issues we think are particularly important…as we get older and experience different things?”
What young women vote on
The young women choosing Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton identify a wide variety of issues that weigh on their election choices: economic equality, finance reform, racial justice and criminal justice, climate change, foreign policy, education. This isn’t to say they don’t care about advancing women’s rights–they just define them much more broadly.
“Women are disproportionately hit by issues like the financial crisis, by not having a minimum wage.”
The effects of climate change such as drought and famine disproportionately affect poor people, women of color and the global south, says Prakash. “Women are disproportionately hit by issues like the financial crisis, by not having a minimum wage.” (More than half of minimum wage workers are women). For her, “women’s issues” are inextricably wrapped in all of these other problems.
For Schwartz-Orbach, and several of the other women I spoke to, Bernie Sanders, with his platform of economic and social justice, simply connects more deeply with their multi-layered concerns, (though it should be noted that Clinton gained 76% of the black vote in Nevada and recently received some powerful endorsements from black women). Coming of age during the Obama presidency—and the 2008 financial crisis—has raised the bar for the country’s next leader, and the Sanders candidacy sparked hope of pushing forward the progressive agenda. “We are now willing now to look past just being the ‘first,’” says Poe. “It has to be about more.”
Clinton also has more baggage to weigh her down in these young women’s eyes: her support for the war in Iraq, for example, an “extremely influential” moment in their political coming of age, or her ties with Wall Street and support for fracking. Clinton’s financial backing from the private prison industry, a much maligned element of America’s mass incarceration problem, is also a recurring theme. (Clinton stopped accepting contributions from the industry in late 2015).
Nae nae is a no no
There’s also Clinton’s “authenticity” problem. Fairly or not, polls show she continues to be dinged on her “trustworthiness” and “honesty,” where Sanders dominates.
There have been at least a couple of moments where Clinton’s presumably been making an effort to show she’s relatable, that end up coming off as disingenuous. “I don’t want someone who is doing the nae nae, I don’t care if you can dance,” says Poe, referring to Clinton’s appearance on The Ellen Degeneres Show. “Don’t try to fit in. We just want to know who you are and what you’re about but we see so clearly that you’re trying to be with it.”
Her campaign portraying her as “abuela” also left many with a bad taste. “That moment of ‘Hispandering,’ when paired with her pretty intense support of stronger border patrol and physical barriers against Mexico, is a seriously transparent instance of playing politician instead of offering genuine support,” says Michelle Funk, 25, a doctoral candidate at the University of Missouri’s Department of Communication.
Clinton gets criticized for her attempts at being more “relatable,” which can seem calculated, but she’s also bashed when she is focusing on the issues—for being too distant, and failing to inspire. Supporters see a double standard.
Bamberger, who is voting for Clinton, says she wishes her candidate would “go with her gut.” She thinks Clinton should talk about her accomplishments in the realm of promoting programs designed to economically empower women and girls around the world during her tenure as secretary of state. “If she could find a way to really talk about that, that could really connect with the voters who relate to income inequality.”
As candidates do, Clinton has already started adjusting her message to young voters, and young women in particular. “The question, in this year of the single woman, is whether the first truly plausible female presidential candidate can recognize how much her constituency has changed and capitalize on these changes, or if she will get overtaken by this growing group of independent women voters,” writes Traister.
But if Clinton becomes the Democratic nominee, she needn’t worry too much. Nearly all of the women I spoke to say they would vote for her come next November: She’s still better than any Republican.On Thursday, the federal government introduced legislation to legalize the recreational use of marijuana.
There are still plenty of details to be ironed out before the July 1st, 2018 target date for legal pot. But despite the uncertainty, private companies are already preparing to profit from the new industry.
And Canada's small towns are lining up to claim their own share of the economic benefits.
Diane Lebouthillier, Ralph Goodale, Jody Wilson-Raybould, Jane Philpott, Bill Blair after announcing the legalization of marijuana during a news conference in Ottawa. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press) Many of Canada's rural communities have been hit hard by factory closings and changes in agriculture.Some of them see medical and recreational marijuana as a way to kickstart a badly-needed economic revival.
In Kincardine, south along the western coast of the Bruce Peninsula, an abandoned and deteriorating greenhouse has been converted from growing tomatoes to growing marijuana. The facility, which is called "7 Acres," now covers seven acres of land in an industrial park.
Murray Clarke is Kincardine's Chief Administrative Officer. He says the decision to welcome the operation into their community was uncontroversial and saw very little opposition, although there were a few jokes.
"Our fire chief said that if they do ever get a call at the facility, we should order the pizza at the same time."
The mayor of Atholville, Michel Soucy, says the current plan is for the plant to begin production in June.
In Alberta, Milk River is just in the beginning phase of bringing marijuana production into their town. The company has found a plot of land, and while the operation will likely only bring around 15 full-time jobs, Mayor David Hawco says the impact will be significant for the town of 900 people.
"It doesn't take a lot of people to run the facility, but it does have a huge impact on our town. It has a larger impact on a smaller community than it would on a large municipality."
Tweed is Canada's largest licensed medical marijuana producer. (Photo courtesy of Tweed)
Soucy also hopes the unemployment rate in small towns like his may be appealing for producers looking for a home.
"When you look at the employment rate in the area, you can see that there are people available to work."
Clarke says that he is amazed by how the attitudes towards pot have changed over his lifetime.
"I think there is actually a sense of community pride in having the 7 Acres group here. It's a very interesting time for people of my vintage."
To hear more from Murray Clarke, Michel Soucy and David Hawco, download our podcast or click the 'Listen' button at the top of this page.× Update on 1999 disappearance case of Kansas boy whose parents never reported him missing
EL DORADO, Kan. (AP) — Butler County Sheriff Kelly Herzet said Thursday in a news conference that he has his doubts that Adam Herrman, who disappeared from Towanda, Kan., in 1999 when he was 11-years old is still alive.
Herrman’s adoptive parents never reported him missing.
But on Thursday, Sheriff Herzet announced that the reward to help find Adam Herrman has increased to $100,000. The previous reward was already a substantial sum of $50,000, but Herzet said an anonymous donor has put forward more funds in hopes that the additional money will convince someone to come forward with information.
Adam Herrman disappeared in 1999 from the family’s Towanda home in southeast Kansas but wasn’t reported missing until 2008 when his older sister contacted authorities. He remains the subject of a missing person investigation.
His adoptive parents, Doug and Valerie Herrman, were convicted in 2011 for receiving state adoption subsidies after he went missing.
The National Center for Exploited and Missing Children says Adam had numerous scars on his abdomen, a scar on his left thigh and a birthmark on his lower back.
The age progression photo of Adam shows what he may look like at 26 years old.It was on the return flight from Rio aboard the papal plane known to Vatican-watchers as Shepherd One that Pope Francis reopened the most urgent issue of his reign. Relaxing in the glow of adulation from a tour of Brazil that had culminated in the celebration of mass with three million pilgrims on Copacabana beach, the pontiff wandered to the back of the papal plane, where he spoke freely to an astonished press corps about the vexed question of the Vatican and homosexuality.
He first dispensed with his predecessors' distaste for the very word "gay". "Who am I to judge," he said, "if someone is gay and he searches for the Lord with goodwill?" Gay people should not be marginalised from society, he said, before tackling head-on the rumoured, much-discussed existence of a powerful "gay lobby" in the Vatican. If such a thing existed, it was not the most important form of corruption: "The problem is not having this orientation. We must be brothers. The problem is lobbying by this orientation, or lobbies of greedy people, political lobbies, Masonic lobbies, so many lobbies. This is the worse problem."
To understand the significance of homosexuality to the Vatican, one needs to know that a large minority of Catholic priests are thought to be gay and these priests know all too well the catechism's teaching that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered". Add this to the Vatican tradition of discrediting an enemy by accusing him of being gay, and the result is a sizeable number of closeted men in positions of authority with deep and potentially damaging secrets. By making same-sex acts a sin, the church moved homosexuality from being a simple matter of sexual orientation into the realm of conspiracy and politics.
The problem is compounded by a document drawn up by Pope Benedict XVI when he was Cardinal Ratzinger, which appears to mandate a life in the closet for the gay priest. Although it condemns homosexuality as an attraction towards "an intrinsic moral evil", men who have managed three years of celibacy are assumed to have no "deep-rooted" homosexual orientation. In such an atmosphere, it's no wonder that the phrase "gay lobby" has become so powerful and that almost everyone is suspected of membership.
A recent and high-profile target of suspicion was the pope's new personal representative at the troubled Vatican Bank, Monsignor Battista Ricca, who was accused of living openly with his male lover when he was a Vatican diplomat in Uruguay at the turn of the century. The pope, on the flight from Rio, said the allegations had been found to be groundless and anyway only concerned a sin, which God might forgive, and not a crime. This was not only an assertion of his authority over the backbiters within the Vatican but also marked an attempt to deal with gay people realistically, as people.
These two strategies are closely linked in his struggle to reform the church, and tame the Vatican's bureaucracy, known as the Curia.
The English theologian James Alison, himself openly gay, reckons more than 40% of the Catholic clergy today are gay, but that very few are comfortable or honest about it. Other experienced observers concur with this estimate, though few inside the church will speak on the record.
"The notion of a gay lobby is complicated," said Alison. "There are so many uses of the term." Inside the Vatican, the term typically refers to all people outside who claim being gay is normal. The second use, said Alison, was as shorthand for delusional thinking, such as "When people say things like: 'This so-called scientific teaching is merely the result of a powerful gay lobby.'" This shows, said Alison, that the biggest and most successful gay lobby in the Vatican is the closeted one.
The veteran Vatican correspondent John L Allen of the National Catholic Reporter believes the Italianised term "lobby gay" has a different nuance to the English phrase. "When you say 'gay lobby' to the typical English-speaker, what they're going to think of is … an interest group advancing an agenda.
"That really is not what Italians mean by the term 'lobby gay'. What they mean is this clandestine network of people in the Vatican who have skeletons in their closets who are looking out for one another, and as far as Italians are concerned those skeletons don't even have anything to do with sex in some cases.
"If the question is 'Are there gays in the Vatican?', yes, of course there are. But if the question is 'Is there some kind of organised network of gays in the Vatican who are protecting one other and advancing their own interests', all I can tell you is that in 15 years of covering the place I've never seen any particular evidence of that."
According to Alison, even the notion of a closeted gay lobby turns out to be complicated. "It's a honeycomb of closets. Not everyone knows everybody else. Everybody knows somebody who knows someone else. So there is a …game of blackmail going on.
"The people with the strongest motivation to keep the current system are those people who – maybe for the best of motives – opted to'sacrifice' that part of themselves for what they thought was the glory of God. They found themselves constantly having to re-enact that sacrifice for other people, as though the annihilation of who one is was actually what Our Lord meant. Their sacrifice has been not only in vain, but has been a monumental act of self-destruction. This destruction is independent of whether the person has or has not got partners."
Another perspective is supplied by the German theologian David Berger, who for 20 years was part of the closeted traditionalist scene in Germany (Alison notes wryly that the smallest possible Catholic society would be a gathering of straight traditionalist priests). Berger was denounced and sacked from his teaching job when he came out in 2010 and now edits a gay magazine. "In Rome I experienced that these [gay] networks exist but they're not about power grabbing. Nepotism exists in the Vatican anyway, based on friendships. The main aim of these circles is simply to gain access to sex in an uncomplicated way. There is also a lot of paid sex but much unpaid sex as well. There's no gay conspiracy in the Vatican."
Berger has large files of letters from priests, largely from German-speaking countries, in which the writers have told him graphic and often tortured stories about their experiences of being gay and in the priesthood. One priest was so distraught by the attempts to blackmail him as well as his sense of guilt that he covered himself in petrol in front of the other priest with whom he was in a relationship and set himself alight. He died, whilst the surviving priest lives with a huge psychological burden.
Some observers identify an older generation of gay priests as being less conflicted. One highly placed English Catholic said: "I have known quite a few gay clergy of that generation, who accepted the church's teaching on homosexuality without having to fight any self-hatred. They did not see their homosexuality as being at the very core of their identity. They happened to be gay. But what is at the centre of their being is that they can love, and it just happens that some of their most profound experiences of love were of other men."
This adjustment to a celibate life – where sex is entirely unimportant and uninteresting when compared with love that seems to need no sexual expression – does certainly still exist, and was acknowledged by everyone the Guardian talked to. But it is hard in the modern age. "Rome is one of the last places on earth where 'don't ask don't tell' actually means that," said Alison. "It is a traditional monosexual culture, in the same way that the British army would have been in 1890. Women and indeed sex are simply irrelevant. It didn't matter what you did so long as you weren't caught and caused no scandal.
"It's a remarkable cultural survival of a pre-modern world. But the people inhabiting it are modern people. So you get cognitive dissonance. There are various ways of surviving. You can live a double life, with all the pain that will lead to. You can choose to shut down your emotional life and become career-minded."
It will be a test of his reign whether Pope Francis can negotiate this politically charged issue, one consequence of which is that accusations of homosexuality remain one of the commonest and most effective forms of attack.
Sometimes this is entirely deranged. A traditionalist blogger has denounced the archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, as "a homosexual" because he had said something sympathetic about his own gay clergy.
Similarly, a letter denouncing by name a number of prominent German and Austrian Catholic clergy, inside and outside the Vatican, was circulated to all German-speaking bishops last year and to the media including the Guardian. The men are widely regarded to be moving in gay networks. Some are accused of complicity in the manoeuvrings around the Vatileaks scandal last year, when Pope Benedict's butler was convicted of passing on detailed and confidential information to journalists. It seems likely that this letter formed part of a dossier presented to Pope Benedict in February by three cardinals charged with investigating the Vatileaks affair.
As his remarks on the plane imply, an opening towards honesty in Catholic attitudes to homosexuality and gay people must form a part of what Francis was elected by the cardinals to do: reform the Vatican. It is a huge task.Four centuries have passed since the invention of the telescope, and in that time telescopes have gotten bigger and bigger--the better to peer into deep space.
Now the green light has been given for construction to begin on what is projected to be the world's biggest telescope, the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT).
The announcement was made Dec. 4 by the European Southern Observatory, the multinational organization that's behind the project. Construction of the telescope is expected to cost 1.083 billion euros, or $1.34 billion (at 2012 prices), with operations to begin in 2024, Space.com reported.
An optical and infrared telescope, the E-ELT will feature a gargantuan 39-meter aperture that will make the scope the "biggest eye on the sky" and give it unparalleled capabilities, according to the ESO. It is to be built atop Cerro Armazones, a 3,000-meter (10,000-foot) mountain in Chile's Atacama Desert. The desert is one of the driest regions on Earth and is considered one of the best places from which to observe the sky.
The E-ELT will gather 15 times more light than the biggest optical telescopes now in operation and produce images 15 times sharper than those produced by the Hubble Space Telescope, according to the ESO. But what exactly will it mean for astronomy and our understanding of the cosmos?
"All of astronomy will be advanced," Dr. Jay M. Pasachoff, professor of astronomy at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, and co-author of "The Cosmos: Astronomy in the New Millennium," told The Huffington Post in an email.
Specifically, he said:
"Everything will be 10 times quicker to study, and the giant diameter coupled with the new adaptive optics that takes out the effects of our atmospheres' twinkling will allow a concentration of starlight that will speed up observations still more and provide more detailed images of distant galaxies. All the most exciting topics in astronomy will be advanced. They include the study of atmospheres of exoplanets--planets around other stars--to look for molecular imbalances that could indicate the presence of life--and the sources of violent explosions around supermassive and other black holes that we detect already in other parts of the spectrum. We will be able to pinpoint disks of gas and dust around distant stars that represent solar systems in formation, and see exoplanets directly."
Pretty impressive. And the E-ELT isn't the only titanic telescope on the way.
According to Space.com, the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) is to be constructed atop Las Campanas, another Chilean peak, with operations starting in 2021. And the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) will begin operations from Hawaii's Mauna Kea starting in 2022.
But Pasachoff worries there could be a downside to the big telescope bonanza--the possibility that funding for the operation of existing telescopes could come under pressure.Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
April 20, 2016, 4:46 PM GMT / Updated April 20, 2016, 10:05 PM GMT By Halimah Abdullah and Tom Costello
Alexander Hamilton has won this duel.
The Founding Father will remain on the front of the $10 bill, the Treasury Department announced Wednesday.
But on the back of the sawbuck, suffragists who fought to give women the right to vote will be added, including Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Alice Paul.
And on the $20 bill, abolitionist Harriet Tubman is replacing President Andrew Jackson.
"I'm very excited by it and I think it's much bigger than just honoring one woman,” Treasury Secretary Jack Lew told NBC News. “This is about saying that our money is going to tell a much bigger part of our story.”
Lew said the depictions of the women who fought for the right to vote is far more compelling than the steps of the Treasury building currently shown on the back of $10.
There will also be changes to the $5 bill. It will depict famous events from the Lincoln Memorial, such as the historic moment when First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt invited Marian Anderson to sing on the monument’s steps because the concert halls in Washington D.C. were segregated.
Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have Dream” speech, delivered from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, will also be depicted.
The bills will be unveiled in 2020 — the 100th anniversary of women's right to vote. Lew said the new notes will go into circulation as fast as possible after that.
Related: Treasury Department to Put a Woman on the $10 Bill in 2020
Last year, the U.S. Treasury surprised advocates who were pressing to get a woman on the $20 bill, by announcing a woman would go on the redesigned $10 bill. That drew outrage from defenders of Hamilton, who was killed in a duel with Aaron Burr.
“We did this the old fashioned way, we said we were going to listen to the American people and we did. We heard a lot of commentary that a woman should be on the $20, not the $10,” Lew told NBC News.
“There was a sense that's the bill that people use the most. If we're really going put a woman on a bill that people see, as being an important statement, it should be the $20.”
Hamilton, who has experienced a resurgence in popularity thanks to a hit Broadway production, helped create the Treasury. Fans have been captivated with his life story.
“Hamilton’s surge in popularity has been building over time, it didn’t just happen now with the Broadway show," said Kari Winter, director of the Gender Institute at the University at Buffalo. "Over the last few years there have been major biographies written about him, so this has been happening for a few years now. Hamilton is a romantic figure in so many ways. He is one of our most interesting founders."
Related: Lawmakers Push Bills Campaign to Put a Woman on the Twenty
The Alexander Hamilton Awareness Society also cheered the decision.
"The news that Alexander Hamilton will retain his historically prominent place on US currency is a welcome validation of Hamilton’s significance to the nation.” the group's vice-president Nicole Scholet de Villavicencio said.
Known as "Moses" to her people, Tubman is famous for helping lead slaves to freedom on the Underground Railroad. She also helped nurse ill Union troops, helped fight for the end of slavery and was a suffragist who advocated for women to have the right to vote.
On Capitol Hill, lawmakers lauded the choice.
Rep. Luis V. Gutiérrez, D-Illinois, who last year introduced legislation to push the Treasury to put a woman on the $20 bill, said in a statement that the move was a powerful symbol.
“It is crazy that women have been mostly absent from our money up until now, with only a few exceptions," Gutiérrez said in a statement. "Women and men are equal partners in our nation’s success and our money should reflect that. Sure, it is only symbolic, but U.S. money is just about as powerful a symbol as there is in this world.”
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-New Hampshire, was similarly excited.Spellbook Golem
Large Construct, neutral
Armor Class 17
17 Hit Points Special, see Shells
Special, see Shells Speed 30 ft levitate
STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA 6 (-2) 20 (+5) 10 (0) 20 (+5) 1 (-5) 1 (-5)
Condition Immunities Blind, charm, deaf, frightened, grappled, poisoned, prone, stunned
Blind, charm, deaf, frightened, grappled, poisoned, prone, stunned Saves Dex +9, Int +9
Dex +9, Int +9 Damage Vulnerabilities Fire
Fire Damage Resistances bludgeoning, piercing, slashing
bludgeoning, piercing, slashing Senses blindsight 60
blindsight 60 Languages None
None Challenge 15ish
Shells. The Spellbook Golem is made of 8 shells. Each has its own initiative, action, bonus action, and reaction, but all move together on the initiative of the 4th shell |
time-to-retraction is shorter for articles that receive careful scrutiny, time-to-retraction was correlated with journal impact factor (IF). Time-to-retraction was significantly shorter for high-IF journals, but only ∼1% of the variance in time-to-retraction was explained by increased scrutiny. The first article retracted for plagiarism was published in 1979 and the first for duplicate publication in 1990, showing that articles are now retracted for reasons not cited in the past. The proportional impact of authors with multiple retractions was greater in 1972–1992 than in the current era (p<0.001). From 1972–1992, 46.0% of retracted papers were written by authors with a single retraction; from 1993 to 2012, 63.1% of retracted papers were written by single-retraction authors (p<0.001). Conclusions The increase in retracted articles appears to reflect changes in the behavior of both authors and institutions. Lower barriers to publication of flawed articles are seen in the increase in number and proportion of retractions by authors with a single retraction. Lower barriers to retraction are apparent in an increase in retraction for “new” offenses such as plagiarism and a decrease in the time-to-retraction of flawed work.
Citation: Steen RG, Casadevall A, Fang FC (2013) Why Has the Number of Scientific Retractions Increased? PLoS ONE 8(7): e68397. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0068397 Editor: Gemma Elizabeth Derrick, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientifics, Spain Received: September 4, 2012; Accepted: May 30, 2013; Published: July 8, 2013 Copyright: © 2013 Steen et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: The authors have no support or funding to report. Competing interests: RGS owns MediCC! Medical Communications Consultants LLC, a medical communications company. This does not alter the authors’ adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.
Introduction Science is said to be self-correcting, in that the literature can purge itself of articles deemed to be seriously flawed [1], [2]. One of the major mechanisms of self-correction is retraction of flawed work [3], [4], and the rate of retraction of scientific articles has risen sharply in recent years [5]–[7]. A substantial fraction of all retractions are due to research misconduct [8], [9] and there has been an estimated 10-fold increase in retractions for scientific fraud (e.g., data fabrication or falsification) since 1975 [8]. Furthermore, fraud was found to be involved in 94% of the 228 cases of misconduct identified by the U.S. Office of Research Integrity from 1994–2012 [10]. An explanation for the apparent increase in the rate of fraud is not immediately obvious. If the literature truly does self-correct, then research fraud should ultimately be futile [4]. Yet there is reasonable evidence that scientific misconduct is both common and under-reported [11]. An anonymous survey of 2,000 psychologists estimated that the prevalence of data falsification was 9%, although only 1.7% of respondents actually admitted having falsified data [12]. Among 3,247 scientists surveyed anonymously in the United States, 0.3% admitted to falsifying data and 1.4% admitted to plagiarism [13]. A survey of 125 corresponding authors, all of whom had published an article in a major medical journal, found that 5 respondents (4%) had discovered fraudulent data in their own article after publication [14]. A survey of 2,212 scientists revealed 201 instances of likely research misconduct over a 3-year period, for an incidence rate of roughly 3% per year [15]. Among 163 professional biostatisticians, 31% had been involved in a fraudulent project and 13% had been requested to “support fraud” during their research career [16]. A meta-analysis of 11,647 scientists reported in 21 separate studies concluded that 2% of scientists had committed research fraud at least once in their career [17]. If these numbers are credible, then there may be many fraudulent papers that have not been retracted [4]. Therefore, it is not clear whether the increase in retractions is a result of an increase in the rate of publication of flawed articles or an increase in the rate at which flawed articles are recognized and withdrawn [5]. The goal of this study is to gain a deeper understanding of the increase in retracted scientific publications by analyzing trends in the time interval from publication to retraction. We show that, while retractions have increased strikingly in recent years, there is reason to expect that this reflects changes in institutional behavior as well as changes in the behavior of authors.
Methods The PubMed database of the National Center for Biotechnology Information was searched on 3 May 2012, using the limits of “retracted publication, English language.” A total of 2,047 articles were identified, all of which were exported from PubMed and entered in an Excel database [8]. Each article was classified according to the cause of retraction, using published retraction notices, proceedings from the Office of Research Integrity (ORI), Retraction Watch (http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com), and other sources (e.g., the New York Times). Retractions were classified as resulting from fraud (e.g., data fabrication or falsification), suspected fraud, scientific error, plagiarism, duplicate publication, other cause (e.g., publisher error, authorship disputes, copyright infringement), or unknown. Fabrication is defined as the manufacture of fictional data, while falsification is defined as selective manipulation of actual data to present a misleading result [4]. Each assessment of the reason for retraction was reviewed by all authors and discrepancies were resolved by consensus. The initial analysis of these data is summarized in a separate manuscript, which concluded that the majority of retractions were due to misconduct [8]. The present study focused on the time required to retract a flawed article, in order to test several a priori hypotheses. An apparent increase in recent retractions might result: (1) if the time to retract has increased in recent years, so that editors are reaching further back in time to retract (e.g., if the introduction of plagiarism-detection software has lead to the detection of long-published articles that need to be retracted for plagiarism); (2) if peer scrutiny has increased, so that flawed work is detected more quickly; or (3) if there are reduced barriers to retraction, such that retraction occurs more swiftly (or for different reasons) now than in the past. The time required to retract an article was calculated as the number of months from when a hard-copy version of the article was published in a journal (i.e., as opposed to an online electronic version) to when the retraction notice was published. To determine the impact of authors with multiple retractions, each first author was compared to other first and senior (last) authors. In cases where names were highly similar, research topics and institutional affiliations were used to determine whether the same author was involved. For example, there were 3 retracted papers written by an author named “Z. Shen.” One paper [18] was about defective transcription of Foxp3 in patients with psoriasis and was submitted from the Third Military Medical University in Chongqing, China. Two papers [19], [20] were about nanoembossed ferroelectric nanowires and came from Fudan University in Shanghai. It was judged that the same “Z. Shen” wrote the latter two papers, but a different “Z. Shen” wrote the former paper. In the course of identifying whether each first author had also written other retracted papers, it was often possible to identify networks of collaborating authors. In the case of “Z. Shen” above, we noted that the senior author of the psoriasis paper was “Y. Liu,” whereas the senior author of the nanowire papers was “R. Liu.” Our approach therefore identified “R. Liu” as a senior author who had collaborated on at least 2 retractions. As the entire list of 2,047 retracted first authors was reviewed, networks of collaborating authors were identified. The number of retracted articles by each first author was tallied to determine the number of first authors with only 1 retraction, first authors with 2 to 5 retractions, and first authors with more than 5 retractions. To determine the sensitivity of our analysis to authors with multiple retractions, we sorted first authors by name, to determine how many retractions were associated with each first author. We then compared first authors with a single retraction to first authors with multiple retractions. All statistical tests and data plots used the capabilities native to Excel (Microsoft Office). Correlation coefficients (Table 1) were tested for significance using the R statistic, which has a t-distribution. The mathematical model used to predict the number of articles likely to be retracted in the future was derived de novo from consideration of the cumulative probability of retraction. PPT PowerPoint slide
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larger image TIFF original image Download: Table 1. Correlations among journal impact factor (IF) and time-to-retraction expressed in months for different infractions. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0068397.t001
Discussion A substantial increase in the rate of retracted scientific articles has been observed [8]. The present study analyzed several hypotheses that might account for this increase, with an emphasis on the time interval between publication and retraction. Evidence supports contributions from the following factors: The rate of publication has increased, with a concomitant increase in the rate of retraction (Fig. 1). Editors are retracting articles significantly faster now than in the past (Fig. 2). The reasons for retraction have expanded to include plagiarism and duplicate publication.
Journals are reaching further back in time to retract flawed work.
There has been an increase in the number and proportion of retractions by authors with a single retraction (Fig. 3).
Discovery of fraud by an author prompts reevaluation of an author’s entire body of work.
Greater scrutiny of high-profile publications has had a modest impact on retractions (Table 1). The recent spike in retractions thus appears to be a consequence of changes both in institutional policy and in the behavior of individual authors. The phenomenon of retraction itself appears to be a relatively recent phenomenon. Although the PubMed database lists biomedical research publications since 1966, along with selected articles published prior to that time, the earliest publication indexed as a retracted article in PubMed was published in 1973 and retracted in 1977 [25]. Yet it is clear that scientific misconduct resulted in fraudulent publications before 1977 [26]–[28]. Similarly, the first articles retracted for error or plagiarism were published in 1979, and the first article retracted for duplicate publication was published in 1990. Retraction is more widely recognized as a remedy for a flawed publication in the modern era, and the reasons for retraction have expanded over time. Authors responsible for multiple retracted articles have received a great deal of attention [8], [23], [29]–[33], and our results show that they have had a considerable impact on the literature. Prior to the most recent decade, authors with >5 retractions (Fig. 4) were a few highly prolific scientists, including Robert Gullis, who misrepresented hypotheses as experimental results in 8 articles [25], John Darsee who authored 13 articles later retracted for data fabrication [34], [35], and Robert Slutsky, who had 17 articles retracted for fraud [29]. Recognition of serial misconduct has increased in recent years, although retractions by authors with only one retraction are more common (Fig. 3) and proportionally more important (Fig. 4). Nevertheless, research groups led by Joachim Boldt and Naoki Mori were responsible for 25.9% of all articles retracted in 2011, suggesting that these individual authors have had a grossly disproportionate impact on retractions from the literature. Once a fraudulent article is detected, institutional investigation of the author’s work frequently uncovers additional instances of fraud [35]. However, the process of scrubbing the literature to remove the influence of a serial offender can be very lengthy. For example, a problem was noted in 2000 with the research output of the Japanese anesthesiologist Yoshitaka Fujii, whose data showed an abnormal absence of variability in the side effects of medication [36]. More recent follow-up suggests that Fujii’s publications, which still had not been retracted at the time this database was assembled, may involve extensive fraud [37]. Examination of 168 randomized clinical trials (RCTs) published by Fujii demonstrates that these trials contain extremely aberrant data distributions. The distribution of variables in individual RCTs were inconsistent with expected values in 96 of 134 human studies by Fujii [37]. The age distribution of subjects in one large study showed a highly non-random distribution, though no exclusion criteria were noted that could explain this distribution. The likelihood of obtaining this distribution by chance alone was P<10−33. Subsequent to when this database was assembled, the Canadian Journal of Anesthesia retracted 17 fraudulent papers by Fujii which had been published in that journal and indicated that a further 17 articles were “indeterminate” for fraud [38]. It seems likely that many more articles by this author will be retracted in the future [37], though Fujii maintains his innocence [39]. It is noteworthy that it has taken more than a decade for the investigation of Fujii’s work to proceed from suspicion to retraction. The work reported here has several limitations. Many articles published recently could be retracted in the future, which might alter the average time-to-retraction (Table 1). A change in time-to-retraction could alter the calculation of the cumulative probability of a retractable paper being retracted (Fig. 5). If there is a change in the cumulative probability of retraction, this would in turn alter the estimate of the number of articles likely to be retracted in the future (Fig. 6). A single author with a large number of retractions, such as Boldt or Fujii, could markedly change the conclusions that the data now suggest. Another limitation of our study is that it does not address flawed work that has not been retracted. Data fabrication and falsification are not new phenomena in science. Gregor Mendel, the father of genetics, may have modified or selectively used data to support his conclusions [40] and statistical analysis suggests that Mendel’s “data… [are] biased strongly in the direction of agreement with expectation…. This bias seems to pervade the whole data [set]” [26]. However, there now appear to be lower barriers to retraction as a remedy to correct the scientific literature. Our results (Fig. 5) suggest that the overall rate of retraction may decrease in the future as editors continue to process a glut of articles requiring retraction. Better understanding of the underlying causes for retractions can potentially inform efforts to change the culture of science [41] and to stem a loss of trust in science among the lay public [42], [43].
Supporting Information Table S1. Correlations among journal impact factor (IF) and time-to-retraction expressed in months for different infractions, after deleting all authors with more than one retraction. The correlation coefficient r is tested for significance with the R statistic, which has a t-distribution. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0068397.s001 (DOCX) Table S2. Comparison of papers by authors with one retraction to papers by authors with multiple retractions. Differences in months to retract and average journal impact factor (IF) were tested with a t-test. Differences in type of infraction were tested by χ2 analysis, by collapsing all differences into a 2×2 contingency table. Asterisks indicate values which are higher than expected by χ2 analysis. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0068397.s002 (DOCX) Database S1. Excel file listing all retracted articles analyzed in this paper. The file includes first author, article title, journal of publication, year of publication, year of retraction, months to retract, and the PubMed Identifier (PMID). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0068397.s003 (XLSX)
Author Contributions Conceived and designed the experiments: RGS AC FCF. Performed the experiments: RGS AC FCF. Analyzed the data: RGS AC FCF. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: RGS AC FCF. Wrote the paper: RGS AC FCF.The AirSwap exchange contract facilitates atomic swaps of ERC20 tokens between two Ethereum addresses. The contract is considered the “on-chain” part of the protocol, and everything prior is the “off-chain” work done between peers. Two independent audits have been completed by Phil Daian and Nick Johnson that will soon be available in the GitHub repository.
Exchange Contract
The exchange contract takes advantage of the ERC20 standard to transfer token balances between counterparties. After approving the contract to transfer his or her balances, a trader submits a signed order by calling a function “fill”. This function then calls “transfer” on each respective token to complete the trade.
Token Contract
The token contract is based on ERC20, but includes some special features. First, token holders may lock a balance of tokens for a set amount of time. This allows off-chain services to detect these locks and provide additional utility to users who have locked. All token transfers are locked until October 17, 2017 at 10:10:10 AM ET. The token contract is also “pausable”, which means that we can pause transfers in case of a major security vulnerability.
Because transfers are locked and the sale is being done through the exchange contract, the token contract is constructed with an initial balance for the sale wallet. During the sale, the sale wallet signs orders and buyers fill them on the exchange contract.
https://github.com/airswap/contracts
Bug Bounty
We will run a bug bounty indefinitely to reward community members for discovering and reporting bugs. The scope of the bounty will be limited to Exchange.sol and AirSwapToken.sol and the contracts they inherit from.
The value of rewards will vary depending on severity as judged by the AirSwap team. The severity of a bug is determined according to the OWASP risk rating model based on Impact and Likelihood, as employed in the Ethereum bug bounty campaign:
Bounty payout is as follows:
Low: Up to 5 ETH
Medium: Up to 20 ETH
High: Up to 50 ETH
Critical: Up to 100 ETH
A few friendly rules:
Bounties go to the first to report. Don’t steal or attempt to steal others funds. Don’t publicly disclose a bug before it has been fixed. Paid auditors of this code are not eligible for rewards. Issues that are mentioned in the security audits are not eligible. Non-security critical issues (style issues, gas optimizations) are not eligible. Determinations of eligibility, score and all terms related to an award are at the sole and final discretion of the AirSwap team.
Please take a close look at our contracts on GitHub and submit any issues for review to bounty@airswap.io.
To learn more about AirSwap, sign up for email updates on our website. To stay up to date on AirSwap news and announcements, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and join the conversation on Telegram.Until recently, all we’ve seen in Evolve was Hunt, a cool game mode where four hunters tried to kill a monster before it evolved to level three and destroyed a generator. However, there is far more to the game than just that. I got to play all the new modes, and they change the entire experience.
You probably remember Hunt, but just in case, here’s a video of me playing that game mode with Wraith, the new monster.
The Evacuation Campaign goes through each of the following game modes. Players can choose which mode they want to play next. Maps are situated in the same geographical areas on Shear, so depending on where you start your campaign, only certain map types will be available. Each of these paths will eventually lead to one of four final maps with a climactic battle.
Players can change which hunters or monsters they play as from one map to the next during the same campaign – they may find one combination of skills better depending on the task at hand. For example, I recommend a flame thrower for Hunters taking on Nest, while it isn’t quite as helpful for Rescue.
Nest
Nest is a timed match. Six eggs are placed around the map and it is up the hunters to destroy them, or the monster. The monster can hatch one egg at any given point, spawning a level one Goliath as a minion to attack the hunters. The monster must protect the eggs until the time runs out, or kill off all the hunters. Here is a video where I managed to do just that by some miracle with my elite skills.
As you can see, the eggs are hard to destroy thanks to a tough outer coating, and the Goliath coming at the hunters from time to time adds to the difficulty. Hunters are best served by raining down an orbital assault on the eggs, although I found the flamethrower worked particularly well in this play through as the hunters.
12 different maps are available for this gameplay mode with a range of various map effects.
Rescue
Much like Nest, Rescue is all about defending the innocent. However, this time the tables are turned as nine colonists will appear on the map. Unlike the eggs, they don’t appear all that once, coming in groups instead. First two, then another two, and then five colonists appear. It’s up to the Hunters to revive them and escort them back to the evacuation point. Because of how they appear, everything can be turned around in the final batch depending on gameplay. Here is my experience of playing as the Hunters in Rescue.
I had a much better strategy when I played as the monster, choosing to pick off one or two survivors at a time, easily making my quota and winning the game. It’s important that both hunters and monster focus on the objective at hand. You can’t play these modes the same way that you would Hunt – it’s not just about hunting and killing your opponents.
There are also 12 different maps available for this gameplay mode with a range of map effects.
Defend
This is the climax of the game’s campaign. After completing the other map types, players will eventually work their way to one of four Defend maps. These begin with a fully staged up monster who appears with two minions (Goliaths are the only minion monster types) who will continually respawn. The monster must destroy generators in order to open doors leading to a refueling station.
It’s built as a climactic battle with Hunters desperately watching the clock and attempting to kill the monster (and the minions) to let the planet’s survivors escape on the ship. Of course the monsters just want to destroy everything, pushing hard to destroy generators and all the humans in the process.
After going through the full campaign, it really was quite a stressful (in the best way) scenario and I was tempted to rush to each generator and take out all the hunters. However, you can see that I somehow managed to be patient when playing as the monster, using my amazing elite skills to find success.
The campaign is a ridiculous amount of fun, with balancing corrected through the experience to ensure that even if you play with friends who don’t know what they’re doing, you can still have a good time.
Last Updated:CAIRO — Waleed Hammad dressed conservatively for his secret mission into the world of sexual harassment and abuse on the streets of Cairo, donning a long tan skirt and sleeved shirt, and at times covering his head like many Egyptian women.
The 24-year-old actor walked the sidewalks, hidden cameras in tow, for an investigative television report, hoping the broadcast would enlighten national debate about how to combat deep-rooted day-to-day sexual harassment and abuse in this patriarchal society.
Initiatives to counter the problem have mushroomed in recent months. Vigilantes groups have started protecting women at gatherings, particularly at large protests or during national holidays when groping and harassment in crowds is at an all-time high. Activists have offered self-defence classes for women. Social network sites have been started where women can “name and shame” their harassers.
On the other side of the debate are conservative religious clerics and some government officials who blame women, saying they invite harassment and sexual abuse by mixing with men. Their comments have inflamed the discourse, particularly at a time when Egypt’s volatile and polarized politics blur social and political issues following the 2011 uprising that ousted longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak.
As he strolled, Hammad, who wore light makeup to conceal hints of facial hair and accentuate his eyes, was hissed at and verbally abused. In one instance — when he was wearing a head veil — he was taken for a prostitute and offered up to $580 for one night.
“I can go wherever I want, do whatever I want very simply, very easily, very casually,” Hammad said. “For a woman, it boils down to her having to focus on how she breathes while she is walking. It is not just the walk. It is not just the clothes. It is not what she says or how she looks.”
As a woman walking down the street, “you have to be in a constant state of alertness.”
What Hammad experienced is something Egyptian women endure every day. While not new to Egypt’s conservative society, sexual harassment has grown increasingly violent and visible in the nation, which has an embattled police force and an absence of legislation to address it. Egyptian law defines and criminalizes assault, but not sexual harassment.
“What I learned is that this definitely is not a problem with men only,” Hammad said. “It is a problem, a deficiency in the entire society.”
A report last month carried out by a UN Women agency, Egypt’s Demographic Center, and the National Planning Institute found that more than 99% of hundreds of women surveyed in seven of the country’s 27 provinces reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment ranging from minor harassment to rape.
Mozn Hassan, a women rights activist who works with the victims of sexual abuse, said the problem will fester as long as there are no laws to punish harassers, no investigations into violent abuse and the government fails to admit there is a problem.
This week, at a public meeting to make recommendations to Egyptian President Morsi Mohammed on how to address the problem, Omaima Kamel, presidential adviser on women affairs, said she was seeking realistic statistics on violence against women because she sensed real exaggeration of the numbers reported by some research centres, comments she repeated in media interviews.
Kamel is a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood, which emerged as the most powerful political faction in Egypt since the uprising. The group has recently criticized a UN document being drafted on violence against women. The Brotherhood said it was “deceitful,” clashed with Islamic principles and undermined family values. The Brotherhood said it advocated sexual freedoms for women and the right to abortion “under the guise of sexual and reproductive rights.”
Besides the daily experience of harassment on the streets of Egypt, sexual assaults at anti-government protests, where women have been groped, stripped and even raped, have risen both in number and intensity during the past year of continued unrest in Egypt.
The United Nations said it had reports of 25 sexual assaults on women at political rallies at Tahrir Square, the centre of the uprising, in one week early this year. Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment/Assault, which patrolled the square, reported 19 incidents alone on Jan. 25 — the second anniversary of the start of the uprising — including a case of a teenager raped with a bladed instrument.
If the man sees himself as the victim of sexual harassment maybe this could get him to think, ‘What am I doing?’
Abuse at political events has emboldened activists who seek change, but the television program wanted to show how all Egyptian women live daily with the fear of being sexually harassed or abused.
The program was an online hit, shared by thousands of viewers and lauded as brave, creative, and sparked a comparison between Egypt and other Arab countries.
Lena el-Ghadban, the senior reporter on the program, “Awel el Kheit” or “the Thread” which aired earlier this month on the private TV station ONTV, said the program sought to offer a fresh glimpse into the problem through the eyes of men.
“We want them to try to feel how women feel about sexual harassment,” el-Ghadban said. “If the man sees himself as the victim of sexual harassment maybe this could get him to think, ‘What am I doing?”’
Men interviewed for the program commonly blamed women for dressing or looking in ways that invited sexual harassment. At the same time, they disclosed how men bribed a coffee shop owner to spray water on the pavement so women would be prompted to lift their long conservative dresses.
They wanted to get a peek at their legs.Introduction: 101 Authors Who Didn't Write the Bible How can the over-representation of Jewish Nobel Prize laureates be explained? The connection between intellectual excellence among Jews in secular studies and the literary tradition originating in the Torah. 32 Comments
Lesson 1: What Torah Thinks of Torah Scroll Down - Part 1 What is the “literary” significance of the Giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai? The unique status and function of the Five Books of Moses within the biblical canon. 63 Comments
Lesson 2: Moses and the Non-Prophets Scroll Down - Part 2 Given the incomparable significance of the Torah, what is the function of prophecy and of the prophetic books, the Neviim (“Prophets”) and Ketuvim (“Hagiographa”), composed after the Torah was given at Sinai? And why did the era of prophecy end? 39 Comments
Lesson 3: The Written and the Oral Torah Scroll Down - Part 3 What is the “Oral Torah”? What role does the rabbinic tradition play vis-à-vis the Bible? The dialectical interplay, sanctioned at Sinai, between the Oral Torah and the Written Torah. 52 Comments
Lesson 4: Meta-Phor: Exploring Midrash Scroll Down - Part 4 Biblical exegesis, or the interpretation (Drash) of the Torah, was part of the rabbinic tradition since the earliest literary period. What makes certain interpretations valid and others not? Why is interpretation needed altogether? 32 Comments
Lesson 5: The Great Assembly and the Pharisees Scroll Down - Part 5 Who decided which texts belonged to the biblical canon and which texts did not belong? The Oral Torah during the early, pre-mishnaic periods. 24 Comments
Lesson 6: Boiling Point: The Mishnah Is Written Scroll Down - Part 6 Rabbi Yehudah HaNassi put the Oral Torah down on paper in the year 212, in the form known as the Mishnah. What prompted this radical move in the history of Jewish literacy? What constitutes the Mishnah? And what is its function in the Tradition? 25 Comments
Lesson 7: Boiling Over: The Talmud Is Redacted Scroll Down - Part 7 Since the redaction of the Talmud around the year 500, no single text apart from the Torah itself has played a more vital role in the preservation and development of Jewish education. What is the Talmud? 15 Comments
Lesson 8. All Set: The Codification of Jewish Law Scroll Down - Part 8 The first half of the last millennium (1000–1500) saw an explosion in Jewish literacy in many fields: Kabbalah, philosophy, biblical commentary, poetry, and most notably the great codifications of Halachah (Jewish Law). How did these great Codes originate? 20 Comments
Lesson 9. As the World Turns: Modern Jewish Law Scroll Down - Part 9 The second half of the last millennium (1500 until today) saw still newer developments in Halachah, as well as in other fields of literacy. How do these major literary trends (such as Chassidism) define Judaism today and into the future? 8 Comments13 Amazing Zebra, Zonky, and Zebdonk Facts
Just like no two people are the same, no two zebras have the same stripes. Here are some other interesting facts about zebras.
Zebras are extremely social. They prefer to graze and groom together and will only go to sleep if they are in a group so that they can be warned if a predator approaches. Zebras are brave animals that care deeply about their group members. If a group member was attacked by a predator, other zebras will surround the wounded one in attempt to drive the predator away and keep it safe. Zebras can run up to 65 km/h (40 mph). They combine fast running with excellent stamina and zig-zagging motion to try and evade their predators that chase them. Although their appearance may seem like a poor excuse of camouflage, when zebras are huddled in one large group, their stripes merge into a large mass and it makes it harder for the predator to target an individual animal. When zebras migrate, it is considered to be one of the world’s most awe-inspiring migrations across the Serengeti plains. In Native American shamanism, the zebra is the symbol of balance, agility, and clarity without filters. If you look at a zebra’s stripes, for some, it may be soothing and can be compared to the Eastern yin-yang symbols with the balancing of opposites as seen in the white and black coloration. All zebras are close to their mothers and will nurse for the first year of their life. Male zebras also form strong bonds with their fathers as well unlike some other mammals. Ever wonder how a zebra communicates? If you listen closely, you may notice various vocal expressions including sniffing and balking, but you may also notice certain body movements. For example, zebras can turn their ears in almost any direction and use this to express their mood (i.e. ears pulled back mean angry). Zebras have an average lifespan of 25 years and typically reach adult maturity around 3 to 6 years old – Imagine being an adult at 3 or even 6! Research on zebras has revealed a few subspecies of zebras, each of which has their own conservation efforts as most of them are endangered or threatened. Zebras belong to the genus Equus, the same one that has horses and donkeys. If a donkey and a zebra have an offspring, it is called a “zedonk.” (Yes this has happened before). If you cross other species with a zebra they’re known as a zebroid.
So next time you are at a zoological park or in the wild and you encounter a zebra, look and see if you can notice the differences between the zebras based on their stripes or maybe try to listen and hear them communicate!The Princeton Review released this week its annual rankings of the 380 best colleges and universities in the U.S. But the test prep company did more than just crown party schools, it also broke higher education institutions down into 62 lists measuring everything from dorms to food. It also looked at demographics and compared schools on how friendly they are to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or LGBT, students.
The most LGBT-friendly school was Emerson College, a small liberal arts institution in Boston that's no stranger to the No. 1 spot. Emerson earned the title in 2012 and 2013, as well.
Emerson's LGBT friendliness made the news a few years ago when members of its Phi Alpha Tau fraternity chapter started a viral crowdfunding campaign to raise money for a transgender brother's female-to-male top surgery. They collected $21,308 from 1,026 people in two months, which was more than enough to cover the brother's copay. The rest was donated to charity.
In the Princeton Review rankings, second place went to Warren Wilson College near Asheville, North Carolina. Sarah Lawrence College, in Bronxville, New York, nabbed the bronze. Otherwise, the top LGBT-friendly schools were mostly private liberal arts colleges.
MY COLLEGE IS SO LGBT FRIENDLY I AM SO HAPPY — bri (@chuckhillgrant) June 10, 2015
I'm so lucky to go the most lgbt friendly school in nc :/ I wish college could be a safe space for everyone :// — Breakfast Cupcake (@crystaIgems) August 29, 2014
The rankings don't line up with BestColleges.com's list, which named Arizona State University in Tempe as No. 1 for its 10 gay-related student organizations and LGBT certificate degree program. The Campus Pride Index, a national listing of LGBT-friendly schools, gave seven colleges five stars for their resources, but neither Emerson nor Arizona State was among them.
On the flip side, the Princeton Review also ranked the most LGBT-unfriendly colleges. The Christian liberal arts school Grove City College in Grove City, Pennsylvania, was No. 1, followed by Hampden-Sydney College in Hampden-Sydney, Virginia, and College of the Ozarks in Point Lookout, Missouri.
The rankings were tallied based on 136,000 student surveys over the past two years. Both lists follow below:
Most LGBT-Friendly Colleges:
1. Emerson College, Boston
2. Warren Wilson College, Asheville, North Carolina
3. Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, New York
4. Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania
5. Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio
6. Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
7. Stanford University, Stanford, California
8. College of the Atlantic, Bar Harbor, Maine
9. Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts
10. University of Wisconsin-Madison
Most LGBT-Unfriendly Colleges:
1. Grove City College, Grove City, Pennsylvania
2. Hampden-Sydney College, Hampden-Sydney, Virginia
3. College of the Ozarks, Point Lookout, Missouri
4. Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois
5. University of Tennessee in Knoxville
6. Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah
7. Gordon College, Wenham, Massachusetts
8. Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan
9. Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, Michigan
10. Baylor University, Waco, TexasHelp Site Projects continue to bring great public art to New Haven and Donate Today!
Site Projects presented our 2013 public art commission: Night Rainbow | Global Rainbow New Haven, |
too close together and an extension that does not brand too far from his forehead, progresses. If the face works, why Botox it? So true.
Onward the Wizards forge tonight versus the new-look/same-look New York Knicks, who will also be the home-opening opponent on All Hallow’s Eve. The Wizards last opened their home slate on Oct. 31 in 2009, that fateful, franchise-crumbling season. They beat the New Jersey Nets that night; Gilbert Arenas Halloween masks were given out to fans; he scored 32 points on 13 shots. Gilbert’s been in the news lately, ya heard?
The Knicks come to town having beaten Sunday’s opponent for Washington, Brazilian team Paschoalotto Bauru Basket, 100-81 in their first preseason game. New York actually started a large-ish lineup with Robin Lopez at 5, rookie Kristaps Porzingis at 4, Carmelo Anthony at 3, Sasha Vujacic at 2 (The Machine!! Seriously?), and Jose Calderon at 1. Nothing the Wizards can’t handle, and it shall be good for Otto Porter to matchup against Melo.
Against the Brazilians, Kevin Seraphin, ex-Wizard, scored 14 points on 11 shots in 22 minutes off the bench. He also tallied five rebounds and three turnovers. However, he has been listed as doubtful for tonight’s game with knee soreness. Bummer. But hey, there’s always Halloween.
With that said, the Internet’s Robert Silverman (@BobSaietta) has sauntered by TAI to drop some knowledge on his Knickerbockers. Enjoy.
Teams: Wizards vs. Knicks
Time: 7:00 p.m. ET
Venue: Verizon Center, Washington, D.C.
Television: CSN, NBATV
Radio: Sure.
Spread: There are no spreads in the preseason, you junkie.
#1) Is New York… the Knicks… Carmelo ready for the life of Kevin Seraphin, #KSlife, if you will? What are the early returns on the ex-Wizard?
(Also, putting yourself in the mind of the Zen Master, what book would he give Seraphin to read?)
@BobSaietta: It’s Me7o. If nothing else, please use the proper branding nomenclature. We’ve seen about twenty minutes of pure, uncut Seraphin, and he had a nice little preseason outing, doing a lot of work in the low post, and providing a decent, non-shot-blocking deterrent at the rim. It’s going to be a seriously jam-packed front court for the ‘Bockers, what with Kyle O’Quinn and Kristaps “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds” Porzingis, seeing time at center behind Robin Lopez… But in small doses, he’s a perfectly serviceable dude on a minuscule contract.
That’s a big theme for Phil Jackson’s squad this year: general competence mixed with light doses of wondrous, giddy joy-enduring, and raw as a freshly cut slab of pork tenderloin rookies. (See: Oppenheimer, Robert, above.)
My fave thing about Seraphin, though, is this media day snapshot.
That is some Gallic-ass mean mugging.
As far as Kevin’s reading list goes, I’m giving him my heavily underlined worn copy of George Saunders’ “Pastoralia.”
Why? Well, it’s a great effing book and Phil’s whole shtick of giving people books with A Very Serious And Important Message That Clearly Relates To Their Skills On The Court And/Or Specific Life Journey is pretentious as hell, and mainly about Phil’s own vanity/ego.
Stop doing that, Phil.
#2) What do you imagine Carmelo doing to keep his cool in yet another season where the Knicks are expected to take some licks?
@BobSaietta: [Giant Shrug Emoticon] It’s New Yorktown, Kyle. It’ll be A Thing at some point, possibly after a grindingly bleak loss to the Sixers in January. Melo can be downright befuddling with regards to his public statements. On the one hand, he’s bluntly honest, often to his own detriment. E.g. last year when he talked about having “second thoughts” about his choice to re-sign with the Knicks.
Which, duh. He’d have to be a soulless automaton not to wonder if taking his talents to the Windy City might’ve been a better choice in the midst of a 17-win season. But there’s a reason bland talking points exist, and they’re to protect athletes and politicians from a needless “controversy.”
I wrote a whole bunch of words about this at VICE Sports last February, if you really want to delve. I mention his fancy hats too.
Beyond the tabloid stuff, I do think there’s a non-zero chance that Melo puts forth his best season as a pro. I think that’ll keep him happy. If they do stink up the joint again, then yes. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the trade winds kick up.
#3) New York will challenge for a playoff spot if…?
@BobSaietta: That’s a whole lot of ifs. Where to begin…
Carmelo suits up for 70-plus games.
Robin Lopez can anchor what was an execrable defense last year and snaggle bushelfuls of rebounds.
Jerian Grant proves capable of being a starter or first guard off the bench, and quickly too.
Arron Afflalo rebounds from a craptastic stint in Denver and Portland, and his gammy hamstring heals up right quick.
The perimeter defense as a whole takes a giant leap forward. That means more minutes for Langston Galloway, Grant, and a wing defender TBD, possibly Cleanthony Early or even Thanasis Antetokounmpo. The Knicks were terrible at defending the 3 and stopping dribble penetration. That was partly by design. Derek Fisher seemed to favor packing the paint at all costs, even if it meant treys raining down like manna from heaven. Ditching J.R. Smith and Tim Hardaway Jr. is a step in the right direction.
They can figure out an offense that’s able to expand beyond the pure, holy tenets of the triangle. We saw this more and more towards the end of last season, when Derek Fisher started sprinkling in more pick-and-roll sets, especially to harness the talents of (sniff) the greatest Knick in history, Alexey Shved. (Yes, I am still sad Shved went back to Russia. It is bad and wrong.)
Is that a lot of things that need to go right? Hell yeah. I think they’ll struggle early on and start to get their legs in February. They’ll probably top off at somewhere between 30 and 35 wins. But you know what? That’d be a helluva year. An 18-win improvement is incredibly rare, as Jared Dubin pointed out in June, only 10 of the 55 teams that finished with 14-20 wins managed to pull off that feat.
So yeah, I’m kind of optimistic!Intel officially rolled out its brand new Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X processors earlier this week as part of its Core-X family. Processors range from the “lowly” $242 Core i5-7640X to the monster Core i9-7980XE, which is priced at $1,999.
Right smack dab in the middle of the lineup is the Core i9-7900X, which has a base clock of 3.3GHz, Turbo Boost 2.0 clock of 4.3GHz and Turbo Boost Max 3.0 clock of 4.5GHz. However, extreme enthusiasts are not content with mere stock speeds, which is why we are happy to report that the Core i9-7900X has already been overclocked to insane speeds, and is shattering benchmark records along the way.
(Click to enlarge) (Click to enlarge)
Elmor, the same person that chalked up a world record by overclocking the AMD Ryzen 7 1800X to 5.8GHz, managed to overclock the Core i9-7900X to an impressive 5.7GHz. This insane overclock was of course achieved using liquid nitrogen (LN2). Coming in a 5,755MHz, the 10-core HEDT processor managed to score 3181 points in Cinebench R15 (the previous record was 3137). Moving on to Cinebench R11.5, the processor was pushed just a tad further to 5,785MHz and earned a score 34.79 (previous was 33.86).
Elmor’s platform of choice was the ASUS Rampage V1 Apex X299 gaming motherboard, which was paired with G.SKILL Trident Z DDR4 memory. An ASUS GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Strix Gaming was tossed in the rig as well, although it had no part in the broken benchmark records.
The Intel Core i9-7900X has an MSRP of $999, 10 cores (20 threads), 13.75MB of L3 cache, quad-channel DDR4-2666 memory support and a TDP of 140W.Protesters call on South Korean President Park Geun-hye to resign. Credit:Getty Images She made history four years ago when she became the country's first female leader, but is now facing the worst crisis of her turbulent tenure. A growing number of politicians and thousands of ordinary people are calling for her resignation, and her own justice minister has raised the possibility that she could be investigated for wrongdoing. "I deeply apologise to the nation for causing this disappointment and distress," Park said on Friday morning in a nationally televised address, only her second statement on the issue since the controversy erupted last month. She appeared to be on the brink of tears. "I blame myself for everything.," she said. The crisis began when local media reported that the notoriously aloof Park had been relying on Choi Soon-sil, a longtime confidante with links to a questionable shamanistic cult, for secret advice on everything from speeches to her wardrobe.
TV screens show the moment Park Geun-hye took sole blame for a "heartbreaking" scandal that threatens her government. Credit:AP More evidence has since emerged that Choi, who held no official position and had no security clearance, had access to confidential information and a surprising amount of sway over the president, leading to media outlets here calling her the "shadow president". Choi is also alleged to have taken advantage of her relationship with Park to enrich herself - she is accused to siphoning off much of the $US70 million ($91 million) donated to foundations she ran - and benefit her family. Speculation that the rules were changed to allow Choi's daughter to enter a prestigious university contributed to the college president's resignation. Protesters call for South Korean President Park Geun-Hye to step down on Thursday. Credit:Getty Images Choi is now in custody and a court has issued a warrant for arrest on charges of being an accessory to an abuse of power and attempted embezzlement.
As the scandal mounted, Park last week appeared on television to apologise and explain that Choi, whom she's known for 40 years, helped her through "difficult times". But as new information comes to light, the public is becoming more and more enraged. South Korean protesters wear masks of President Park Geun-hye, right, and Choi Soon-sil, while calling for Park to step down on Wednesday. Credit:AP Thousands of people protested in central Seoul last weekend calling for her resignation, and recent polls show as many as 70 per cent of respondents want Park to stand down. Her approval ratings have sunk below 10 per cent. Gallup Korea's daily poll put Park's support at 5 per cent on Friday, the lowest ever recorded for any South Korean president. Park has attempted to quell the outrage by firing key ministers and advisers, but this has not had its desired effect.
The left-wing opposition objected that it was not consulted before Park nominated a new prime minister even though her pick, Kim Byong-joon, worked for a liberal president. Kim on Thursday said that it was possible Park could be investigated for her role in the scandal, suggesting he favoured an interpretation of the constitution that allowed the head of state's actions to be scrutinised. The constitution states that the president cannot be prosecuted while in office, but some legal scholars are saying it doesn't rule out investigation. "I believe we can conduct an investigation into Park. But as she is still the head of state, we should be prudent in the process," Kim told reporters. "Everyone is equal before the law." Separately, Kim Hyun-woong, the justice minister, said that he would look into whether an investigation was warranted. "If President Park volunteers to be investigated, then an investigation with no limitations could be carried out," Kim told lawmakers on Thursday. But this is dependent on heragreeing, and anyway would likely take the form of written question and answers, not being questioned in person.
In her address on Friday, Park said she was willing to answer questions. "The prosecutors office should not be distracted. They should try to uncover the truth," she said. "I will do my best to clarify this case and I have already instructed my secretaries to actively cooperate with the investigation. If it is necessary, I myself will accept being investigated by the prosecutors' office, or even a special prosecutor's investigation." Washington Post, APCoship BVC is one of a bunch of new ODM partners for Microsoft and Windows Phone and at Mobile World Congress we managed to snag one for a first look. As is becoming less unusual, Coship offers the X1 in two varieties: One with Windows Phone, one with Android. The two are identical in terms of the hardware, just offered with a choice of different software.
Specs wise we're looking at:
5.5-inch HD or Full HD display with Gorilla Glass
Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 CPU
2GB of RAM
16GB internal storage with microSD expansion
13MP rear camera with dual-LED flash
5MP front camera
2600mAh battery
There's a good mix of affordable hardware and premium design and construction. The back of the X1 is glass, the sizes are rounded off with a metallic (but not metal) type of finish and it looks really nice. Oh, and it's water and dust resistant. Something not exactly common in the Windows Phone ecosystem, but the X1 can take a dunking and come out unscathed.
As Coship BVC isn't an OEM, but an ODM, there's a chance that this phone may eventually appear in selected markets around the world with different branding. Similar to how the Blu Win HD just launched in India under the Xolo badge. If it does end up in your part of the world, it might be worth taking a look at. It's not the highest of the high end, but there's definitely some 'flagship quality' features. And you can drop it in the toilet without destroying it.The BBC has not been sufficiently sceptical on the European Union or immigration, according to John Humphrys, who said staff had let liberal bias shape the corporation’s news coverage.
Humphrys, presenter of Radio 4’s Today programme, said the BBC had “bought into the European ideal”.
Critics have long accused the BBC of liberal bias and of failing to acknowledge public concerns about immigration or Britain’s membership of the EU. Humphrys is the first current affairs presenter to admit such bias existed, although he said the situation had much improved.
“We weren’t sufficiently sceptical – that’s the most accurate phrase – of the pro-European case. We bought into the European ideal,” he said.
“We weren’t sufficiently sceptical about the pro-immigration argument. We didn’t look at the potential negatives with sufficient rigour.
“I think we’re out of that now. I think we have changed.”
In an interview with Radio Times, Humphrys claimed that the bias was “understandable”.
“The BBC has tended over the years to be broadly liberal as opposed to broadly conservative for all sorts of perfectly understandable reasons.
“The sort of people we’ve recruited – the best and brightest – tended to come from universities and backgrounds where they’re more likely to hold broadly liberal views than conservative.”
Humphrys appears unconcerned by a BBC diktat banning high-profile stars from publicly criticising the corporation.
Danny Cohen, the BBC’s director of television, warned last year that he would crack down on “those who work for the BBC and are well-rewarded for it [but who] are quick to attack or criticise the organisation in public rather than deal with issues internally”.
However, Humphrys also used the interview to complain about unnecessary layers of management.
“There are too many of them,” he said. “Over the years we’ve been grotesquely over-managed, there’s no question. They’re now getting a grip on it. A lot of gone. I think more need to go.”
Humphrys also predicted that the next Today presenter will be a woman, following on from the most recent signing, Mishal Husain.
Last year, he was criticised by the BBC Trust over a television documentary he made in which he questioned whether benefits claimants were living in an "age of entitlement". The Trust said he had breached impartiality guidelines by failing to provide statistics to back up claims that there was "a healthy supply of jobs" in Britain.Sen. Dick Durbin called on President Trump Sunday to keep his word and treat those protected under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program with "heart," ahead of Trump's Tuesday announcement about the future of the scheme.
"Republicans in nine states have threatened to sue @POTUS unless he rescinds #DACA and stops renewing/issuing any DACA permits," the Illinois Democrat wrote on Twitter Sunday. "If #DACA is ended in this way, it will not show heart for the #Dreamers. It will be a humanitarian and economic disaster."
In a speech in February, Trump said he would deal with DACA "with heart."
DACA provides temporary legal status to young illegal immigrants who register, pay a fee, and pass background checks. About 800,000 young people are currently afforded such protection, Durbin tweeted.
Durbin asked whether the U.S. would be a stronger country if DACA recipients like Jesus Contreras, a Houston paramedic and Dreamer who "spent 6 days rescuing people" after Hurricane Harvey, were deported.
"This is a crisis manufactured by Republicans and it can only be solved by Republicans," Durbin added. "@POTUS has the power to keep #DACA in place. @SpeakerRyan and @SenateMajLdr [McConnell] have the power to bring up the bipartisan #DREAMact I introduced with @LindseyGrahamSC."
Durbin and South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham filed "Dream Act" legislation in July to offer permanent legal status to illegal immigrants who arrived in the U.S. before they turned 18.Comet ISON is potentially the "comet of the century" because around the time the comet makes its closest approach to the Sun, on November 28, it may briefly become brighter than the full Moon. Right now the comet is far below naked-eye visibility, and so Hubble was used to snap the view of the approaching comet, which is presently hurtling toward the Sun at approximately 47,000 miles per hour. When the Hubble picture was taken on April 10, the comet was slightly closer than Jupiter's orbit at a distance of 386 million miles from the Sun. Even at that great distance the Sun is warming the comet enough to trigger outgassing from its frozen gases locked up in the solid nucleus. Hubble photographed a jet blasting dust particles off the sunward-facing side of the comet's nucleus. Preliminary measurements from the Hubble images suggest that the nucleus of ISON is no larger than three or four miles across. The comet was discovered in September 2012 by the Russian-led International Scientific Optical Network (ISON) using a 16-inch telescope.If you want a gauge of the state of America, the country that put billionaire Donald Trump in the White House, consider this: the three richest Americans -- Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Warren Buffett -- now have the wealth of the bottom half of the U.S. population, or 160 million Americans. Or consider this: the 2016 Wall Street bonus pool, as former Labor Secretary Robert Reich pointed out recently, was larger than the yearly earnings of “all 3.3 million Americans working full time at or below the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.” And keep in mind that the Trump-Republican tax “reform” bill, if passed, will only make such figures more mind-boggling. It will assumedly send so much more money cascading upward that the copious funding of future 1% elections will be guaranteed for our “democratic” lifetimes.
And if anyone was in doubt about the nature of Donald Trump’s “populism,” he answered that question within weeks of his election when he began appointing the wealthiest cabinet in American history. It was already clear by then who he really thought the “forgotten men and women of this country” were: former Goldman Sachs partners with at least a few hundred million dollars in their pockets. In this new Gilded Age (in which, I suspect, disparities in wealth may actually become worse than in the nineteenth century version of the same), isn’t it time to stop talking about “trickle down economics” and come up with some new phrase? Gusher economics? We certainly need something that comes closer to capturing the realities of a moment in which, for instance, that tax bill will offer a staggering one-half of its cuts to the top 1% while, as Robert Borosage writes in the Nation, “raising taxes on families earning $10,000-$75,000 over the next decade” and even eliminating a tax credit that incentivizes employers to hire disabled veterans.
With that in mind, TomDispatch regular Rajan Menon takes a clear-eyed look at the populism of the Trumpian moment, the growing inequality that is increasingly the heart and soul of this society, and what is(n’t) being done about it. Tom
Admittedly, only a third of his voters earned less than $50,000 a year and cultural and racial resentment, not just economic grievances, drove many of them to Trump. Still, in an ever more economically unequal America, his populist economic message resonated. It helped him win the presidency by peeling off white working class votes in key regions, particularly the industrial Midwest. Now, he’s stuck with his populist narrative, and here’s the problem for him: it’s not likely to work -- not given the economic realities of this planet, not for long anyway.
Among the stranger features of the 2016 election campaign was the success of Donald Trump, a creature of globalization, as an America First savior of the white working class. A candidate who amassed billions of dollars by playing globalization for all it was worth -- he manufactured clothes and accessories bearing his name in low-wage economies and invested in corporations eager to outsource -- won over millions of voters by promising to keep jobs here in the U.S.
Fading Economic Hegemony
In the Oval Office, as on the campaign trail, Trump’s refrain remains that the economic woes of American workers, including stagnant wages and job insecurity, are the fault of predatory Asian and Mexican exporters, aided and abetted by inept past presidents who inked lousy trade deals. During campaign 2016, he promised to kick down doors abroad and force countries running surpluses, notably China, to buy more from the United States or face huge tariff hikes. He railed against companies that relocate production abroad, depriving Americans of jobs.
Trump's economic nationalism is, of course, a con job. He did, however, effectively employ the demagogue’s artifice, which invariably lies in crafting simplistic answers to complicated questions and creating plausible scapegoats for complicated problems. In fact, workers in industries the United States dominated for decades are in distress because of irreversible historic changes and the absence, thanks to a staggeringly lopsided distribution of wealth and political power in America, of progressive policies that would better prepare them to cope with the changes that have occurred in the international economy.
But first, a little history.
For nearly three decades after World War II, the United States dominated the global marketplace in big-ticket industries like steel, automobiles, passenger aircraft, shipbuilding, and heavy machinery. That hegemony was bound to fade. As a start, America’s postwar economic primacy owed much to the ravages of that global conflict. After all, the industrial bases of Japan and Germany lay in ruins. Wartime allies Britain and France faced long, arduous recoveries. But the economies of those industrialized, technologically advanced countries were bound to recover -- and by the mid-1970s they had. By then, America’s near-monopoly was ending.
Between 1965 and 2010, the share of the national market held by America’s steelmakers and carmakers plunged from nearly 90% to 45%. By the 1970s, they were already complaining about an influx of “cheap imports” and lobbying Washington to enact countermeasures. Now regarded as the ultimate free trader, President Ronald Reagan would indeed oblige them. In 1981, for instance, he limited Japanese automobile sales in the U.S., while hiking tariffs tenfold on motorcycle imports to save Harley-Davidson. European and Japanese steel companies would soon face similar restrictions.
Seen in historical perspective, Washington’s reaction to trade competition was hardly unique. Britain, too, had preached free trade during its economic heyday -- until, that is, its imperial predominance began to wane. In the nineteenth century, the zenith of British free trade cheerleading, the United States relied heavily on protectionism to ensure the growth of its nascent industrial base. As its economic power expanded, however, its own version of such cheerleading began. Now, China is fast becoming an economic superpower. Unsurprisingly, at conclaves like the Davos World Economic Forum at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, President Xi Jinping is predictably starting to sound more like Adam Smith than Karl Marx, just as Donald Trump’s speeches during his November whirlwind trip through Asia are coming to resemble nineteenth-century American rationales for protectionism.
Since the 1970s, workers in places like Detroit, Bethlehem, and Peoria have faced another challenge: a range of new sources of competition, especially the “Asian tigers” like South Korea and Taiwan. Once considered inferior, their products have by now become a hallmark of quality, making South Korean or Japanese cars, cellphones, computers, and television sets ubiquitous in this country.
Now, China, which took the top spot in world trade from the U.S. in 2013, is poised to do what Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan already did here (cars included). And India waits in the wings.
These historical trends suggest that President Trump’s protectionism is already doomed. The point isn’t that international trade always benefits American workers; it doesn’t. Trade, national or global, redistributes wealth, especially because the largest and most successful companies have long ceased to think in terms of national markets. They set up shop wherever it’s most profitable, using complex global supply chains. When it comes to Apple’s iPhone, for instance, more than 200 suppliers worldwide provide parts for final assembly in China. Good infrastructure and a workforce with skills that match corporate requirements matter. Yet wage differentials aren’t irrelevant either; that’s partly why China, Mexico, and Vietnam have attracted massive amounts of job-creating investment -- and why India, too, has begun to do so.
The relevant question isn’t whether the global economy can be redesigned to protect American workers -- it can’t -- but what their government will do to help them to gain the skills needed to compete effectively in a rapidly changing marketplace. Reforming public education might be a good place to start (but don’t look to Donald Trump to do it). If American workers are to do better in the global marketplace, this country’s public schools must ensure that their students graduate with the math, science, and other skills needed to get decent jobs. That, however, would mean attacking the inequality that’s increasingly been built into the public education system (as into so much else in this society).
Education: The Zip Code Premium
Horace Mann, the nineteenth-century American educator, referred to public schooling as “beyond all human devices... the great equalizer of the condition of men, the balance wheel of the social machinery.” Since the early years of the republic, Americans have embraced the idea that schooling is critical in helping individuals realize their aspirations and in guaranteeing equality of opportunity. In principle, there has been a consensus that economic circumstances beyond the control of children shouldn’t block their way into the future. In practice, it’s been quite a different story, partially because of how public schools are funded.
Local property and business taxes are the largest source of support for them, so kids born into a community crammed with pricey homes and thriving businesses will attend well-funded public schools that attract good teachers with decent working conditions and salaries. Such students are more likely to have smaller classes, more guidance counselors, nurses, and psychologists, more computers per pupil, better textbooks and instructional equipment, richer curricula, and better libraries.
In addition to local taxes, which provide 45% of public school funds, state revenues provide another 46%, and federal assistance an additional 9%. Some state governments also offer extra money to poorer school districts, but not enough to begin to close the gap with more affluent ones. In any case, those funds have been falling since 2008. Additional federal support doesn’t come close to leveling the playing field.
The United States is one of the few countries in the 35-member Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a grouping of wealthy nations, in which central government funding plays such a limited role in reducing disparities between schools. In those countries, national budgets provide, on average, more than 50% of school funding.
Public schools in affluent communities have another advantage. Thanks to their incomes, professional qualifications, social networks, and experience, the parents of students in such schools are far more capable of raising private money to supplement school budgets, which means extra educational equipment and instructional materials, and more staff. Most such private fundraising is done by parent-teacher associations (PTAs), which tend to be more active and more successful in affluent communities. (Indeed, poor districts may lack PTAs altogether.)
Consider a typical California example. In Hillsborough, where the median family income is $229,000, the school district raised an extra $1,500 per student; in Oakland, where median income was just under $58,000, it was only $100 per student. Similarly, in wealthy northwest Washington, D.C., four elementary schools raised $300,000 apiece in one year, sums unthinkable for schools in Washington’s poorer communities like those east of the Anacostia River, where the median household income is $34,000. Such differences are the norm nationally.
It’s true that PTA funding -- $245 million in 2010 (an increase of 300% since 1990) -- looks like a drop in the bucket compared to total government spending on kindergarten-through-12th-grade education ($603 billion in 2013). That, however, misses the point, since the private funding is so concentrated in wealthy neighborhoods.
Money can’t fix everything, but it counts for a lot in an ever more unequal society. And there’s overwhelming evidence that the educational success gap between the wealthiest 10% of Americans and the rest has been growing for decades -- unevenly since the 1940s, at an accelerated rate since the 1970s, and by 30%-40% percent between 1991 and 2010. If you want graphic proof of how the income-achievement divide matters, it’s easy to find: students in schools with greater resources (including wealthy parents), for example, regularly do better in standardized tests and essentially any other metric of academic achievement.
And remember, student performance in high school increases the likelihood both of college attendance and success once there. All of this indicates the obvious: that one way to improve the economic prospects of American workers would be to ensure that the public school system provides all students with the knowledge and skills needed to succeed in a global economy that privileges people who have solid technical know-how. Channeling more funds to schools in poorer communities would, however, require sacrifices from the segments of society that our “populist” president really represents. So perhaps you won’t be surprised to discover that, though Education Secretary Betsy DeVos favors “school choice,” neither she nor her boss seems to have the slightest interest in doing anything about the growing inequalities and inequities of public education, which Trump’s cherished “base” of working and lower-income people need the most. In fact, cuts in his education budget total about $10 billion and target a raft of programs that help poor and working-class families.
Missing: Worker-Friendly Policies
Once employed, workers will face challenges throughout their lives that their parents, let alone grandparents, couldn’t have imagined. No matter what Donald Trump does about trade pacts and tariffs, companies will continue to shift production overseas to stay ahead of their competitors, which means that well-paying manufacturing jobs in America will continue to disappear. They will also export some of what they make abroad back to the United States, increasing job insecurity and driving down wages. Trump’s rants won’t reverse this well-established trend.
Add in one more thing: automation, robotics, self-driving vehicles, artificial intelligence, and e-commerce will continue to reduce the role of human labor in the economy, even as they create new jobs with skill premiums. Those with high-end jobs (banking, the law, scientific research, and medicine, among others) will, of course, continue to earn significant incomes, but workers without a college education in the service sector, which already accounts for nearly 80% of the country’s gross domestic product, will find it ever tougher to get higher-paying jobs with decent benefits. This, in turn, means that they will have an even harder time saving for retirement, paying for their childrens’ educations, liquidating accumulated debts, or covering the cost of medical care.
So what to do?
A progressive tax code that actually favored those in Trump’s base and others like them would be one way to start to rectify the situation, but that’s a pipedream in this era. The two versions of the Trump-backed tax “reform” bill now in Congress tell us everything we need to know about who will gain and who will lose in his populist America. They couldn’t be more wildly regressive.
Take corporate taxes. To skirt the present 35% tax on corporate income, American companies have stashed $2.6 trillion in overseas tax havens like Ireland, Luxembourg, Bermuda, and the Netherlands, among other places. If the tax bill passes, corporations will be able to bring that money home and pay only 12% in taxes on it, a bonanza for corporate America. It’s been argued that such companies will then invest the repatriated funds here, creating new jobs, but the tax plan offers them absolutely no incentives to do so and imposes no penalties if they don’t. Oh, and that proposed corporate tax cut will be permanent.
More generally, the truly wealthy have particular reason to celebrate. By 2024, the legislation eliminates the estate tax, which only they now pay. Though it provides less than one percent of federal revenues, scrapping it would shrink those revenues by $269 billion over a decade. That exceeds the annual budgets of the Food and Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention combined.
There’s more: 47% of the gains from the proposed tax cuts will benefit the wealthiest 1% of taxpayers, while the prospective bill won’t touch the biggest financial burden carried by young middle- and working-class Americans: college loans. Student debt, which has ballooned by $833 billion since 2007, now totals $1.45 trillion. (The average monthly payment: $351.)
Republican tax policies further skew wealth distribution toward the richest 0.1%. Big tax cuts that favor this exclusive group are also likely to reduce government revenue, increasing the odds of further spending cuts to programs that benefit workers.
Take job retraining. The United States currently devotes a pitiful 0.05% of its gross domestic product to worker retraining, ranking 21st out of 29 OECD countries for which data is available. And prospective budget cuts suggest that there will be no improvement on this front (where the president has already proposed a 40% cut in funds). The 21% cut planned for the Department of Labor will, for instance, slash several job training and employment assistance programs, affecting nearly three million people. And here’s one for your no-good-deed-goes unpunished file: Trump plans to eliminate the Appalachian Regional Council (ARC), which since 1965 has provided job retraining to coalminers while reducing poverty and boosting high school graduation rates significantly. Ninety-five percent of the counties the ARC covers voted for Trump.
It’s the same story when it comes to apprenticeships, widely and successfully subsidized in countries like Germany to create a skilled working class. By contrast, the United States now spends a paltry $95 million on such programs and while Trump has called for five million additional apprenticeships in the next five years, a tenfold increase, he’s suggested no additional funding for such a program. Consider that the definition of not putting your money where your mouth is.
A partnership among community colleges and companies, supplemented by federal funds, could create nationwide apprenticeship programs that would benefit workers and companies. Furthermore, nearly 90% of those who complete apprenticeships not only land jobs but earn an average yearly salary of $50,000 -- nearly 12% above the national median wage. Two million American manufacturing jobs will remain unfilled during the next decade for want of adequately trained workers.
Modernizing the nation’s decrepit infrastructure could create a range of new jobs (as it did in the New Deal era of the 1930s). But the federal government’s supposed role in President Trump’s much-vaunted infrastructure “plan” to revamp the country’s disintegrating roads, rail lines, bridges, ports, dams, levees, and inland waterways is to “get out of the way”; it will, that is, be confining its contribution to the trillion-dollar plan to $137 billion (mainly in tax credits), though experts reckon that revamping the country’s infrastructure would actually require a $4 trillion investment over a decade. Private investors will undoubtedly cherry-pick the most profitable projects and so will get a windfall from this tax subsidy. American workers, not so much. Sad!
Fake Populism
Rising college costs, stagnant wages -- adjusted for inflation, hourly pay has increased a mere 0.2% annually over the past four decades -- and the weight of student debt will make it ever harder for Americans to upgrade their skills. But when it comes to the working class he claims to care |
when you have multiple processors – as allocation can be parallelized and each thread will get its own private piece of the eden space to work with. You generally want the young generation to have less than half the space of the tenured generation though – especially when using the Serialized collector. About 33% is usually a good number to start from. The best size will vary from application to application depending on its distribution of young vs long lived objects. You don’t want the young space to be so small that many short lived objects are getting piled into the tenured space. You also usually don’t want it to be so large that the tenured space doesn’t have enough space available to it and/or young generation collections start taking too long to complete.
Other than sizing the total heap, sizing the new generation (another name for the young generation) can be the most important piece to good performance.
-XX:NewSize (Since 5.0) Size of the young generation at JVM startup – this is calculated automatically if you specify NewRatio -XX:MaxNewSize (Since 1.4) The largest size the young generation can grow to (unlimited if not specified) -Xmn Sets the new generation to a fixed size – this is not usually recommended unless you are fixing the other memory sizes as well. -XX:NewRatio Sets the new generation size as a ratio to the tenured generation size. -XX:SurvivorRatio You can also control the sizing of the survivor spaces – in practice this is not usually very helpful though.
The best sizing is usually chosen by playing with the parameters and then testing the performance of your application. Often, the JVM uses good defaults, or depending on the garbage collector in use, resizes the spaces on it’s own based on historical statistics.
There are a few helpful tools that give you insight into the garbage collection process.
Getting a View into Garbage Collection
You can use the following command line options to generate information about the garbage collection process:
-verbose:gc Print info about heap and gc on each collection. -XX:+PrintGCDetails (Since 1.4) Print additional garbage collection info. -XX:+PrintGCTimeStamps (Since 1.4) Add timestamps to the garbage collection logs. -Xloggc:C:whereevergc.log Specify log file.
There are various tools to then help you decipher these logs. One is GCViewer – though it only knows how to read gc logs up to Java 5.0 (though it can partially read 6.0 files). Another nice option from IBM is PMAT, and it can read Java 6 gc logs.
There is also a very cool tool called VisualGC that you can use to visually watch how objects move between spaces in real time as your application is running. This is available as a standalone application, or as a plugin for both Netbeans and VisualVM.
The Garbage Collectors
The following applies to the Sun Java implementation as well as OpenJDK.
There are three main garbage collection schemes that you should concern yourself with (much of this applies to Java 1.4, but in general, I am targeting Java 1.5 and up). These schemes are often called collectors themselves, but generally each involves two collectors – one for the old space and one for the new space. These collector schemes are often referred to by their old space collector names: the Serialized Collector, the Throughput Collector, and the Concurrent Low Pause Collector.
There is also an older incremental collector (unsupported and also called the train collector), and an incremental collection mode for the concurrent low pause collector (that I touch on and is generally used when only one or two CPU’s are available), but I’ll leave those for you to explore on your own if you are interested.
The Serialized Collector
Cmd Line Arg -XX:+UseSerialGC (Since 5.0) New Space Collector Serial – single threaded, stop the world, copying collector Old Space Collector Serial Old – single threaded, stop the world, mark-sweep-compact collector
With the serialized collector, a major collection is done when the tenured space is full. This is known as a “stop the world” collection, because all application threads will be paused while the collection occurs.
This collector is best used with small applications, applications run on a single CPU machine, or applications where pause times don’t matter. This collector is relatively efficient because it does not need to communicate between threads, but you have to be willing to accept its “stop the world” pauses. Minor collections will “stop the world” as well, but are generally fairly efficient and fast.
This collector is the only one that I have seen to respect -XX:MaxHeapFreeRatio – though that still only happens if a full collection is triggered. If you where trying to keep your RAM usage to a minimum, and always return as much memory as possible to the operating system, using the serialized collector and an aggressive -XX:MaxHeapFreeRatio can be a good strategy. You might want to occasionally force a full collection with System.gc() when your application is idle.
The Throughput Collector (also known as the Parallel Collector)
Cmd Line Arg -XX:+UseParallelGC (Since 1.4.1) New Space Collector Parallel Scavenge – multi threaded, stop the world, copying collector Old Space Collector Serial Old – single threaded, stop the world, mark-sweep-compact collector
The throughput collector uses a parallel version of the young generation collector, while the tenured generation will still use the serial collector. So while a single thread will still perform collections on the tenured space, multiple threads will work together collecting the young space.
A feature called parallel compaction was added in Java 1.5 update 6 – this feature allows the throughput collector to also perform major collections in parallel. You can enable this with -XX:+UseParallelOldGC. Using this should help a lot with scalability, as you sidestep the single collection thread bottleneck on very large heaps (multi gigabyte). I’ve read this can actually lower performance on smaller heaps due to lock contention.
The throughput collector should be the default collector chosen on server class machines (in Java 1.5 and up), but there are exceptions – for example, my MacbookPro defaults to the CMS collector. You can always override these defaults.
Throughput is usually most useful when your application has a large number of threads creating new objects, and you have more than one processor available (though more than two is best). Typically, when you have multiple threads allocating objects, you also want to increase the size of the young generation. The number of garbage collector threads will generally be equal to the number of processors you have, but you can control that number with -XX:ParallelGCThreads=n. Sometimes you will want to lower the number of threads because each will reserve a part of the tenured generation for promotions – this can cause a fragmentation effect and effectively lower the size of the tenured generation (this is generally only an issue if your application has access to many processors or cores).
The throughput collector also supports something called Ergonomics. As part of this support, you can specify various desired behaviors for your application, and the JVM will attempt to tune various settings to meet your goals.
-XX:MaxGCPauseMillis=n hint to the throughput collector that a max pause time of n milliseconds is desired. By default there is no hint. The collector will adjust the heap size and other collection parameters in an attempt to meet the hint – keep in mind that throughput may be sacrificed in the attempt to meet this goal. There is also no guarantee that the goal will be met.
You can also specify a target goal for how much time is spent in garbage collection in comparison to running your application using -XX:GCTimeRatio. By default this is set to 1% (keep in mind that these defaults tend to change from release to release).
With the serialzed garbage collector a generation is collected when it is full (i.e., when no further allocations can be done from that generation). This is also true of the throughput collector.
The Concurrent Low Pause Collector
Cmd Line Arg -XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC (Since 1.4.1) New Space Collector Par New – multi threaded, stop the world, copying collector that works with CMS Old Space Collector Usually CMS, the mostly concurrent low pause collector – unless there is a concurrent mode failure, in which case, Serial Old – single threaded, stop the world, mark-sweep-compact collector
Use the concurrent low pause collector when you can afford to share the processor resources with the garbage collector while the application is running. This is usually good for an application with a lot of long lived data – meaning you need a large tenured generation space. Obviously, having multiple processors is also helpful. This collector still pauses the application threads twice in a collection – once briefly at the start (when it marks objects directly accessible from root objects), and a slightly longer pause towards the middle (when it sweeps to find what it missed due to parallel marking) – the rest of the collection is done concurrently using one of the available processors (or one thread). If this collector cannot complete collecting the tenured space before it is full, all threads will be paused and a full collection performed – this is known as a concurrent mode failure and likely means you need to adjust the concurrent collection parameters.
This collector is used for the tenured generation, and does the collection concurrently with the execution of the application. This collector can also be paired with a parallel version of the young generation collector (-XX:+UseParNewGC).
Note that –XX:+UseParallelGC (the throughput collector) should not be used with -XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC, and the JVM will fail on startup if you try this with most modern JVMs. Same with -XX:+UseParallelOldGC.
The concurrent low pause collector will keep statistics so that it can best guess when to start collecting (so that it finishes before the tenured space is full) – also though, it will start collecting when the tenured space hits a percentage of what’s available – You can manually set this with -XX:CMSInitiatingOccupancyFraction=n. The default for this setting varies across JVMs. I’ve read that the default for 1.5 was 68%, while the default for 1.6 is 92%. You can lower this if needed to ensure that the collection is kicked off sooner, and then you will be more likely to finish the collection before the tenured space is full.
The concurrent low pause collector can also be used in an incremental mode that I will not go into here. This mode causes the low pause collector to occasional yield the processor used for parallel collection back to the application, and thereby lessen its impact on application performance.
The Parallel Young Generation Collector
-XX:+UseParNewGC
This collector is much like the throughput collector in that it collects the young generation in parallel. Most of what applies to the throughput collector also applies to this collector, however a different implementation is used that allows this collector to work in conjunction with the concurrent low pause collector, unlike the throughput collector. Despite some Sun/Oracle literature indicating this is off by default, it does seem to be on by default when using CMS in at least Java 6. You can disable it with:
-XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC -XX:-UseParNewGC
The flip side of that coin is that while the throughput garbage collector (-XX:+UseParallelGC) can be used with adaptive sizing (-XX:+UseAdaptiveSizePolicy), the parallel young generation collector (-XX:+UseParNewGC) cannot.
-XX:+UseAdaptiveSizePolicy records statistics about GC times, allocation rates, and free space, and then sizes the young and tenured generations to best fit those statistics. This is for use with the throughput collector and is on by default.
Choosing a Collector
Note: this article is biased towards server applications and the -server hotspot vm.
Usually you just want to start with the Parallel (throughput) collector. It’s the one that has ergonomics, and it will automatically adjust key settings so that most server apps will do just fine. This is the default collector on most server class systems. In general, you do not need to change any garbage collection settings until you have determined you have a garbage collection issue to solve.
When you have to confront very large heaps, the Parallel collector can start to break down – it collects the tenured space using a stop the world collection, meaning your app is frozen while the collections happens. So when you find that the Parallel collector is just not cutting it, even when using UseParallelOldGC, you might try the mostly Concurrent Low-Pause Collector. It will collect as your application is running using a thread on the side, with two much shorter stop-the-world pauses. Overall, the CMS collector is slower in terms of throughput – but your application will likely be frozen less often.
Ergonomics do not apply here, so you are on your own for coming up with good settings if the defaults don’t turn out to be a good fit – but you can often remove long “the world is stopped” pauses with this collector.
The hope is that it is just going to make sense to always use the G1 collector in the future – it attempts to offer the best of both worlds of the throughput and mostly concurrent low pause collectors.
The Garbage First (G1) Collector
The Garbage First Collector is a new garbage collector that intends to rule them all. It is available in Sun Java 6 update 14 as well as recent versions of OpenJDK6 and early versions of OpenJDK 7. Eventually I plan to write more about his collector. Briefly: the G1 collector should combine the best of both the throughput and mostly concurrent low pause collectors. It uses new strategies to minimize stop the world pauses and maintain high throughput on multiprocessor systems with very large heaps.
Try this collector with:
-XX:+UnlockExperimentalVMOptions -XX:+UseG1GCIt’s Official=> Trump Declares Jerusalem the Capital of Israel (VIDEO)
President Trump officially recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital Wednesday.
The President ordered the US embassy to be moved, however; it may take a few years.
Trump said, “It is time to officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.”
.@POTUS: “It is time to officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.” pic.twitter.com/bTdLD4LpbX — Fox News (@FoxNews) December 6, 2017
“This decision is not intended in any way to reflect a departure from our strong commitment to facilitate a lasting peace agreement,” POTUS Trump continued.
.@POTUS: “This decision is not intended in any way to reflect a departure from our strong commitment to facilitate a lasting peace agreement.” https://t.co/3g92EJk7Eg pic.twitter.com/mNNyAzhdA2 — Fox News (@FoxNews) December 6, 2017
More from Fox News:
The U.S. would be the first country to move its embassy to Jerusalem, which is claimed by both Israelis and Palestinians. Other countries who have diplomatic relations with Israel keep their embassies in Tel Aviv. But the embassy move would not be immediate and could take at least three or four years. The U.S. officials said there are currently about 1,000 personnel in the embassy in Tel Aviv. They added that there is no facility in Jerusalem ready to serve as the embassy site, and it will take time to address security, design and cost concerns. Ahead of the announcement, Trump spoke Tuesday with Palestinian President Mahmood Abbas, Jordanian King Abdullah and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu has said he supports the U.S. moving its embassy. But Abbas has warned of the “gravity of consequences” should the move become official for “the peace process and security and stability in the region and world.”
To no one’s surprise, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that moving the capital was a ‘red line’ for Muslims and possibly result in Turkey severing diplomatic ties with Israel, according to a Fox News report.Given this is Europe, and in particular the Mediterranean, almost every stop has a nude beach within striking distance of the port and yet despite this we only visited two of them during this cruise. Now some of you will be wondering if there’s so many why aren’t we going to them? Aren’t you supposed to be nudists? Isn’t that what nudists do? Well we’re travellers so we want to experience new places and see new, and in the case of Europe some very old things. This trip has taken us to places we’d never thought we’d see from the Fortress in Kotor Montenegro, along with some soviet era sub pens, to the more than two thousand year old ruins of Butrint in Sarande, Albania. The true value of these nude cruises seems to not be in the ability to go from one nude beach to another but from one experience to another in the comfort of simply being ourselves while enjoying the company of our like minded travellers.After the first debate between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, there were many sighs and groans over the fact that the president did not hit hard on Mitt's 47 percent remarks. Sometimes, timing is everything.
The last question of last night's debate was this: What misconception does the public have about you, and give examples of why they're wrong. Mitt played this perfectly, painting himself as the compassionate, churchgoing man who was just a victim of mean Barack and his personal attacks. He spent a lot of time trying to convince the audience that he was a good man because he had faith in God, and he cared about everyone.
Obama's response began with a direct answer: that he's been painted as a guy who sees government as the answer to everything. But after about 40 seconds, he paused, and pivoted. Here's what he said:
I believe Governor Romney is a good man. Loves his family, cares about his faith. But I also believe that when he said behind closed doors that 47 percent of the country considered themselves victims who refuse personal responsibility, think about who he was talking about. Folks on Social Security who've worked all their lives. Veterans who've sacrificed for this country. Students who are out there trying to hopefully advance their own dreams, but also this country's dreams. Soldiers who are overseas fighting for us right now. People who are working hard every day, paying payroll tax, gas taxes, but don't make enough income. And I want to fight for them. That's what I've been doing for the last four years. Because if they succeed, I believe the country succeeds.
When my grandfather fought in World War II and he came back and he got a G.I. Bill and that allowed him to go to college, that wasn't a handout. That was something that advanced the entire country. And I want to make sure that the next generation has those same opportunities. That's why I'm asking for your vote and that's why I'm asking for another four years.
And on that note, Barack Obama closed the debate with the very last word, leaving the term 47 percent ringing in his audience's ears. It was a devasting, understated and effective close.
Lawrence O'Donnell zoomed straight in on it in his interview with David Axelrod right afterwards. Axelrod conceded that it was definitely something the president wanted to engage on, but there was no plan to leave that as the last word, so to speak. There's no question, however, that it was effective and resonated. Watch the lines on the little peoplemeter CNN was running. They start flat and rise as he wraps that statement up.
Well played, Mr. President.
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Support Crooks and Liars:Introducing: the European Smash Circuit (ESC)
A short word here from Cas, SmashEurope’s web developer. On behalf of the SmashEurope Team I’d like to present something to you that all of us have been working on lately: the European Smash Circuit (ESC).
The ESC is a series of Smash events from all over Europe, of which the first iterarion will be held from May 2015 until January 2016. And YOU can take part in it! So go ahead and visit the Circuit page by clicking this link, or by visiting the newly added option in the menu!
In addition, I have been working on implementing a database in which SmashEurope is able to store all big European tournaments. This implicitly means that you can now browse these events by visiting an all new tournament page. We now keep track of relevant links, info and results for each tournament. The SmashEurope team will do its best to keep them all up-to-date. Are you planning on organizing a relatively big European event yourself? Don’t hesitate to send us an e-mail so we can add it! All help to strengthen the European Smash scene is welcome!
A lot of new features, a lot of hype. Please share yours by sharing this article on social media! Thanks!Lightning may never strike the same place twice, but your phone doesn't need to know that.
That's because a group of scientists from the University of Southampton have teamed up with Nokia to explore the possibility of harnessing the energy of a lightning bolt to charge a mobile device.
Sound impossible? Well, the scientists have already done it.
In order to create a "lightning bolt" for their test, the team first generated an alternating current through a transformer. They then channeled that current between a gap that was a little under an inch thick, surging 200,000 volts — well within the average strength of a typical lightning strike — in the form of a bolt of electricity. The signal was then transferred into another controlling transformer, where it was able to charge the battery of a Nokia Lumia 925.
“As one of the first companies to introduce wireless charging into our products, we believe that this experiment has the potential to jump-start new ideas on how we charge our phones in the future,” Chris Weber, Nokia's vice president of sales and marketing, told Phys.org.
See also: Watch This Wall of Dead Batteries Charge 140 Smartphones
This research indicates that we may one day harness the power of a lightning strike for our own personal use. Consider the energy implications, which reach beyond cellphone charging: lightning is totally renewable, incredibly sustainable and readily available.
Neil Palmer, one of the project's lead researchers, said Nokia presented them with the original idea for the experiment. This is not surprising coming from Nokia, a company that is known for pushing the boundaries and constantly researching new concepts and technologies.
Palmer said that the circuitry of the Nokia device was able to stabilize the signal of the lightning, which then allowed the battery to be charged. This is important to note because one of the main arguments against the notion of harnessing lightning for energy has been that lightning is too unpredictable.
"This discovery proves devices can be charged with a current that passes through the air," he said, "and is a huge step towards understanding a natural power like lightning and harnessing its energy."
Using the power of lightning has long been a staple of science fiction. But if this experiment proves anything, it is that some of those seemingly impossible scenarios depicted in science fiction may soon become a reality.
Do you think we should harvest lightning for energy? Let us know in the comments below.
5 Futuristic Nokia Patents Microsoft Should Make
Image: YouTube, NokiaChina’s military reshuffle: A sign of changing attitudes to foreign affairs or domestic politicking?
Joe Gainsford Blocked Unblock Follow Following Oct 11, 2017
The military reforms which have underpinned President Xi’s premiership over the last five years will culminate at the upcoming meeting of the 19th Party Congress where an unprecedented reshuffle of military leadership will take place. President Xi has made the task of reforming, restructuring and modernising the People’s Liberation Army a central policy platform since 2012. Whilst military reforms and developments in this period have at times played second fiddle to the perpetual responsibility of maintaining the juggernaut that is the Chinese economy, and with it the promised economic development that gives the CCP it’s mandate, they are numerous and noticeable. The question is how much should the world outside of the Asia-Pacific region pay attention? Are Xi Jinping’s reforms a signal that Beijing is abandoning it’s long-standing foreign policy of restrained involvement in conflict? After all, in only September of this year, Foreign Policy summarised that ‘a rising China’ now had a “more forward-leaning approach to its neighbours”(1). Or is it all nothing more than an attempt at claiming a trophy of strength to display when those who would vie for Xi and his allies’ positions come forward in future? Perhaps the decision makers in Beijing are pondering whether or not great economic power brings with it great military responsibility. All of these scenarios are possible explanations, and in some ways they are all now realities.
In the hysteria that has been drummed up in the North Korea crisis, would seem like the perfect barometer by which to gauge Chinese foreign policy and military attitudes has presented itself. Simply concluding — no interest in military involvement, no critical change in the warmth of the relationship with the USA, seemingly no interest in the projection of power beyond Chinese borders. If this were the case then perhaps we would see defence spending as a percentage of GDP drop since China has already asserted itself as the world’s second largest (by almost all measures and definitions) military. But spending has continued to hold at around 2% of GDP in recent years, after dropping from much loftier heights before 2008. In fact the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute has reported that for 2017, Chinese defence spending is at 1.9% of GDP resulting in a figure of $215.7bn.(2)
So if China and the CCP has no interest in ever actually using this military might beyond existential security, if it has no interest in entering the world stage when nuclear war seemingly beckons, then why spend such vast and increasing sums year after year? It seems to me that the most likely reason for China and Xi’s commitment to military reform is not the noisy and vocal neighbour in North Korea. Beijing is still committed to following the same foreign policy approach of “non-interference, respect for the sovereignty of others, non-aggression and peaceful co-existence”(3) which it has done so for 50 years or so — as Jiang Zemin once told President Bush(jr) “North Korea is [your] problem”(4) — and whilst Xi has been more willing than other recent Presidents to join US efforts against the DPRK, official Chinese policy and rhetoric has not moved on much from that of Jiang. In fact it is quite safe to say that in any international dispute, other than those surrounding the South and East China Seas of course, Jiang Zemin’s words and sentiments hold true. China just does not see itself as needing to get too involved in international conflicts, whether that be regarding the Korean peninsula or Russian expansionism or the Syrian civil war. This probably stems from the CCP’s own fears and insecurities surrounding legitimacy. After all a communist state, no matter how seemingly benevolent or ‘liberalised’, can’t feel too secure in opening itself up to potential criticism and undermining from an international order built around the sanctity of human rights and free markets.
Three years ago, just after President Xi came to power, I completed my final University dissertation on the question of how high would Sino-Japanese tensions rise in regard to their island disputes. I concluded that any substantial militaristic conflict between the two states was virtually impossible and unthinkable for economic reasons. This still holds true today in my opinion. Xi and others’ continuation of Hu Jintao’s policy of Peaceful Development has kept the PRC away from conflict. And whilst Xi has openly discussed a shift away from the ‘hide and bide’ policy of his predecessors, and whilst he has openly stated his desires for China to embrace an “increasingly assertive” foreign policy that will result in a “new type of international relations” asserting that the “growing trend toward a multipolar world will not change”,(5) there is very little to suggest that any of this is militaristic in nature. Under President Xi, ‘assertive foreign policy’ has meant more meaningful and constructive engagement with international institutions. Rather than displays of military might, Xi’s premiership has favoured embracing the rules and structures of international institutions and their processes. Notably the Chinese delegation sent to The Hague to mediate the dispute with the Philippines over parts of the South China Sea. This moment was key in understanding that both ‘peaceful development’ and an ‘assertive foreign policy’ could coexist — in years gone by the PRC may have opted to ‘hide’ over the issue and ‘bide’ their time, or if ‘peaceful development’ had been in some way abandoned then perhaps the deployment of some conventional forces would have happened instead of going to The Hague.
So if China and Xi have not abandoned their long standing commitment to restrained military activity and non-interventionism, then what is going on? As I said previously North Korea is not President Xi’s inspiration for military reform. Perhaps mind has been paid to the possible situation following any potential collapse of the Kim regime at the hands of any American led assault. But overall neither North Korean missiles, nor Japanese or Filipino claims to islands are driving motivators for what can only be described as one of Xi’s flagship policies. It would seem that their are exceptions to the rule — whilst Chinese foreign policy has held true to form in the east, perhaps we will see a shift in approaches to the west to go hand in hand with The Belt and Road Initiative(BRI).
If military reform has been a priority for Xi Jinping and his premiership, then the BRI has surely been the top priority. It is almost a personal project for President Xi, and it he has mainly been responsibly for its conception. After visiting countries on the old Silk Road in 2013, he decided it was time to rejuvenate the region economically, and further integrate it, by rebuilding the Silk Road trade routes and expanding on them with modernising infrastructure projects. The countries included in the BRI range from Germany to Malaysia. The economies included in the BRI will use, and are using, the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) to finance projects related to the BRI. The Economist states that effectively China is putting “roughly $150bn a year in the 68 countries that have signed up to the scheme”(6). Xi Jinping wants to once again make the trade routes between China’s east coast and Western Europe the driving force of the world economy, bringing with it a new era in the world economy of Sino-centrism. In the same article, The Economist even asserts that the BRI is proof of “Mr Xi’s determination to break with Deng Xiaoping’s”(7) ‘hide and bide’ foreign policy. The BRI seeks to place China at the heart of a new global trading area, there will be no room in the future for China to hide it’s capabilities when the vast spaces that belong to Central Asian republics have Chinese high-speed trains coursing through them. Also, there is now no longer a need for China to ‘bide’ it’s time either. China has reached extraordinary, and well documented, economic heights in recent years. This is now spilling over to the outside world — towards the end of 2016, Chinese companies had completed around $120bn of merger and acquisition takeovers (M&As) globally (8)— as Chinese companies take advantage of this economic golden age to expand their portfolios to secure foreign assets. China’s wealth and economic strength is most probably now reaching a peak, or at least a plateau. The BRI seeks to consolidate this strength.
So perhaps, just as the BRI is an attempt at planning for the future of global economics, President Xi’s military reforms are an anticipation for the future military responsibilities China will bear. In attempting to find what problems and difficulties China will face in the future and why it might be eventually rely on it’s military, it is useful to look for a scenario in history which shares a substantial number of parallels. Perhaps the best historic parallel from modern history is the foreign policy of the USA at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. Herman Melville once described Americans as the “chosen people” who “bear the ark of liberties of the world.”(9) Melville’s sentiments were echoed by American foreign policy from that point until America’s involvement in the Second World War. As Niall Ferguson states, “the defining characteristic of American foreign policy…prior to 1947 was the insistence of successive presidents that the United Stated could somehow be a great power without behaving like any previous great power.”(10) Of course the Wilsonian age was the paramount era for this American thinking. Wilson himself announced in 1917 that “every people… should be left free to determine its own polity.”(11) These words sound laudable and certainly seem comparable to Chinese foreign policy since Zhou Enlai’s principles of “non-interference, respect for the sovereignty of others, non-aggression and peaceful co-existence.”(12) were laid out in 1955. Perhaps also the words of Walter Lippmann also have some relevance when looking at China now. He asserted in 1926 that in America “we continue to think of ourselves as a kind of great, peaceful Switzerland, whereas we are in fact a great, expanding world power.”(13) Yet Ferguson is quick to assert that American foreign policy of this time was “richly hypocritical”(14) and if American military activity in this time period is anything to go by then he is mostly correct. It seemed that the reality of policy borne out of the American Renaissance was a militarily enforced exportation of these ideals which ultimately descended into the the US having to send troops into the unstable neighbour territories of Central and South America to defend American installations and economic interests. General Butler wrote in 1935 that “I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street… I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house Brown Brothers in 1909–1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras “right” for American fruit companies in 1903.”(15) Whilst this is a very cynical and harsh look at the situations that unfolded in the region at the time, it is also clear that the USA was originally involved in all those countries for the ‘right’ reasons of Wilsonian thought, either to achieve peace or for the expansion of trade networks. The fact that these reasons then ultimately led to extensive military campaigns that seemingly wound up being almost entirely related to the defence of economic interests is something which perhaps President Xi and his successors will need to take on board.
Maybe this is the real reason behind the extensive military reforms and why they have been enacted simultaneously to the development of the BRI. After all, China is not neighboured by exceptionally stable or peaceful countries, especially to its west. It also doesn’t have particularly peaceful relationships with its closest neighbours — the recent border stand-offs with India should be indicative of this point — or even full and stable control of it’s expansive western regions, with unrest in its biggest province of Xinjiang consistently simmering. It is my belief that the combination of intense investment into the BRI regions, political instability in said reasons, and the immense importance of the project itself that is driving the emphasis that Xi Jinping has placed on upgrading the military. It would be unwise to have the amount of money invested in the countries involved in the BRI project that China has, $31bn last year and already $33bn this year just as a snapshot,(16) without the military prowess to defend it should the need arise. If the American example is anything to go by, then heavy investment and business interest in unstable neighbours usually requires a great, almost constant, deal of military force to back it up. The recent incident of two Chinese teachers possibly murdered in Pakistan could be seen as a sign of things to come. Beijing has so far pledged $57bn to Pakistan for the BRI,(17) and if death becomes an occupational hazard of working in places along the route of the BRI for Chinese nationals then it puts the entire project in jeopardy. The fact that China sees this project as instrumental to bringing an end to American unipolarity and creating the multipolarity that President Xi has so often discussed suggests that Chinese military involvement along the route is a more likely prospect than abruptly abandoning the initiative or pulling funding from key areas. As of 2015, the USA “maintains nearly 800 military bases in more than 70 countries”(18), perhaps it is conceivable that China will maintain bases along the silk road route to ensure stability if not at national level of BRI countries then at least in the immediate vicinity of trade routes and key infrastructure.
I am of the belief that the conditions forming to the west of China and into Central Asia and the Middle East will likely bring China to abandon its 60 year old foreign policy core more quickly than any of the dramas that may or may not unfold to its east. Ultimately the subtlety of needing to defend interests related to the BRI will more easily sway opinions in Beijing than the cacophony of potential catastrophe on the Korean peninsula or in the South China sea — these situations usually reward patience, caution, and a degree of brinkmanship.
The timing of these events is particularly noteworthy too. Xi Jinping will unveil the reshuffle of military leadership at the congress marking the halfway point of his premiership. There is a chance this has all been done for show. After all a visibly improved military is a good policy path to follow, it satisfies allies and critics alike whilst pleasing the general public too. If it ends up that the renewed Chinese military is never needed for any conflict of note, whether that be for the defence of the BRI as I’ve hypothesised or for any unfolding situation in the east, then at the very least it will be a clear demonstration of President Xi’s legacy once he leaves his post in 2022. A strong and modern army is visible and tangible whilst the extent of Chinese soft power and the robustness of a regional trading zone — the aims of the BRI — are much less visible. The ceremonialism surrounding the launch of China’s second aircraft carrier, domestically built, and pride that was found in reactions from all across China is evidence of this. Having such a bold and obvious success to show at the 19th party congress, of a new and improved military, will continue to help the President shore up the power vested in the post. This has been a central aim of Xi’s premiership, to make the positions of President and General Secretary more absolute in their power, a strong military can only help this cause.
However the level of commitment to military spending and reform, the sheer scale of building an aircraft carrier for example, suggests that China and President Xi foresee the military as having an active role to play rather than just a becoming a monument for display purposes only. The timing of these announcements, whilst of course having implications domestically, seem undeniably linked to the progress of the BRI — Beijing has this year limited the outflow of Chinese capital in order to |
's mass surveillance activities revealed by Edward Snowden.
This proposal will be justified in relation to the activities of Australians involved in the current conflict in Syria and Iraq, which have received significant coverage in the media, but deserves very close scrutiny to ensure it is not used by current or future governments to avoid legislative protections and parliamentary oversight.
Mandatory Data Retention
The proposal for a mandatory data retention scheme, by far the most controversial issue considered by the Committee, is not included in chapter four. The Committee wisely avoided making any clear recommendation about its adoption or otherwise, instead calling it 'ultimately a decision for Government', so it's not expected to be included in this tranche of legislation. It certainly hasn’t gone away though and is likely to rear its ugly head again sometime in the next 12 months or so.
NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione weighed in yesterday, and while admitting that law enforcement had not 'done enough to explain why we need to do it', suggested that Australians should approach the issue in the same way that we approach supermarket loyalty programmes. The Commissioner is apparently 'perplexed' that while (many) Australians are prepared to trade some privacy for discounts and special offers, 80% of us oppose exactly the sort of warrantless mass surveillance that he seems to think is essential to maintaining our security.
It is unfortunate that as distinguished a law enforcement officer as Commissioner Scipione has such an unsophisticated view of this issue. In particular, he seems not to understand that loyalty programmes involve an informed choice by an individual to provide certain information to organisations that are not heavily armed and which lack arrest powers.It's a truism of the last ten years: The internet has led to rough sailing for many traditional news organizations.
But the situation has led to one hopeful response: The creation of local, focused news groups doing hands-on reporting in their own areas, and in the fields they know best. The result can be journalism of high quality with an immediacy and intimacy that larger news organizations are no longer equipped to provide.
A fine example of this can be found in ecoRI News. Based in Providence, ecoRI News is a digital publication covering environmental and social justice issues in southern New England – and one that's growing in readership and recognition seemingly by the hour.
The site was launched in 2009 by husband-and-wife team Frank Carini and Joanna Detz, veteran newshounds who met while working at Community Newspaper Company, in the metro Boston area. Both felt their corner of the world lacked reporting on environmental issues, so they created a green news source that's read by lawmakers, policymakers, educators, scientists, activists – and concerned citizens.
"The region is facing so many big challenges related to climate change, food security and land use," said Detz, ecoRI News' executive director. "It's our role as journalists to give people the information they need to become better stewards of the environment and to hold policymakers accountable for the decisions they make."
The company has a staff of two full-time reporters and three freelance writers. With news sections dedicated to Energy, Food & Farming, Health & Recreation, Local Economy and more, the site covers topics all across the green spectrum. There are also podcasts, green-living tips and job listings.
All this is available online, and the organization produces a free weekly e-newsletter, currently going out to 13,500 subscribers every Tuesday.
Why this heroic effort? "We only have one planet; we need to treat it better," said Detz. "We hope to help people make sustainable choices and become better guests of this planet."
--By Jim Pierce(Photo: stock_photo_world / Shutterstock.com)
After initially saying Democrats would try to align with Trump after his victory, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer is finally leaning toward the only sensible response to the threat of right-wing extremism: Obstructionism.
Schumer threw down the gauntlet in a CNN interview on Jan. 3. “The only way we’re going to work with [Trump] is if he moves completely in our direction and abandons his Republican colleagues.” But Schumer hedged as well by saying Democrats were not going to be the “party of no” the way Republicans were since 2008. He said, “We’re Democrats. We’re not going to just oppose things to oppose them.”
Complementing the strategy, Democrats are chattering about ripping pages from the Tea Party playbook. Former congressional staffers have published a guide “to replicate the Tea Party’s success in getting Congress to listen to a small, vocal, dedicated group of constituents.”
The document contains useful tips on how to bird-dog Congress members with phone calls, emails, in-person visits, and even sit-ins so as to put them on notice they will pay a price for supporting Trump. It also advises activists to assume a defensive posture for now as “there is zero chance that we as progressives will get to put our agenda into action at the federal level in the next four years.”
While some of this strategy makes sense, it is deeply flawed. Left and right are not mirror images in American politics. There are lessons to be learned from how the Tea Party stymied the Obama administration. But differences between the two presidencies, parties, and grassroots forces are so significant that any plan to thwart Trump has to be based on the actual conditions rather than lifting a carbon-copy plan from the past.
The biggest difference is while the right gets more and more extreme—it’s now openly embracing white nationalism while Trump flirts with fascism—it serves as corporate America’s death squad. Wall Street sees a very profitable lining in Trump’s election. Stocks have been rallying and some analysts predict “the market could explode much higher” because of “this incredible potential of deregulation, possible tax cuts and fiscal policy.”
That incredible potential for the wealthy is a stab in the back to Trump’s working-class supporters. Since winning, his actions are betraying his promises that he would boost wages and create 25 million jobs. Trump’s nominees are either utterly incompetent, such as Ben Carson for Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Rick Perry for Energy Secretary, and Nikki Haley as U.N. ambassador, or they are child molesters in charge of a nursery school, such as a slew of Goldman Sachs alum with economic portfolios, fast-food CEO Andy Puzder for Labor Secretary, or Christian fanatic Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary.
Trump has a breathtakingly radical agenda compared to Obama. As likeable and scandal-free as he may be personally, Obama was a centrist committed to status quo politics. He bailed out Wall Street and expanded Bush-era wars and surveillance. Every major progressive initiative promised—immigration reform, mitigating climate change, increasing unionization, addressing the home-foreclosure crisis—was abandoned despite the congressional supermajority he had for a year. And he bungled Obamacare, set to be euthanized, because he allowed the healthcare industry to design it to increase profits rather than address the crisis of medical bankruptcy.
Opposing Obama was about opposing incremental social progress for most Americans, including millions of white workers who backed Trump. Opposing Trump is about stopping horrific acts from savaging tens of millions. If Democrats can create gridlock, then they will valiantly stave off the barbarians. If a few fall in the 2018 election, when three-fourths of senators up for re-election are part of the Democratic caucus, that is a small price to pay.
But the only way Democrats will hold Trump’s feet to the fire, as Schumer has promised, is if activists are constantly bring the heat to Democrats. Most, after all, have bedded down with Wall Street for years, from the Clintons, Obama, and Schumer down the line. They will be inclined to buckle to Trump’s outrageous demands, right-wing unity, and Twitter fusillades rather than play brinksmanship with the debt ceiling as Republicans did.
That’s why a progressive strategy needs to diverge from the Tea Party playbook. Trump is not defending the status quo. He wants to destroy functions that serve the common good while enhancing state violence and corporate power. Republicans have introduced a bill to cripple the government’s ability to regulate a swath of policies from climate change to union organizing to net neutrality, according to investigative reporter Steve Horn.
As such, federal workers inside the government are on the front line of resisting Trump. Their only sensible course of action is to resist, not just to preserve government as a positive force, but to save their own hides. Trump and his Alt-Right propagandist, Steve Bannon, have begun a war on federal workers with a rule that, unbelievably, enables Congress to fire specific workers or reduce their pay to $1. Government workers can fight back by filing lawsuits, using their union power, leaking information to the press, Congress, and watchdog groups, and outright hampering implementation of policies.
While Democrats may cringe at playing hardball, a Trump administration will have even less regard for the law than the venal Bush administration. Their goal is to establish an authoritarian, white-nationalist, Koch brothers version of America. Federal workers who resist should be celebrated as heroes, like the climate scientists copying and securing crucial data to prevent it from being destroyed. Even if some of Trump’s actions are legal, the only standard is whether a policy is just, particularly with his threats of mass deportations, registering Muslim-Americans, and privatizing Medicare. After all, slavery, Native American genocide, and the forced internment of Japanese-Americans were legal. As for fears this will politicize the civil service, that’s precisely what the Republicans are doing. In any case, this is not about partisanship but defending the public sector’s ability to act in the public interest.
The final element is grassroots resistance, which will look little like the Tea Party. There are no billionaires who will fund workers striking for living wages nor is there a Fox News for socialists. Plus, Tea Partiers were within the GOP mainstream. They only made it more extreme with their nativism, Islamophobia and noxious birtherism, and which Trump then both encouraged and exploited.
The same is not true for the ascendant Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic Party. His modest social democratic proposals were once mainstream, but Bill Clinton killed economic liberalism with his “third way” agenda of untrammeled free trade and corporate power while claiming he would protect workers. Instead, millions of factory jobs fled abroad, social welfare was decimated, income and life expectancy declined for many, and he sowed the seeds for the 2008 financial meltdown. Clintonism also led to Trump. Abandoning workers, of all colors, discouraged many from politics while leaving an opening the size of a Nuremberg rally for a demagogue to appeal to aggrieved whites.
Countering Trump means a course reversal. Progressives and activists should look to the broad class politics of the 1930s, the militancy of the Civil Rights Era, and the creativity of new movements from Black Lives Matter and Fight for $15 to immigrant-rights “Dreamers” and the climate justice movement. The common thread is these movements exist outside of electoral politics, but they have influenced national politics, similar to how Occupy Wall Street flipped the script from economic austerity to income inequality.
But movements to stop Trump need to go further by building power, institutions, and vying for elected office. Rather than running doomed campaigns for Congress or president from the get-go, progressives should mimic the Christian Right and run for low-level offices like school boards, city councils, and county supervisors to build experience, strength, and capacity.
It’s also crucial candidates come out of mass movements and multi-issue organizations, as Jacobin argues. The usual model, which Bernie Sanders replicates, of a few people handpicking candidates and building a movement around them, reduces politics to a cult of personality and means victorious candidates have no accountability to those who elected them.
None of this will happen overnight. Trump is the result of decades of failure from the radical left and organized labor to liberals and the Democratic Party establishment. Trumpism is also the product of 50 years of strategic organizing on the right. Only now is the radical right’s dream of turning back to the clock to the 19th century within their grasp. Preventing this nightmare means acting boldly, strategically, militantly, and doing what is right rather than what is flashy or convenient.
Arun Gupta contributes to The Washington Post, YES! Magazine, In These Times, The Progressive, Telesur, and The Nation. He is author of the forthcoming, Bacon as a Weapon of Mass Destruction: A Junk-Food Loving Chef’s Inquiry into Taste, from The New Press.
Follow him @arunindy or email at arun_dot_indypendent_at_gmail_dot_com.Scotland is on the brink of independence, according to the SNP’s leader at Westminster.
Angus Robertson said the SNP must focus on persuading people that independence is right for Scotland as he launched his campaign to be Nicola Sturgeon’s deputy.
We are on the brink of independence; the campaign that comes now should be all about persuading people why our vision is the right one for Scotland Angus Robertson
Ms Sturgeon is preparing the ground for another independence referendum - but said she will only stage a re-run if she cannot find another viable option to keep Scotland in the European Union (EU).
Mr Robertson said he would use his position as SNP deputy leader to “deliver our goal of independence”.
He said: “We are on the brink of independence; the campaign that comes now should be all about persuading people why our vision is the right one for Scotland.
“The SNP depute leader has a big role in order to make this happen - developing our policy, strategy and tactics to win.
“I’ve spent the last year holding the UK Government to account every single week at PMQs.
“Alongside a team of extremely hard-working MPs, we’ve turned the SNP from the third party of the UK to the most effective opposition party.
“It is this kind of work ethic that will see us succeed in our mission and I know that I can work with Nicola to make it happen.
“From today, I’m also launching my bid to bring on board five thousand pledged supporters to my campaign before the nominations close.
“My vision for this role is about unity, campaigning and delivering our goal of independence.”
Mr Robertson’s most high-profile challenger is Alyn Smith, the MEP who received a standing ovation in Brussels for his plea to EU members to respect Scotland’s vote to remain.
Mr Smith has offered to be “a freelance roving sherpa” for Ms Sturgeon in Europe to get the best deal for Scotland.
Other contenders are MP Tommy Sheppard and councillor Christopher McEleny.
SNP membership has risen beyond 120,000 in the aftermath of the UK’s vote for Brexit, according to new party figures.
Membership now stands at 120,203 - growing by more than 4,000 since the Brexit vote and a fivefold increase from the 25,642 members on the day Scotland voted No to independence in September 2014.
SNP business convener Derek Mackay said: “The incredible upsurge in SNP membership shows no signs of stopping - with membership now over 120,000, putting the party in a strong position as we deliver our ambitious manifesto in government and lead the opposition to the Tories at Westminster.
“This extraordinary increase in membership makes clear that it is the SNP which people trust to stand up for Scotland’s best interests - in contrast to a Labour Party in complete disarray north and south of the border, and a Tory party which has taken Scotland to the brink of being dragged out of the EU.
“That membership has grown substantially since the EU referendum vote is testament to the strength of feeling in Scotland that we must not be dragged out Europe against our will - and the SNP in government will continue to explore every option to maintain our EU status.”Baptist Christians and activists are urging Croatia to grant asylum to Iranian Christians and to not deport them to their home country where persecution possibly awaits them.
(REUTERS / Darrin Zammit Lupi) Migrants and refugees wait to continue their train journey to western Europe at a refugee transit camp in Slavonski Brod, Croatia, February 9, 2016.
Activists and representatives of the Croatian Baptist Church were scheduled to hold a meeting in Zagreb on Wednesday to tackle the persecution that Iranian Christian refugees could face if they are deported to their home countries. They were also set to talk about the situation of a woman who could be given a death sentence in Iran if Croatia rejects her application for asylum, the Balkan Insight details.
According to Croatian theologian and human rights activist Drago Pilsel, the woman grew up as a Muslim but converted to Christianity later on in her life after studying the Bible. She and her husband reportedly flew to Croatia for a supposed vacation when authorities began investigating her, but they applied for asylum upon their arrival.
"Since the couple has already been rejected for asylum twice, now they are under threat of being deported [to Iran] by the police," Pilsel said.
Iran allows its citizens to practice other religions, but there are some Christians who are still discriminated against. Muslims who convert to other faiths are sometimes jailed. There are also others who have been sentenced to death but have not been executed.
In 2016, the number of asylum-seekers in Croatia increased to 2,235 from just 211 the previous year. Last year, it granted asylum to 83 individuals and 16 subsidiary protection statuses. However, it has also been accused of driving Afghani refugees to Serbia and the illegal deportation of asylum seekers.
Last March, the Balkans shut down the migrants' route towards western Europe after borders were closed because of opposition to the influx of refugees. However, many Croatians expressed support for Iraqi, Syrian, and Afghan migrants because they went through the same experience during the Balkan Wars, said Lin Taylor of the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Vanja Grundmann, who now manages a volunteer program at a refugee center in eastern Croatia, said they walked 25 years ago on the same streets that the migrants trudged on. She said they do not assure the migrants that everything will turn out alright, but they can offer hope.But life here is incredibly tough. As a refugee it is very difficult to get paid work and they are also living with psychological damage caused by years of violence and uncertainty.
Concern runs daily embroidery sessions with the help of local organisation Basmeh and Zeitooneh. It might seem an odd thing to offer people who have almost nothing – but the time women spend here makes a huge difference to their lives.
How does embroidery help Syrian refugees?
Financial support: In Lebanon, 93 per cent of Syrian refugee households live below the national poverty line. The embroidery that the women make is bought by Basmeh and Zeitooneh who sell the products commercially – this gives the women a little bit more money to spend. This helps them feed their families or pay for other essentials such as rent.
Emotional support: All the women I spoke with explained that the project gives them a safe space where they can be creative. Perhaps most importantly, it helps them escape the reality of their situation for a few hours a week. Amina explained: “I’m a Syrian, I’m depressed and this takes away the stress.”
Peace building: To bring two communities together, the project includes some Lebanese women, who live in poverty themselves. Lebanon is home to more than a million refugees so the craft sessions aim to help people understand each other better and avoid any increase in tensions between the two communities.
New friendships are being made. Ranim, a Lebanese woman said: “I was pessimistic but now I am optimistic. Now I have friends from Syria – before I didn’t.”
It is incredible that some thread, a needle and a safe space can ease even a fraction of the pain these women endure.
*names have been changed to protect identitiesIn one of the biggest crackdowns on the corrupting role of money in college basketball, 10 men — including a top Adidas executive and four assistant coaches — were charged Tuesday with using bribes to influence star athletes' choice of schools, shoe sponsors, agents, financial advisers, even tailors.
Some of the hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes went to athletes and their families, none of whom were identified by name in court papers. Some of the money went to the coaches, to get them to use their considerable sway over their potentially NBA-bound players, federal prosecutors said.
"The picture of college basketball painted by the charges is not a pretty one," acting U.S. Attorney Joon H. Kim said. "Coaches at some of the nation's top programs taking cash bribes, managers and advisers circling blue-chip prospects like coyotes, and employees of a global sportswear company funneling cash to families of high school recruits."
The coaches were identified as Chuck Person of Auburn University, Emanuel Richardson of the University of Arizona, Tony Bland of the University of Southern California and Lamont Evans of Oklahoma State.
The others charged were James Gatto, director of global sports marketing for basketball at Adidas; Rashan Michel, a maker of custom suits for some of the NBA's biggest stars; and various advisers and managers.
Most if not all of the 10 defendants were under arrest. Gatto's lawyer did not immediately respond to an email request for comment. It was not clear who would represent the coaches.
Since 2015, the FBI has been investigating the influence of money on coaches and players in the NCAA. Kim noted that a special FBI hotline has been set up and invited anyone aware of additional corruption to come forward.
He said those charged "exploited the hoop dreams of student-athletes around the country, allegedly treating them as little more than opportunities to enrich themselves through bribery and fraud schemes."
Prosecutors said the coaches took bribes to use their "enormous influence" steer players toward certain financial advisers and agents.
Adidas said it was unaware of any misconduct by an employee and vowed to fully cooperate with authorities.
Among other things, Gatto and others were accused of bribing high school athletes and their families at least three times this year in exchange for a commitment by the players to play basketball for two Adidas-sponsored universities not identified in court papers.
In one instance, court papers said, Gatto and others funneled $100,000 to the family of a high school athlete to gain his commitment to play at an Adidas-sponsored Division I school and to sign with Adidas once he became a professional. They allegedly paid another high school athlete $150,000 for a similar commitment.
Court papers portrayed the universities as victims of the schemes, saying they paid out financial aid after their coaches falsely assured them they were unaware of any rules violations.
The investigation began after a financial adviser who ran a firm that catered to pro athletes began cooperating in 2014, providing information corroborated by recorded conversations and surveillance, authorities said.
That person, not identified in court papers, pleaded guilty this month to fraud and other crimes.
Person, associate head coach at Auburn, was drafted by the Indian Pacers in 1986 and played for five NBA teams over 13 seasons.
Prosecutors said Person accepted about $91,500 in bribes from the unidentified financial adviser in 2016 to steer clients to him when they reached the NBA. Some payments were alleged to have been arranged by Michel, a former NBA referee turned high-end clothier.
Authorities said Person falsely told the mother of one player that the financial adviser's clients included NBA Hall of Famer Charles Barkley.
Prosecutors quoted Evans as bragging about his ability to steer young athletes toward prospective agents and advisers, saying, "Every guy I recruit and get is my personal kid." He also allegedly boasted that he could "bury" any other advisers who tried to sign his players.
Prosecutors said Evans solicited at least $22,000 over the past two years, while Richardson in February was paid $20,000 in bribes, some of which he kept for himself and some of which he gave to at least one high school athlete to get him to play for Arizona.
Between July and September, two advisers arranged at least $13,000 in bribes to Bland, who boasted, "I can definitely mold the players and put them in the lap of you guys," prosecutors said.The 67 Blankets for Nelson Mandela Day campaign covered the grounds of the Union Buildings in Pretoria in a sea of blankets this morning in honour of Mandela.
The campaign encouraged South Africans to help knit, crochet or sew 21,000 blankets by 21 April 2015 to celebrate the 21st anniversary of our democracy on 27 April.
Campaign founder Carolyn Steyn says the event is a call for unity, which is especially necessary given the recent xenophobic attacks in South Africa.
“There will be a sea of blankets round the giant statue of Nelson Mandela and we will do an aerial photograph that will show the world what we are doing step by step to keep the legacy of Madiba alive during this time of devastation and mayhem in our country,” she said.
“Stitch by stitch, we will be keeping thousands of people around the world warm this winter in the name of our beloved Nelson Mandela. His legacy lives on in each blanket we produce with our own two hands.”
#67Blankets @Abramjee says today is a proud day for SA. The sea of blankets should make us all proud. @Carolyn_Steyn pic.twitter.com/sVPH5R9WMZ — Lead SA (@lead_sa) April 21, 2015
Ladies from Protea North Soweto singing with founder Carolyn Steyn @67Blankets #GoodWoolCup pic.twitter.com/dkj0Sg5efV — City of Tshwane (@CityTshwane) April 21, 2015“It’s not the case that the Chinese government has made any decision. I’m not a government official and I don’t represent the government.” — Professor Jiankun He, director of the Low Carbon Economy Lab of Tsinghua Universtiy and deputy director of the National Expert Committee on Climate Change, 3 June 2014
h/t to The GWPF
China Denies U-Turn On CO2 Emissions
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 3 June 2014
[Yesterday] morning, a Chinese climate adviser announced that the country was going to limit its carbon dioxide emissions. Now he has backed down and says: “That was just my personal opinion. What I have said does not represent the view of the Chinese government.”
Was this really just a gaffe? Earlier in the day, He Jiankun, a Chinese climate adviser announced that the People’s Republic of China would cap its carbon emissions. That was a powerful statement, at least it was perceived as such – not least because the American president also announced that he was more determined than ever to mobilise against carbon dioxide emissions.
But China is already backing down. “What I have said today was my personal opinion,” He told the Reuters news agency in Beijing. His statements from the morning session were intended only for “academic studies”. “What I have said does not represent the view of the Chinese government or of any organisation,” he clarified.
At a [green energy] conference He had earlier said the world’s largest CO2 producer would, for the first time, cap its greenhouse gas emissions to a specified upper limit. This, he claimed, would be firmly anchored in China’s upcoming five-year plan that will come into force in 2016. Coming soon after the announcement of new measures by the U.S. government the day before, this announcement had raised hopes of an international breakthrough in the fight against global climate change. What now?
Translation GWPF
Full story (in German)
Reality Check: How A Chinese Renewable Energy Boffin Fooled The World’s Green Media
The New York Times, 3 June 2014
Andrew Revkin
Having covered China’s stance on global warming since 1988, I’ve gotten attuned to the need to tread carefully when something is said that feels like a shift in the official position of this greenhouse gas giant.
The ancient Chinese mask-changing dance that I saw here Tuesday night (at a dinner for participants in a meeting on science and sustainable development) came to mind in considering the unraveling of news a few hours earlier of an official Chinese plan for a firm cap on emissions of carbon dioxide, hard on the heels of President Obama’s proposed carbon pollution rules for existing American power plants.
Here’s how things played out. An adviser to the Chinese government on climate change was quoted by Reuters as saying the following at a Beijing climate-policy conference on Tuesday:
“The government will use two ways to control CO2 emissions in the next five-year plan, by intensity and an absolute cap.”
The comment came from He Jiankun, a professor at Tsinghua and deputy director of China’s Expert Committee on Climate Change, speaking at an international forum on market mechanisms for low-carbon development sponsored by Harvard University and Tsinghua University.
The story quickly pivoted to how significant this would be given the context of President Obama’s move and informal climate talks starting on Wednesday in Bonn, Germany, aimed at setting the stage for fresh climate treaty work later this year at the United Nations and in Lima, Peru.
The Guardian quickly followed Reuters with “China pledges to limit carbon emissions for first time,” a piece canvassing climate campaigners but offering no reinforcing input from the Chinese government.
I consulted with The Times’s Beijng bureau. Christopher Buckley, a reporter who in 2011 had covered China’s emissions plans while with Reuters, spoke with He Jiankun, who told him repeatedly that he did not in any way speak for the government, or the full expert climate committee.
Here’s Buckley’s translation:
“It’s not the case that the Chinese government has made any decision. This is a suggestion from experts, because now they are exploring how emissions can be controlled in the 13th Five Year Plan…. This is a view of experts; that’s not saying it’s the government’s. I’m not a government official and I don’t represent the government.”
A Reuters reporter told me tonight that a correction was being posted, but not before other newspapers – including USA Today with a piece on China’s “emissions pledge” – built on the report.
Full story
Who He?
Green Growth
Professor Jiankun He is the professor and the director of Low Carbon Economy Lab of Tsinghua Universtiy, and the deputy director of National Expert Committee on Climate Change. He is also the former Executive Vice President of the University of Tsinghua and former Dean of the School of Economics and Management.
Professor He is a leading professor in the field of energy economics and climate policy. He has been engaged in research on energy system analysis and modeling, counter global climate change strategy, resource management and sustainable development for many years. He has been principal investigators of many national key science and technology projects and international collaborative research projects.
Professor He has been awarded the National Award for Science and Technology progress, the Awards for Science and Technology Progress of the Ministry of Education of China for three times, and the Awards for Science and Technology Progress at the provincial or ministry level for five times.
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RedditBrent Weeks dreamed of being a full time author since he was thirteen years old and now he´s living the dream. His debut epic fantasy trilogy, The Night Angel Trilogy, released from Orbit in 2008 as bestsellers. Black Prism followed in 2010 and is also a bestseller. So he´s doing quite well. He lives in the Pacific Northwest with his wife and college sweetheart, Kristi, with no ponytail and no cats. He can be found online at http://www.brentweeks.com on Facebook and on Twitter as @brentweeks.
SFFWRTCHT: Let´s start with the basics: How do you define epic fantasy? And what are its key elements in your mind?
Brent Weeks: Epic fantasy is an abused term. ‘Epic’ has come to mean anything good. But, for me, epic fantasy is fantasy with an inspired premise, larger-than-life characters, a high stakes story, a deeply felt theme, and a vivid setting. (Most of these stolen from Donald Maass’s definition of a great book, btw.)
SFFWRTCHT: Where did your interest in Science Fiction and Fantasy come from?
BW: My interest probably originally came from the thrill of power! Magic! Swords! Adolescents unite! But has changed, I hope. Now I love fantasy because of the freedom is gives. I drag readers along on my what-if story. They’re mind experiments–and fun!
SFFWRTCHT: Who were some of the authors who inspired you?
BW: Authors who inspired me. Tough one, because a few sound so pretentious! Poe is who made me want to write. Shakespeare showed me what could be done. Tolkien ignited the love. Jordan modernized it. George RR Martin made it real and terrifying. Had some Piers Anthony (oddly!) and some Burroughs thrown in there too.
SFFWRTCHT: Where does a new idea for a fantasy story or novel come from for you?
BW: New ideas come from everywhere! It’s a matter of figuring what ideas I am the right one to try to write a novel about. I mean, I already have novel ideas that will take me until past I’m dead to write about. But, I can’t write all of those well. It’s not coming up with ideas that is the problem for novelists. It’s the RIGHT ideas. You have to spend 1-2 years with this.
SFFWRTCHT: When did you start writing seriously and how long until your first sale?
BW: Seriously? I started my first novel when I was thirteen. Probably started seriously when I was twenty. Took five years on the first novel. Then had to decide to ditch it. Heart-wrenching. Spent from twenty-five to-twenty-eight-ish on The Way of Shadows. Took until thirty-one to sell it. The reward was slow in coming though. Got book deal. One year to pub. Another six months to hit bestseller list. Weird life. The writing life is the perfect environment for paranoia and neuroses to grow. This is a slow business. Everything takes so long.
SFFWRTCHT: How do you decide which novel ideas to pursue? Did you consider writing other genres besides fantasy?
BW: Yes, I have a couple of other novel ideas. I’m a few years from having the skills to write the best of them. But writing in other genres is like opening a clothing store and also offering cheese. People come to Brent Weeks for kickass fantasy. So commercially, it’s weird. But I may do it someday, just for my own artistic whim.
SFFWRTCHT: If you could steal an ability from another author, what would that be?
BW: Wow, if I could steal an ability from another writer…um, there’s lots! Tom Wolfe & his dialects? You know, every writer goes at his own speed. I compare myself to others, but it’s madness. You shouldn’t do it. I compare myself to Sanderson or Butcher, and it makes me crazy. It’s not helpful. Work as hard as you can, and quit worrying.
SFFWRTCHT: Did you study creative writing at all in school? How´d you learn your craft?
BW: The beauty of writing is that you learn so much of it subconsciously. You learn by reading and loving what is good. Some resonates. Pay attention when you read as a writer. What do you love? What clunks when you read it. Take note. The art can be taken apart. When I read George RR Martin, I analyze how he ends scenes. How he folds in tons of exposition. He’s a master. Learn from him. I keep learning all the time. I remember going to a con and seeing Stephen J. Cannell sit in the back of a talk where a pompous jerk was talking. And Cannell was trying to learn from this guy, after forty years in the biz. We should all be like that. Always trying to learn. Always learning even from idiots. Fiction is bigger than us. Be humble.
SFFWRTCHT: The Night Angel trilogy is an epic fantasy about a boy turned assassin seeking to assassinate a goddess and save a king. Tell us how that idea came about? D&D?
BW: A kick-ass assassin who wasn’t a sociopath. That was the central idea of Night Angel. How does a good man get there?
SFFWRTCHT: Do you start with characters sketches or outlines or just let it unfold as it comes?
BW: I do lots of outlining and note taking and musing as I build a novel. “Wouldn’t it be cool if” scenarios. I keep the best.
SFFWRTCHT: Did you plan to make Night Angel a trilogy from the start or did it just get too big for its britches?
BW: I always planned for Night Angel to be a trilogy, but I sketch out the high points (lots of them) and write toward those. There are always lots of detours along the way, and if I’m lucky, a few Eureka! moments. Spoiler. I figured out that Momma K and Durzo had loved each other for twenty years only after I finished the first draft. Things happen like that sometimes. The subconscious is at work. Give it space. But don’t trust it to sort out all your messes!
SFFWRTCHT: Black Prism starts a new trilogy, the Lightbringer Trilogy. The tale of the bastard son of a drug addict and a ruler who finds himself fighting alongside his childhood mentor, the mentor´s daughter and his father against a corrupt self-declared king. Where did the seven satrapies idea come from?
BW: The Seven Satrapies, of course, came from Persia. A way to rule a huge empire when communication is difficult. The bigger question is how I came up with all of the ideas. To which the answer is simple. I have no idea. Writers have ideas. It’s what we do. I wanted to do something different than the standard medieval 1100 fantasy so I took a lot of turns that were opposite to Night Angel Trilogy. It took me two years to write The Black Prism. I thought it would take nine months. Hahaha…Suck.
SFFWRTCHT: Your land is ruled by a complex government of Satraps and a Prism. Can you explain the hierarchy a little bit?
BW: Tri-partite government, weak empire. Seven satraps (national governors) who each appoint a Color (ambassador) to the central city. An emperor who is largely symbolic. The Prism is modeled a bit on the Japanese emperors of 1600, who were sidelined by giving them lots of religious duties.
SFFWRTCHT: You have a system of magic called Luxin based on the color spectrum. Tell us a little about that please.
BW: Lots of tensions between satrap and color, between color and color, and between Color and emperor. Luxin is light made concrete. It’s the opposite of a candle burning: Mass becoming heat and light. In drafting, light becomes a physical substance. Each color has its own weight, density, strength, smell, etc. So if you want to throw a fireball the size of a house, you can. But it will squash you. Because a house is heavy.
SFFWRTCHT: Do you keep |
on track to run up huge margins. In the vote-rich Southeast collar counties around Philadelphia, Romney is neck-and-neck with Obama because these more affluent, better educated suburban voters identify with Mitt Romney and a lot of what he stands for. They know he’s not an extremist, know he cares about kids and women, saved the Olympics and wants deficits under control. Everyone knows Republicans can’t win Pa without doing well in the Southeast, and Romney is poised to make history there. And there is mounting evidence voters know that the natural gas boom in Pennsylvania is under a direct threat from a second Obama term – while Romney has made it clear he will do everything in his power to cultivate this growing gas industry that has already kept thousands of Pennsylvania families from joining the ranks of the unemployed.Two beer-makers looking to build their craft in the Foothills say a new provincial grant will help small Alberta breweries grow.
Brewers who produce less than 300,000 hectolitres of beer each year will receive grants from the new Alberta Small Brewers Development Program unveiled last week.
Luke Wooldridge, owner of Six Corners Brew Works, said it will help small brewers get off the ground.
“They’re basically acknowledging that the smaller breweries need some support relative to the bigger guys,” he said.
Wooldridge is planning to build a brewery in the Southbank Business Park.
He said he needs to work out what the new grant will mean for his business. He currently brews less than 10,000 hectolitres, which is currently contracted to a brewery in Saskatchewan.
Alberta has 40 small brewers making more than 250,000 hectolitres of beer each year. More than 16 new breweries have been licensed to operate in the province since May 2015.
Leah Holoiday, spokesperson for Alberta’s Finance Minister Joe Ceci, said Alberta is ideally suited for craft breweries.
“Small breweries in the province are seen to have amazing growth potential by the government,” said Holoiday.
Starting Aug. 5, the grants will be provided to small brewers based on sales volume of Alberta-made beer.
“It’s a bit of a sliding scale, it starts at zero and then the dollar value varies going up to 150,000 hectolitres,” said Holoiday. “Once you hit that, then you start sliding down the other side to 300,000.”
The Province expects to hand out $12 million this year with the August start to the program, and $20 million next year.
Jochen Fahr, founder of Brauerei Fahr, said the grant will help small Alberta producers compete.
“Now we have a local price advantage over importers from other provinces,” said Fahr.
He said plans to build the brewery in Turner Valley are moving forward, albeit slowly. Fahr is looking for investors to support the project and hopes to begin work sometime next year.
He said the grant accomplishes what the provincial government was trying to do last year when it brought in new mark-up rates paid by producers outside Alberta, B.C. and Saskatchewan to encourage the growth of craft brewers.
In October 2015, the Province dropped the mark-up rate paid by small brewers in the three provinces to 10 cents per litre for those making less than 10,000 hectolitres. The rate rose depending on production levels, reaching $1.25 for brewers making more than 200,000 hectolitres. Brewers outside of the three Western provinces were to be charged a $1.25 mark-up. The Province backed away from the plan after challenges from out-of-province brewers, including Ontario’s Steam Whistle which won a court injunction against the change. As of Aug. 5, all beer producers will pay $1.25 per litre for all beer sold in the province.
Fahr said the new grant will mean he’ll end up paying 10 cents per litre.
He currently brews less than 10,000 hectolitres per year and he pays $1.25 per litre up front in mark up for every keg he produces, which works out to $62.5 per keg. Fahr will receive $1.15 per litre back for each keg sold.
Alberta Agriculture Minister Oneil Carlier said the province’s growing craft brewery sector could benefit farmers and barley producers, and open the door to grow new products such as hops.
“It’s a real opportunity for producers in the province to highlight the products they have,” said Carlier.
The new grant is not getting support from the Wildrose Party, which argues the Province is picking winners and losers among Alberta brewers.
“It’s interesting they would start taxing local breweries, all breweries for one thing, and then say they were going to give grants back or pick certain breweries they were going to give money back to,” said Highwood MLA Wayne Anderson.Researchers Find Yet Another Reason Why Naked Mole-Rats Are Just Weird
Enlarge this image toggle caption Roland Gockel/Max Delbruck Center for Molecular Medicine Roland Gockel/Max Delbruck Center for Molecular Medicine
Animals, especially mammals, need oxygen to keep their bodies and brains humming along.
But leave it to the African naked mole-rat to buck that trend. The rodents are bizarre in just about every way. They're hairless, ground-dwelling and cold-blooded despite being mammals. Now, scientists report in the journal Science that the animals are capable of surviving oxygen deprivation.
"They have evolved under such a different environment that it's like studying an animal from another planet," says Thomas Park, a neuroscientist at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
He and his colleagues knew that naked mole-rat bodies work differently than those of other mammals.
For example, instead of generating their own heat, they regulate body temperature by moving to warmer or cooler tunnels, which lowers the amount of energy they need to survive. They're also known to have what Park calls "sticky hemoglobin," which allows them to draw oxygen out of very thin air. And because they live underground in large social groups, they're used to breathing air that's low in oxygen and high in carbon dioxide.
Park and his colleagues wondered if they animals had another trick up their (nonexistent) sleeves for handling such extreme conditions.
"We were thinking, 'Gee, if you put all these things to bear on the problem of surviving in low oxygen, just how far can you go?' " Park says. "And the naked mole-rats surprised everybody, I think."
To start out, he and his colleagues tested how well the mole-rats fared in a chamber with only 5 percent oxygen, which is about a quarter of the oxygen in the air we breathe, and can kill a mouse in less than 15 minutes.
They watched closely, ready to pull the mole-rats out at the first sign of trouble.
"So we put them in the chamber and after five minutes, nothing. No problems," Park says. An hour later, there were still no problems.
Five hours later, the researchers were tired and hungry and ready to go home, but the mole-rats could've kept chugging along.
"Oh, I think so," says Park. "They had more stamina than the researchers."
The animals had slowed down a bit, he says, but were awake, walking around and even socializing.
"They looked completely fine," he says.
Next, the researchers decided to see how the mole-rats dealt with zero percent oxygen.
"And that was a surprise, too," he says.
Such conditions can kill a mouse in 45 seconds.
The four mole-rats involved in this leg of the study passed out after about 30 seconds, but their hearts kept beating and — a full 18 minutes later — the mole-rats woke up and resumed life as usual when they were re-exposed to normal air. (The three mole-rats that were exposed for 30 minutes, however, died.)
According to Park and colleagues across three continents, the rodents do have a trick up their sleeves.
Most mammals, including humans, run on glucose, which is a sugar that the digestive system gets from our food and turns into energy to keep our bodies warm and our brains running. But the process of taking that sugar and turning it into energy requires oxygen. Without oxygen, the body can't create energy, and without energy, cells die.
When the researchers looked at tissue samples taken from the mole-rats at various times during the oxygen deprivation, they noticed a spike in levels of another sugar, fructose, about 10 minutes in.
"We weren't looking for it, but bang, fructose goes way up in the blood and then it goes way up in the organs and it gets used by heart and brain," Park says.
The naked mole-rats appear to have the option of switching fuels from glucose, which requires oxygen to create energy, to fructose, which doesn't.
(It's the same "fructose" as the one in "high-fructose corn syrup," an ingredient implicated in a number of health problems in humans. "Normally we think of it as a bad thing," Park says.)
Humans are capable of storing and using fructose in the liver and kidney, but as Park explains, we don't have enough of the correct enzyme to create energy directly from fructose. Nor do we have enough of the proteins necessary to move fructose molecules into the cells of vital organs. Our cells have to convert it into glucose in order to use it.
The cells in the brain, heart, liver and lungs of naked mole-rats are all outfitted with proteins that moves fructose into the cells, and with the right enzyme to create energy from it.
"They have a social structure like insects, they're cold-blooded like reptiles, and now we found that they use fructose like a plant," Park says.
Some fish and turtles manage to manage to survive without oxygen for months, sealed in frozen ponds and lakes.
But Jay Storz, an evolutionary physiologist at the University of Nebraska who researches how animals adapt to extreme conditions, says those creatures still use glucose to fuel themselves. They just drastically reduce their energy needs.
The naked mole-rat's ability to switch tracks to a different metabolic fuel is really surprising. "They're doing something that really has not been described before for any vertebrate animal," Storz says. "They're basically using an alternative fuel."
One question for future research, he says, is how the animals manage to get rid of lactate, a molecule that builds up during anaerobic metabolism and can alter blood chemistry.
Park and Storz hope that the finding about naked mole-rats could someday help develop a way to aid patients suffering from oxygen deprivation from something like a heart attack or stroke.
"It would be great if we could beef up the fructose pathway in those patients and extend the amount of time that they have to get to a health care situation," Park says.
Storz imagines mole-rats aren't the only extreme animals with potential clues to alleviating human medical problems.
"There are probably a lot of other animals out there that are doing equally bizarre things," Storz says. "There's a lot of research and development that evolution has done, and we just have to figure out ways to capitalize on that."
But that, they say, is a job for scientists in another field.There were literally millions of reasons why Matt Besler decided to spurn offers from European teams and sign a seven-figure designated player contract that will keep him with his hometown Sporting Kansas City through the 2018 season.
It wasn't just the money. The starting U.S. national team defender explained some of the supporting rationale in a love letter to fans and friends that ran in Monday's Kansas City Star.
But believe it or not -- and judging by the reaction of many U.S. fans on social media after the deal was announced Saturday, many don't believe that staying in MLS is in Besler's or the Americans' best interest -- there are legitimate competitive grounds for the 27-year-old center-back to remain stateside.
"Re-signing in Kansas City doesn't mean I'm afraid to go play somewhere else," Besler, an MLS lifer who was among the best U.S. players in their World Cup second-round run in Brazil, told ESPN FC in a phone interview on Tuesday. "I really believe that I can get better playing here."
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Besides, it's not as if the clubs Besler was linked to overseas -- including Premier League strugglers Sunderland, now second-tier English side Fulham, and Germany's Freiburg, which finished 14th in the 18-team Bundesliga last season -- are world-beaters. Besler's performances on the global stage showed that he is capable of starting for any of those teams, but the volatile nature of the European game -- not least for perpetual relegation candidates -- would have made making the leap now, in the prime of his career, a risky proposition before you even consider the financial aspects.
While the terms of Besler's four-year, guaranteed pact have not been made public, rumors and common sense suggest it's in the neighborhood of the $1 million-per-year deal fellow U.S. center-back Omar Gonzalez signed with the LA Galaxy last year.
"Right now, with what I had in front of me," Besler said, "signing with Sporting and staying in MLS was the best option."
It could also be the best outcome for the national team. With his future settled, the Overland Park, Kansas, product can build on his successful World Cup experience and concentrate on becoming even more of a key player with SKC and the U.S. national team.
And even if they won't come every week, he'll still get opportunities to test himself against the world's best players. Sporting takes on Manchester City on Wednesday (9 p.m. ET, ESPN2/WatchESPN); he'll face Bayern Munich with the MLS All-Stars on Aug. 6; and there will be plenty of international games against top-end foes in Besler's future, too.
Matt Besler put an end to the gossip linking him to Europe by signing a four-year designated player contract with Sporting KC.
Perhaps the idea that MLS can't adequately prepare players for the highest level should be rethought, anyway, after domestic-leaguers like Gonzalez, Clint Dempsey and DeAndre Yedlin also acquitted themselves well in Brazil. Besler insists there are on-field benefits to be found at home.
"Of course there are some aspects of the game where you'd get better in Europe than in MLS," Besler said of the never-ending debate. "But there are some parts of MLS that make you a better player as opposed to Europe. The physicality of the game here means it's a grind for 90 minutes. Yeah, there might be more turnovers and less skill, but that also means there's a lot more transition, and that makes games hard. If you're playing on a team that keeps the ball 80 percent of the game, you don't have to do a lot defensively. In MLS, every team is so even that you never really dominate. It's back-and-forth, and you have to be tuned in the entire game."
Ultimately, the next four years will determine whether Besler's decision to stay put was the right one. What's clear is he has determined to prove the doubters wrong.
"People are going to have opinions no matter what you do," he said. "They think they know where you should play, but the fact is no one really understands what it's like to be in your shoes.
"I want to challenge myself in everything I do. I think to say that you can only get better playing in Europe is absolutely incorrect."
Doug McIntyre is a staff writer for ESPN The Magazine and ESPN FC. Follow him on Twitter @DougMacESPN.Ever forget the reason why you walked into a room seconds after you enter, even though you know you are there for a reason? You stand in the doorway wondering, “I know I came in here for something!”
If you answered yes, you may go as far as to rationalize that this is why it happens: ‘Well, our lives are so overburdened, and that’s why so many of us buzz around like caffeinated cheetahs crossing things our mental checklists. So many things to remember: gym clothes, umbrella, kids’ soccer practice and piano lessons…’
And then it happens — just as you walk into another room to perform one of those super important tasks, you can’t, for the love of God, remember what it was! It’s annoying … and as it turns out, pretty common. A recent study out in the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology validates this kind of forgetfulness and says the trigger may be as benign as passing through a doorway. Who knew?
The study authors refer to the phenomena as the “location-updating effect,” which suggests there may be a decline in memory when you move from one location to another. The location change doesn’t have to be dramatic; walking into the next room is all it takes. The study questions whether this memory lapse has to do with a shift in context or whether there is something more to be learned about how we experience certain environments.
The working theory is that when you enter a new room or environment, your brain works to update your understanding of what’s going on around you. As it turns out, this is a lot of work (it’s “effortful”, the authors say) for your buzzing brain.
The study consisted of three experiments in which college students performed memory tasks either while changing their location in a room or while exiting a doorway into another room. The lead author, University of Notre Dame psychology professor Gabriel Radvansky, found that students forgot more when walking through a doorway than when they just moved across the room.
Radvansky suggests that doorways create a sort of “event boundary” and prevent us from being able to retrieve thoughts and decisions we, ironically, likely left in the previous room.
This isn’t the first study in this area. Previous research has shown that environment can affect memory and that we are better at accessing information we have learned if we try to retrieve it in the same social context. Guess that means it’s a good thing that most of us work in the same office every day. Otherwise, our jobs might be a lot more taxing on our memories.
The series of experiments within the study, conducted at University of Notre Dame, had participants move through both virtual environments and real ones, suggesting that there may be some validity to this idea.
But even personal experience may point to this forgetting phenomenon. When this study was sent around the Medical Unit here at ABC News, there was a roar of approval for the theory.
Senior producer Ann Reynolds said, “I get an invitation and I think, ‘Are we busy that night? I’ll check the calendar.’ I know the calendar is in the kitchen, so I think ‘kitchen’ — and when I get there, I think, ‘What could I possibly have wanted in the kitchen at 10 o’clock at night?’ So I head back to the bedroom, where I see the invitation I was wondering about. … Arrrgh.”
Arrrgh is right. But at least now, we have the beginnings of understanding why.We’ve been at this whole posting-beautiful-custom-bikes-on-a-blog thing for a while now, and you probably won’t be surprised to learn that there’s not much we haven’t seen. Sex. Drugs. Rock ‘n’ (throttle) roll. It’s all old news as far as we’re concerned. But then, just when you think nothing could surprise you, a bike comes straight out of left field and knocks you for six. You see, this is the only bike we can remember that has appeared more than once on Pipeburn. And with some simple additions, it’s builder has managed to create something that’s changed so completely from where it was only four months ago, he had to correct us when we mistakenly called it his ‘new’ bike. Meet Retro Moto’s CM400, version two point woah.
We began by asking Junior what he’d changed since we last spoke. “I the last four months I’ve built a new swing arm from scratch with a 3 inch extension, added some XR1200 shocks and changed the geometry to account for the heftier springs. I’ve also built an on-fork headlight that was rig welded with copper. And of course, there’s the fairing.”
Junior was invited to The One Show in Austin and wanted to do something to really stand out. “With only 6 days to go, I worked like a madman and somehow got it finished the night before. It was inspired by 60’s racers and WWII fighter planes. It’s extremely light and totally functional; it was a real fight to ride at highway speeds before, but since this is my daily rider I wanted something to smooth it out and it worked perfectly. I also get a lot better mileage.”
“I wanted a really round front, since most other fairings are more flat. I guess that was inspired by the nose cones of old aircraft. I set out to get the nose made from one piece of metal but I realized that the whole piece wouldn’t fit through the English wheel. There is at least 30 hours just in the nose itself.”
The process started with the hammer and a sandbag, and then shrinking or stretching the metal out to remove any marks. Then repeat. And repeat. And repeat. Apparently it took a lot of pressure and strength to get the compound curve of the nose just right. Junior also wanted it to be an all alloy affair, so he decided to go without a windscreen. “In my humble opinion, it flows better with the lines of the bike.”
“We wanted it to look like it was doing the ton standing still. Originally, I planned an offset headlight but I couldn’t bring myself to cut a whole in the fairing.” Junior also pointed out that the number five on the fairing is for his wife, who (obviously) allows him to spend so too much time in the shop. He’s also applied the stickers, sourced from friends and local shops, as a hat tip to thank them. “The biggest lesson I learned was that even though I finished it on time, it kicked my ass. More time is always your friend.”
To wrap things up, we thought we’d mention that Junior and Retro Moto will soon be the real, full-time deal. “I’ve recently been a part-time shop, but I am currently ramping up to be 100% by the end of the year. So there will be a lot more bikes coming out of Retro Moto.” I’m sure you’ll join us in wishing him the best of luck. Let’s just hope our eyeballs can stand all those extra doses of coolness.
(Photos by the silly talented Dale Martin)Wales should be given a referendum on leaving the UK if Scotland chooses to vote for independence, Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood has said.
Ms Wood said Scottish independence could spell “the end of the UK as a state” and suggested the people of Wales should be given a vote on whether they wished to remain in the union if Scotland chooses to leave.
She argued Wales “would need to decide its own future” and that the option of a remaining England and Wales entity was not on the ballot paper during the EU referendum.
“A national debate to explore all of the options, including that of an independent Wales, must take place in Wales when that scenario becomes a realistic one,” she said.
She added: “If the UK Government’s Brexit negotiation also leads to the Welsh national interest being overlooked, support will grow for greater control of our own affairs in Wales.
“We expect this situation to continue to evolve over the coming years, and Plaid Cymru will continue to articulate the Welsh national interest at all times.
“Now is a good time for the people of Wales to think about what is in our own national interests and how we can best unlock our country’s potential in this new constitutional scenario.”
Responding to Nicola Sturgeon’s call for a second referendum on Scottish independence earlier today, a UK Government spokesman said: “As the Prime Minister has set out, the UK Government seeks a future partnership with the EU that works for the whole of the United Kingdom.
“The UK Government will negotiate that agreement, but we will do so taking into account the interests of all of the nations of the UK.
“We have been working closely with all the devolved administrations – listening to their proposals, and recognising the many areas of common ground, including workers’ rights, the status of EU citizens living in the UK and our security from crime and terrorism.”Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion said the Liberal government remains committed to a contract to sell $15-billion in weaponized armored vehicles to Saudi Arabia even in the face of a new UN report documenting human-rights violations by a Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen.
In a report obtained by The Guardian, a United Nations panel investigating the bombing campaign in Yemen has found "widespread and systematic" attacks on civilian targets in violation of international humanitarian law – revelations that are prompting the Official Opposition in Westminster to urge an immediate inquiry and suspension of British arms sales to Saudi Arabia.
Mr. Dion said the Liberal policy on the sale of weaponized armoured vehicles remains unchanged. Ottawa brokered this deal and is the prime contractor to supply Saudi Arabia's national guard.
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"We respect the contract," he told reporters Thursday morning after a speech in Ottawa.
(The Saudi arms deal: A primer on what we've learned so far)
He said his main concern is the letter of the law under Canada's export control regime. Federal arms export controls stipulate that when Canada is selling weapons to a country with a poor human-rights record, it must first assure itself that these arms would not be used against civilians.
"For the export permits, the minister of foreign affairs will look at if these [light armored vehicles] are well used," the cabinet minister said.
Mr. Dion appears to be saying that if there's no risk the Saudis will use the combat vehicles in Yemen, then the findings of Riyadh's conduct there are of no interest to him.
But Canada's export control regime imposes other obligations as well. It also requires Ottawa to regulate the flow of arms to countries "that are involved in, or under imminent threat of hostilities." The Saudis have been leading an intervention in Yemen for nearly one year. Canada is also obliged to ensure that military exports "are not prejudicial to peace, security or stability in any region of the world or within any country."
The Liberals shifted their message on Saudi Arabia recently after weeks of characterizing the Saudi transaction as a done deal that was out of their hands. Last week, Mr. Dion's office announced that while the Liberals had no intention of cancelling the deal, they would not ignore developments in Saudi Arabia and would "factor this information into consideration of future permits." Permits for exports would need to be renewed over the life of Canada's 14-year arms deal with Riyadh.
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Mr. Dion on Thursday disputed the idea the Liberals have altered their policy at all.
He left a scrum of reporters after only several questions.
The UN report has raised fresh hopes among critics of arms sales to Saudi Arabia that Western governments might finally be persuaded to suspend the sale of weaponized armoured vehicles to a country that already has an abysmal record on human rights.
According to The Guardian, the new UN report attributes 60 per cent of – or 2,682 – civilian deaths and injuries in Yemen to airlaunched explosive weapons dropped by the Saudi-led coalition: "The coalition's targeting of civilians through air strikes, either by bombing residential neighbourhoods or by treating the entire cities of Sa'dah and Maran as military targets, is a grave violation of the principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution."
Last year, the Saudis and Arab allies launched a military intervention in Yemen in support of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who was under threat from Houthi forces aligned with Iran.
The Trudeau government has faced repeated requests to justify the shipment of weapons to Saudi Arabia, a country notorious for its atrocious treatment of women, dissidents and prisoners. The Liberals promised during the election campaign that they would revise Ottawa's approach to international relations to improve this country's reputation on the global stage, and marketed this change as "Canada's back."Newt Gingrich doesn't agree with this idea.
Every single time you think the Republicans can't get any worse, they do. It’s getting so bad now that the main problem facing progressive columnists these days is outrage fatigue.
We felt that way about the overtly political attempts to disenfranchise students, the elderly and minorities from voting. We felt that way about the attempts by conservative governors across the country to end collective bargaining, which wouldn’t do anything to create jobs but would increase corporate profits and defund progressive campaigns. We felt that way about the continuing attempts by corporate conservatives to defend Wall Street and defend tax cuts for millionaires. We felt that way about the frightening number of misogynist restrictions on women’s reproductive rights, culminating in the odious personhood amendment in Mississippi.
And yet even with all that, certain things seemed inviolate. Things like a respect for the opinion of mankind that children should be allowed to be children without being forced into hard labor to put food on their parents’ tables. But then, along came Gingrich.
Not very long ago in American politics, it would have been hard to imagine a scenario in which the frontrunner competing for the nomination of a major political party in America would be advocating for the repeal of child labor laws and suggesting that the children of poor families do the often-dangerous work of cleaning up after their wealthier classmates. But Newt isn’t the only one to do so. Paul LePage, the arch-conservative governor of Maine who was swept into power last cycle, made noise by advocating for the repeal of his state’s child-labor laws when he wasn’t too busy removing murals honoring the labor movement or trying to make it more difficult for residents to vote. Steve Benen's blog at Washington Monthly mentions other incidents of Republicans attempting to weaken child labor laws, including the opinion of Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), who believes that such laws are unconstitutional. Benen states his outrage thus:
Remember when there were accepted political norms that helped define the American mainstream? Basic policy tenets that both major parties accepted, largely without question? I don’t know when or if those days are coming back.
Those days are not coming back any time soon. When Republicans won at the state and federal level in 2010 because of voters' dissatisfaction with the performance of the Democratic majority on jobs and the economy, they took it as validation of their entire economic agenda. Little did the voters know, however, that the actual Republican agenda consists repealing the entire twentieth century and returning to the gilded age, where massively wealthy robber barons got to influence government policy at will and exploit everyone else in the country in search of increased profit. At the outset of this election cycle, however, this effort took shape around the usual debates: trying to convince people, for instance, that the labor movement that gave them the weekend, an eight-hour workday, and safety regulations was actually the cause of their economic distress. Or that regulations that prevent companies from poisoning our air and water are counterproductive.
But child labor laws? Few things can raise emotional hackles like the pictures of children slaving away at factories during the industrial revolution, or in modern sweatshops in countries less regulated than the United States. And now, Newt Gingrich—someone who has held one of the highest political positions in the country—believes that we should return to those days, all in the name of teaching children how to have a stronger work ethic. It's just too bad for Speaker Gingrich, Gov. LePage and Sen. Lee that we don't have nearly as many factories for the children to work in: after all, the modern robber barons whose water they carry decommissioned them and shipped them overseas years ago.It was hardly a secret that the Bruins management wasn’t thrilled with Seguin’s off-ice behavior or on-ice production last season, and he was practically invisible during the Bruins’ run to the Stanley Cup Finals. On June 30th, Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli publicly stated that Tyler Seguin has “got to commit to being a professional and focusing on his game.” As of today, we learned that he won’t be doing that as a member of the Boston Bruins. The Bruins traded forwards Rich Peverley, Ryan Button, and Tyler Seguin to the Dallas Stars in exchange for forward Loui Eriksson and prospects Joe Morrow, Matt Fraser, and Reilly Smith.
This is a trade that makes sense for both teams, as Dallas has been looking to acquire a first-line center (Seguin’s natural position), and the Bruins fill the void on the wing left by the departure of Nathan Horton, not to mention adding a lot of high-end talent to their farm system. With the Bruins planning on keeping centers David Krejci and Patrice Bergeron for the foreseeable future, Boston just didn’t have the space to play Seguin as a top-six center.
For the Bruins fans that already hate the trade: Tyler Seguin might end up being a better hockey player than Loui Erikkson, but he wouldn’t have been a better Bruin. Eriksson’s game will fit in perfectly with the rest of the Black and Gold, and he has a reputation for battling for pucks in both his offensive and defensive zone. As his former coach Glen Gulutzan said, “he’s not a perimeter guy.” Eriksson is exactly the kind of pure sniper to play alongside Krejci and the big-bodied Milan Lucic.
The Bruins also free up almost $5 million in cap space after unloading Peverley’s contract along with Seguin’s. For a team that still needs to sign goaltender Tuukka Rask (and is eying a long-term extension for Bergeron), that extra space will allow Chiarelli to keep the guys he wants and still have some cash to spend during free agency. Don’t expect this to be the last move the Bruins make during the offseason.
This move opens up a lot more options for the Bruins, and not just for this year. Seguin’s contract (both in terms of the cap hit and the length) really limited the moves the Bruins could make for the next few years. Bruins fans might be upset to lose a talent like Seguin, especially after the organization drafted him with the second overall pick in 2010. But if Loui Eriksson can deliver in Boston, they might not mind all that much.
Love it or hate it, Seguin’s time in Boston is up.FOLLOWING the Blues’ first official training session, the Club’s newest AFLW recruits have been assigned their jumper numbers for the 2018 AFL Women’s season, with Nicola Stevens and Tayla Harris set to be neighbours in the locker room.
Stevens and Harris, who both arrived at Ikon Park via the trade period, will don No. 21 and 22 respectively.
Carlton’s first draft pick Georgia Gee will run out in the number 19, while fellow draftees Bridie Kennedy and Reni Hicks will wear No. 23 and 24, and Sophie Li heads to the highest number, 35.
The Blues’ two rookie elevations, Maddison Gay and Kerryn Harrington will also work closely together, taking No. 8 and 9 respectively.
Carlton kicks off the second AFLW season when it plays host to Collingwood in the Round 1 season opener at Ikon Park on Friday 2 February, 2018.
Carlton’s AFLW full playing list (new numbers highlighted):
1 Brianna Davey
2 Katie Loynes
3 Darcy Vescio
4 Madeline Keryk
5 Kate Gillespie-Jones
6 Gab Pound
7 Sarah Last
8 Maddison Gay
9 Kerryn Harrington
10 Sarah Hosking
11 Jess Hosking
12 Lauren Brazzale
13 Lauren Arnell
14 Laura Attard
15 Tiahna Cochrane
16 Breann Moody
17 Courtney Webb
18 Tilly Lucas - Rodd
19 Georgia Gee
21 Nicola Stevens
22 Tayla Harris
23 Bridie Kennedy
24 Reni Hicks
25 Kate Shierlaw
26 Shae Audley
28 Katie-Jayne Grieve
30 Alison Downie
31 Danielle Hardiman
32 Nat Plane
35 Sophie Li
Maddison Gay. (Photo: Carlton Media)
Kerryn Harrington. (Photo: Carlton Media)
Tiahna Cochrane. (Photo: Carlton Media)
Georgia Gee. (Photo: Carlton Media)
Nicola Stevens. (Photo: Carlton Media)
Tayla Harris. (Photo: Carlton Media)
Bridie Kennedy. (Photo: Carlton Media)
Reni Hicks. (Photo: Carlton Media)
Sophie Li. (Photo: Carlton Media)
Please note: New recruits Courtney Webb and Katie-Jayne Grieve were absentees from the photoshoot.As you start reading this article, let’s list some questions you haven’t asked yourself in a while:
– Why do I exist?
– Why do I look the way I do?
– Where do the genes come from that make me who I am? If I trace those genes back far enough, do things start to get superbly weird, so weird that a series of low-grade Wait But Why drawings would need to get involved?
In order to get to the bottom of things, let’s start at the present and work our way back, tracing our genes at major steps along the way.
We begin with you. I don’t know you, but I bet you look something like this:
To keep things simple, we’re going to stick with your patriline, the male lineage of your DNA.
So moving one step back, we have your father:
We then get to your grandfather, great grandfather, and eventually, your great great grandfather, who was likely born sometime between 1825 and 1875. He looked like this:
Your great great grandfather lived most of his life without running water or electricity, and he was probably more racist than you are. You’ve never met him, but without him, you wouldn’t exist.
Now we move to his father, his father’s father, and so on—let’s jump back 18 generations to your [great x 20] grandfather (putting the number of “great”s as the superscript number):
Your great20 grandfather kept it real. When he wasn’t torturing somebody, he was being tortured himself. When he wasn’t catching the Black Plague and dying, he was slaughtering women and children in the Crusades. And weirdly, he might have had the same last name as you.
If he could meet you, he’d be blown away by the ease of your current pussy existence. But not as blown away as your great500 grandfather would be.
Your great500 grandfather didn’t spend years toiling over which career would be the best expression of his inner purpose. He hunted animals, battled other tribes, and somehow managed to impregnate someone before dying in his early 30s. Had he not, you and a few million other of today’s people wouldn’t currently exist.
14,000 grandfather, he is everyone’s great14,000 grandfather, and the last time in history a common male ancestor to all of us lived. All ancestors we discuss from this point onward are common to the entire human race. Now we reach a time before humans were fully humans, and a |
.3/4), also back for its fifth season, stumbled 18% from its last season premiere on the same night as BB last September.
The only new show on NBC last night was Deadline (1.4/5) which bopped up 8% from last week. ABC also had its news mag series on with 20/20 (1.6/6) leaping 60% in a now much more crowded 10 PM slot.When it's not helping us relive many of its greatest games via Rare Replay, legendary British studio Rare is busy crafting its latest caper - Sea of Thieves, a cartoony MMO with a pirate twist. Revealed at E3 2015, the new game is looking to break tradition - rather than crafting an original tale, Rare wants to give players the tools and resources to build their own stories.
"I think with Sea of Thieves, what you’re really going to see as you find out more about the game, is that it’s also about allowing people to create their own gaming memories," says Microsoft corporate VP Kudo Tsunoda in the latest issue of Official Xbox Magazine. "It's about enabling people to create their own stories through limitless possibilities, and I think that’s what Rare has always done a great job of historically – it is great at creating these super emotional memories and attachments that people have to games."
The latest issue of Official Xbox Magazine, with Star Wars Battlefront on the cover, is out now. Download it here or subscribe to future issues.The Pentagon has said that a group of US-trained Syrian fighters has handed over ammunition and equipment to al-Nusra Front, al-Qaeda's affiliate in the country, purportedly in exchange for safe passage.
The acknowledgement contrasted with earlier denials by the US defence department of reports that some fighters had either defected or handed over gear.
"Unfortunately, we learned late today that the NSF (New Syrian Forces) unit now says it did, in fact, provide six pickup trucks and a portion of their ammunition to a suspected al-Nusra Front [group]," Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said on Friday.
Colonel Patrick Ryder, a spokesman for Central Command, which is overseeing efforts against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), said the fighters had handed over the gear in exchange for safe passage in the Nusra operating area.
"If accurate, the report of NSF members providing equipment to al-Nusra Front is very concerning and a violation of Syria "train and equip" programme guidelines," Ryder said.
Ryder added that the pickup vehicles and ammunition represented about 25 percent of the equipment issued to the group by the US-led coalition.
"We are using all means at our disposal to look into what exactly happened and determine the appropriate response," Ryder said.
A defence official told the AFP news agency that according to the NSF, there had not been any defections, but he stressed: "We only know what they have told us."
Disbelief
The development is another embarrassing setback for the US effort to "train and equip" Syrian fighters to take on ISIL in Syria.
The $500m programme originally aimed to ready about 5,400 vetted fighters a year for three years but problems finding suitable candidates have seen only a tiny fraction getting trained.
The first graduates, who made up a group of 54 fighters, were attacked by Nusra in July and the Pentagon is still unsure what happened to them all, with at least one killed.
The second group, consisting of about 70 fighters, were sent back to Syria last weekend and reports began circulating on Twitter soon after that they had either defected or handed over equipment.
Last week, before the insertion of the new fighters, the US general overseeing efforts against ISIL drew gasps of disbelief from senior politicians when he told them only "four or five" US-trained rebels were on the ground fighting in Syria.
Unwilling to commit US ground troops in the region, the Obama administration in January launched the "train and equip" mission for Syrian opposition fighters as part of a broader push to work with locals there and in Iraq.
The programme has faltered, with the Pentagon saying many would-be fighters had failed the strict screening process.They are the guerrilla golfers of Stornoway: a small and unassuming group of rebels who over the last few months have done what golfers anywhere else in Britain do naturally – played the game on Sunday.
But each time this group carry their golf bags on to this compact but windswept 18-hole course on the sabbath, it is a deliberate act of defiance. On the Presbyterian islands of Lewis and Harris, Sunday is the one day of the week when playing Scotland's national game is banned.
For the deeply orthodox Protestants of the Western Isles, Stornoway golf course is emerging as one of the last battlegrounds in their increasingly vain fight to keep the sabbath sacrosanct.
And today, a softly spoken community dentist, George MacLeod, walked on to the steep-sided course with a small group of friends for another rebellious round. Elsewhere were others, quietly putting on greens hidden from view.
"I wouldn't say I felt like a revolutionary," MacLeod said. "I would say I just felt like an adult. Why they're telling me I can't play on a Sunday is beyond me."
The rebellion is intensifying. Last Wednesday the club's latest attempt to get a Sunday drinks licence was thrown out. Councillors upheld allegations by church groups that granting the licence would "damage morality", "weaken the integrity of the community" and lead to increases in domestic violence, alcoholism and disorder.
Ordained of God
The Lord's Day Observance Society, the umbrella group for hardline sabbatarians, reminded the board "that they constitute part of the powers that be that are ordained of God … not to weaken the integrity and decency of community. We believe that granting the application would both undermine morality and inhibit the due observance of the Lord's Day."
Ken Galloway, the club's mild-mannered secretary, was exasperated by the vote, which went 6-4 against granting the licence. "Terrible," he said. "Why are so many people intent on blackening the good name of Stornoway golf club?" he asked the committee. "What has this club done to deserve this onslaught?"
Very little, according to Inspector Steven Black of Northern Constabulary. There had only been six minor incidents at the club in 12 years, so the force had no objections to a Sunday licence. "It is a well-run establishment. We do routinely check it and we have no issue with the management of the premises," he told the committee.
Norrie MacDonald, the club captain, says there is little the club can do to stop the unauthorised rounds. As Sunday games are banned by the Stornoway Trust, the club's landlord and owner of 28,000 surrounding hectares, they cannot employ any staff. So the course is unmanned.
It is, MacDonald notes drily, the only course in Scotland where you get a free game on a Sunday. "If someone isn't a member, we can't do anything about it. We can't even charge them a fee," he said.
Ferries and flights
Over the past few years, the sabbatarians have lost a series of crucial battles with privately-owned businesses: ferries and flights now land on Sundays, while pubs and a petrol station in Stornoway are routinely open. All are heavily used.
But critics claim the sabbatarians' influence over publicly-owned leisure centres, swimming pools, golf courses and football pitches remains total: they are the only sports facilities in Britain that remain closed on Sunday for religious reasons.
Western Isles council (Comhairle nan Eilean Sar in Gaelic), which owns all the main sports facilities, remains implacably opposed to Sunday opening.
And across Lewis and Harris, numerous locally-run football pitches, sports centres and golf courses funded by public grants are kept shut by their owners.
Their authority is now being challenged on two fronts. The golf club's members have voted overwhelmingly to press Stornoway Trust for permission to amend their lease to allow Sunday golf. And George MacLeod's wife, Helen, is leading a campaign to get the town's leisure centre open on Sundays, gathering signatures from 300 families on a petition.
The MacLeods, Galloway and MacDonald believe the council is guilty of religious discrimination by allowing one religious position to determine policy, while the funding agencies, particularly Sportscotland, which handles millions of pounds in government and lottery grants, are guilty of hypocrisy.
In the mainly Catholic southern parts of the Western Isles – the Uists, Barra and Benbecula – all the sports facilities are open on Sundays.
Discrimination
The council also operates buses on a Sunday to take people to church, but refuses to run public bus services. And Sportscotland – knowing there are questions about the legality of closing public facilities on a Sunday for religious reasons – continues to give grants to sabbatarian groups.
The agency has been accused of hypocrisy after first refusing to give around £64,000 to Harris golf club because it would be closed on a Sunday, but then backing down after pressure from island politicians – a charge the agency refused to comment on last week. The Stornoway Trust also refused to respond to requests for an interview.
An attempt by Helen MacLeod to legally challenge the leisure centre's Sunday closure failed earlier this year when she was denied legal aid – so the allegation of illegal discrimination remains untested. But she and the golf club say they plan to fight on.
One club member said Sunday golf "could be the last bastion of Sunday observance in the Western Isles."
MacDonald noted: "They can't control the flights, they can't control the ferries and they can't control Scottish licensing laws but they can say you can't play golf on Sunday. And they don't have to give a reason."
All at sea
The simple question of operating ferries between the Isle of Lewis and Ullapool on mainland Scotland on a Sunday caused the last major battle over the preservation of the sabbath.
For generations, conservative Presbyterian churches on the island, particularly the staunchly Calvinist Free Church, bitterly resisted their introduction – a position backed by Western Isles council. The Lord's Day Observance Society collected 3,760 signatures of protest.
But Scotland's largest ferry operator, Caledonian MacBrayne (CalMac), was under heavy pressure to introduce a Sunday service from businesspeople, tourism agencies and non-sabbatarians.
Sunday flights to Stornoway on the island had run for some years and in 2008 a Sunday ferry service began between neighbouring Harris and the islands of Barra and Uist.
CalMac announced in May last year that seven-day sailings would start. The company said it was legally obliged to do so, since the ban breached rules outlawing religious discrimination in the Equality Act 2006. It was, CalMac said, illegal to refuse a service because of the religious views of just one part of the community. Even so, the sailings remain discreet: the mainland ferry arrives at 9pm – well after dark in winter.
• This article has been corrected. Ken Galloway had been incorrectly named as Ken Buchanan.Deeply unhappy at the EU referendum result last June, Amelia Hill applied for dual nationality for her and her children – returning to the German roots that her grandparents fled from during the 1930s
Last week, I celebrated my daughter’s second birthday by making her German. Instead of eating birthday cake and pulling party poppers, she spent the day twirling round various waiting rooms at the German embassy in London, as I put the finishing touches to sheaves of paperwork, eventually collecting her dual-nationality certificate and her new German passport.
It was more joyous than it sounds. The visit was the culmination of a process I began the day of the EU referendum result last June: getting dual nationality for my children (now two and four) and for me under Germany’s restored citizenship application law – a right reserved for anybody who was persecuted on political, racial or religious grounds during the Nazi dictatorship, as well as their descendants.
My culturally but non-religiously Jewish grandfather fled the Nazis with my non-Jewish grandmother, just as war was breaking out. Not all of the family were so fortunate, but those who were, found refuge in Britain. I wasn’t brought up to be ashamed – or proud – of my German heritage. I wasn’t brought up to consider myself anything other than British and Christian. I never dreamed of seeking dual nationality. The idea, had it ever even occurred to me, would have seemed unnecessary and slightly dishonest, so entirely British as I have always felt.
Readers explain why they are rushing for dual-nationality EU passports Read more
But that was before the result of the referendum. As a passionate member of the 48%, I felt a dramatic and unexpected crumbling of my British identity. I found I identified as a Londoner – a city where the vote to remain in the EU hit 60% (in some areas, the remain vote was more than 70%) – but as to the rest of the country: it suddenly felt like a foreign land that I didn’t understand and in which I was not welcome.
It seemed like a bit of a joke at first. “I’m making my family German,” I would announce to friends in glee, delighting in their surprise and interest. My enthusiasm motivated my mother to apply for her own dual citizenship. The paperwork for my five-year-old nephew is almost ready to be submitted for his own certificate and passport. But it seemed too far-fetched to take seriously: I couldn’t quite believe we would be accepted, despite our cultural right to be.
I wasn’t alone in my somewhat kneejerk reaction to the referendum result. In October, German authorities were reporting a twentyfold increase in the number of restored citizenship applications. About 400 applications from the UK were being processed by the authorities and 100 further inquiries that would “very probably” lead to applications were said to be in the pipeline. The usual annual figure is about 25.
Michael Newman, the chairman of the Association of Jewish Refugees, who has submitted his own application, said at the time that it was “somewhat ironic that we [the association] were founded partly to help people become naturalised British after the war and, 70 years on, we find ourselves in the position of assisting people who want to acquire German and Austrian citizenship because of the recent developments in Britain”.
In the face of such an onslaught of interest, I was warned that a decision on our applications could take a year or more. Nevertheless, within days of submitting our paperwork, I had a charming email from a named contact at the German embassy who stayed in touch throughout, answering my numerous (and occasionally anxious) emails swiftly, kindly and thoughtfully over the coming months.
Then just after New Year’s Day, five months after I submitted the paperwork, she sent me a personal email of congratulations: our application had been accepted. All my (English) husband and I needed to do, she wrote, was turn up at the embassy, sign a few forms and we could collect our children’s and my own dual-nationality certificates, and order our German ID cards and new passports. She was, she added, looking forward to meeting us.
For some reason, however, I dragged my heels when it came to the final step in altering my nationality and that of my children. Now that I knew it was really possible, I felt oddly anxious about it: I was British through and through, I reasoned. Perhaps this was a vanity project that had got out of hand?
But then the political landscape continued to darken: Theresa May’s extreme version of Brexit became increasingly and sickeningly clear, with announcements showcasing delusional beliefs, wishful thinking and ignorance. Jeremy Corbyn failed to hold her to account – on behalf not just of the 48% but of the 100% whom I believe are being plunged into an avoidable strategic, economic and human morass without being honestly told what they are getting themselves into – and failed to forge a Brexit plan of his own. All of which feels to me like a betrayal of the democratic right of almost half the country to have their views respected and reflected by their government.
With astonishing speed, I found I barely even felt like a Londoner. I was used to feeling frustrated and angered by my government but not disgusted and utterly alienated by both it and the opposition. And I certainly wasn’t used to feeling scared of the future or that my country was irrevocably fractured and broken. But I did – and I still do. I feel our defunct and failed constitution has proven itself to be unfit for the modern age. And yet there is little chance of it being changed: our first-past-the-post voting system, a blunt and undemocratic system that utterly fails to reflect the true view of the electorate, means winner takes all – and keeps it.
And so last week we trooped across town to Belgravia in the spring sunshine, put pen to paper and made the irrevocable leap.
I wasn’t used to feeling scared of the future or that my country was irrevocably fractured and broken
I assumed that I would feel that I had gained something – an extra identity – when I accepted my German nationality. But sitting with our daughter on my lap and our son on my husband’s, as the embassy official congratulated us (and advised my husband on what he should do if he wanted to apply for German citizenship on his own behalf), I suddenly felt the jigsaw pieces inside me shift. With a slight shortening of breath, I realised that I had severed something that now turned out to be core to my sense of identity. By gaining German citizenship, I no longer had an umbilical cord linking me to the island of my birth. I had cast myself adrift and could choose my new moorings.
How does that sense of loss and not-belonging make me feel? It makes me feel wide-eyed, newly hatched and excited to the point of ebullience. These feelings are not quite enough to burn off the cloud that settled over me on 24 June 2016 and has lowered there ever since, but the sense of oppression has certainly lifted.
Walking out of the embassy with our certificates, our tiny badges that show the German and British flags twined together, and my newfound right to vote in German elections was exhilarating. It is illogical, considering that I have secured rights I have always had and have not yet lost, but the knowledge that whatever happens to this country now under whatever miserable excuses for politicians we have coming to us with whatever cack-handed, dishonest plans they have for this poor island, I have options – and, most importantly, so do my children.
My children will now always have the right to study, work, live and love abroad. That can’t be taken away from them. I am incredibly proud I have given that to them. And now that I have the personal, individual right to do the same – a right that no politician can take away from me – I find my horizons widening too. I find myself imaging what it would be like if my husband and I retire to Germany. If the NHS implodes or the country sinks into a Brexit-induced quagmire – poorer, more fractured and less influential – we now have the option of moving sooner than that. Not that we would – but the fact remains, we now could.
We are no longer prisoners of a country whose politicians do not and will not, likely for a generation or more, reflect me in any shape or form. We have options.Jon Fitch will defend his WSOF welterweight title against Jake Shields on Nov. 12 in Loveland, Colorado.
WSOF president Ray Sefo revealed the matchup to ESPN on Tuesday. The event will take place inside Budweiser Events Center and air on NBC Sports Network at 10:30 p.m. ET.
The 170-pound matchup was discussed earlier this year, but Shields pulled out of negotiations due to a contract dispute. According to Sefo, Shields (31-8-1) recently signed a new four-fight deal.
"Just like any contract negotiation, it went back and forth, and we settled on something everyone was very happy with," Sefo said. "Jake is a great guy. One thing we needed to work out were the grappling tournaments he wishes to compete in. We wanted to give him that freedom. We were happy with the deal. Jake is happy.
"This matchup is long overdue. You have two great guys, great names in the sport. They're icons. We're happy we could put this match together."
Shields was not immediately available to comment on the new contract.
Sefo acknowledged the event falls on the same date as a highly anticipated UFC 205 pay-per-view at Madison Square Garden, the promotion's first trip to New York since 1995. Sefo said the Nov. 12 date had long been in place for WSOF.
"We have our dates laid out, and this one was set," Sefo said. "We didn't know New York was going to pass MMA, and in reality, this is hard to avoid. The UFC has a show every week, sometimes twice a week. We already have dates in place for 2017."
A former UFC veteran, Fitch (28-7-1) claimed the WSOF vacant title by defeating Joao Zeferino via unanimous decision in April. The 38-year-old has fought the likes of Georges St-Pierre, B.J. Penn, Thiago Alves, Johny Hendricks, Demian Maia and Yushin Okami. He is 4-1 in his past five fights.
Shields, 37, is a former Strikeforce middleweight champion and UFC welterweight title challenger. He has not fought since a controversial submission loss to Rousimar Palhares in August 2015. Shields accused Palhares of holding a kimura submission too long, as well as repeatedly gouging his eyes in the contest. Palhares received a two-year suspension in Nevada for holding his actions in that fight.April 20 marks the three-year anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, which took the lives of 11 men and resulted in the largest oil spill in American history. BP, along with Transocean and Halliburton, are still in the midst of a civil trial held in New Orleans federal court over liability for the catastrophe.
The extent of the damage and the long-term effects from the spill remain impossible to determine. Some scientific evidence -- for example, that collected by NOAA's Damage Assessment, Remediation, and Restoration Program, which includes the results of necropsies of dead sea turtles and dolphins -- is not available, since it is being used as evidence in the trial. Yet even three years later, the residual effects of the oil spill are still apparent on the Gulf Coast. I covered the BP oil spill from the start, and have gone on documenting the effects of the hardest-hit areas in Louisiana and Mississippi, revisiting those areas over the last week. Below are some of the photos I have taken. Along the Mississippi coast one can still find tar balls. In Louisiana I observed, among other disturbing signs of the spill, oil sheen along a coastal marsh, and erosion on an island in Barataria Bay sped up by the death of mangrove trees and marsh grass.
We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.Select rating Poor Okay Good Great Awesome Your rating: None Average: 4.7 ( 3 votes)
Furry art community Fur Affinity has announced restrictions on the use of automated watching scripts, which they termed "watchbots".
While staff had been "addressing botters on a one-on-one basis for several weeks", to the tune of "roughly two dozen" accounts, they faced a growing number of users who were unaware of their position. Some also became concerned upon being watched by "TheNSA".
The trend appears to have been started by Mishka Burr, who claims to have watched over 160,000 users using a script on a Raspberry Pi. Several other accounts running a published watch script inspired by Mishka's work had over 40,000 on their watchlists prior to clearing.
Basically, when it was one or two people (namely Valdyrburr) we could look the other way. It was not an issue. But then it became a handful of accounts, and then a few dozen. And everyone took an "If Valdy can do it, so can we". We initially reached out to discuss the issue with those responsible, and kept things in check. But things got out of hand, and we started taking action against individuals. And then it spread further, and here we are today. [Fender]
One or two mass-watchers was seen as a curiosity, but as others sprung up in their wake, their actions increasingly became an annoyance to regular users:
The one website whose user base is not primarily comprised of automatically generated accounts that pester real people and contribute nothing, and people find a way to make themselves into useless pesty robots. [skrimpf]
Mass-watching can also increase levels of submission and journal notifications, which previously caused major issues for Fur Affinity - although staff indicated that the bots did not "create a serious strain".
Some users asked for the ability to remove users who did not contribute in certain ways from their watchlist. Staff did not seem keen to add this feature.
It's not all bad news for bots on FA, with site leader Dragoneer expressing an interest in using them for administration.New signage is going up at strategic intersections and entry points iinto Burlington, a change designed to improve traffic flow and visitor satisfaction. Click here to watch the report."I'm ecstatic this project has finally moved forward," said Kelly Devine, executive director of the Burlington Business Association.Mayor Miro Weinberger and his public works team unveiled the new look Tuesday. He said roughly 100 new signs are to be installed. The new versions feature more international symbols, acknowledging Burlington's many French-speaking visitors, and information directing motorists to to the city's sometimes hidden parking garages and lots.Kate Fitzgerald, who has spent the summer selling ice cream near the waterfront, says the need is clear. "Every day people ask me for directions. All the time," Fitzgerald said. "I'd say it's pretty confusing."A city traffic study found one-third of all downtown traffic was comprised of drivers circling around Burlington looking for a place to park.The new signage includes dynamic billboards at parking garage entrances updating customers on available capacity, while other versions point pedestrians to pathways and attractions."We put the current system in back in the '80s, from what I understand," said Weinberger. " It had a certain amount of, um, charm, but in recent years the existing signs had grown out of date."Jeff Pont, a first-time visitor to Burlington, said Tuesday he approves of the new navigational sign on the corner of Main and St. Paul streets."I think it's nice. They're better than I have in my home state of Washington," he said. The half-million dollar upgrade is funded through a federal grant, and revenue from city parking fees and fines.
New signage is going up at strategic intersections and entry points iinto Burlington, a change designed to improve traffic flow and visitor satisfaction.
Click here to watch the report.
Advertisement
"I'm ecstatic this project has finally moved forward," said Kelly Devine, executive director of the Burlington Business Association.
Mayor Miro Weinberger and his public works team unveiled the new look Tuesday. He said roughly 100 new signs are to be installed.
The new versions feature more international symbols, acknowledging Burlington's many French-speaking visitors, and information directing motorists to to the city's sometimes hidden parking garages and lots.
Kate Fitzgerald, who has spent the summer selling ice cream near the waterfront, says the need is clear.
"Every day people ask me for directions. All the time," Fitzgerald said. "I'd say it's pretty confusing."
A city traffic study found one-third of all downtown traffic was comprised of drivers circling around Burlington looking for a place to park.
The new signage includes dynamic billboards at parking garage entrances updating customers on available capacity, while other versions point pedestrians to pathways and attractions.
"We put the current system in back in the '80s, from what I understand," said Weinberger. " It had a certain amount of, um, charm, but in recent years the existing signs had grown out of date."
Jeff Pont, a first-time visitor to Burlington, said Tuesday he approves of the new navigational sign on the corner of Main and St. Paul streets.
"I think it's nice. They're better than I have in my home state of Washington," he said.
The half-million dollar upgrade is funded through a federal grant, and revenue from city parking fees and fines.
AlertMe2012 NFL Power Rankings: Week 3 ESPN.com
Week: Select Pre 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
Another week, another new No. 1.
That's how tenuous the top spot has been so far in 2012. The Packers opened at No. 1, then dropped their season opener. The Patriots took over the top spot last week, then laid an egg at home against Arizona.
Now it's the 49ers' turn to experience life at the summit. Our voters (ESPN.com's John Clayton, ESPN.com's Ashley Fox, NFC East blogger Dan Graziano, AFC North blogger Jamison Hensley and NFC West blogger Mike Sando) made 2-0 San Francisco, impressive in all phases so far, a unanimous choice at No. 1.
Not that they weren't impressed by others. The Seahawks, thanks to a convincing victory over Dallas, made the biggest gain, jumping nine spots from No. 26 to No. 17. Arizona (up six spots) and Philadelphia (five) were also big movers.
There's potential for more significant moves in Week 3. The Broncos, smarting from a rough Monday night loss at Atlanta, host No. 2 Houston. Seattle can make even more headway by beating No. 4 Green Bay.
As for the 49ers, their grip on No. 1 appears firm (they play at No. 29 Minnesota). But as we've learned already in 2012, holding serve isn't easy.
• How they voted | Rank 'em | Bloggers | Pro Football Focus: Underrated, overrated | Mike & Mike | Team Power Rankings charts since 2002The YouTube Original Channel Initiative was a failed $100 million program funded by Google to bring original content onto Google.[1][2] The original channel initiative was also meant to kick start Google TV.[3] The channels are collectively known as "original", "premium" or "YouTube funded" channels.
Participants include Madonna, Pharrell Williams, Young Hollywood founder R.J. Williams, former NBA star Shaquille O'Neal, comedian Amy Poehler, actor Ashton Kutcher, The Office star Rainn Wilson, comedian Kenny Hotz, Motor Trend, SourceFed, spiritual doctor Deepak Chopra and Modern Family actress Sofia Vergara. Most are creating channels through their production companies. Madonna is a partner with the dance channel DanceOn, while O'Neal plans the Comedy Shaq Network.
In September 2012, twenty of the 100 original channels started getting at least 1 million views a week.[4]
In October 2012, it was announced that YouTube introduced 60 new original channels.[5] Google invested $200 million into the original programming as well.[6] The top 25 original programs also averaged around 1 million views per week at the time of the announcement.[7]
In November 2012, YouTube ended funding for more than 60% of the 160 or so channels it financed as part of the initiative.[8] After cancellation, YouTube kept all incoming revenue from these channels that failed to recoup their initial investments.[8]
In November 2013, it was reported that the landing page for the original channels had become a redirect to a 404 error page, seemingly as a way for Google to remove any reference to the original channel initiative.[9]
Content [ edit ]
The content of the YouTube Original Channel Initiative includes SourceFed, Young Hollywood, The Mom's View, The Wall Street Journal, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles,[10] Crash Course, BadTeeth, i am OTHER, The Pet Collective, Epic Level TV, Geek & Sundry, MyMusic, Frederator Networks' Cartoon Hangover and The Multiverse among several others.[1][11][12]
One of Tubefilter's articles includes a full list of the original channels,[1] which differs from YouTube's listing.[13]
Deadline Hollywood started tracking the weekly video view stats for all the channels part of YouTube's Original Channel Initiative in May 2012.[14]Around half the students at one pioneering Wisconsin high school are gay, many of them dropouts from mainstream education. But is this just a new kind of sexual segregation?
In the first graduating class at Milwaukee's Alliance High School, the valedictorian – the year's most distinguished student – scored a D+. "They were smart," recalls Tina Owen, the school's founder and lead teacher. "But a lot of them had not been going to school because they were being bullied, and a lot of them had problems at home. That year we had 15 kids. Five of them had lived with me at some point during the year, for one reason or another."
Alliance is not a regular school. Its aim is to cater to a community that is at best ignored and, at worst, is actively denied its existence – lesbian and gay youth. Call it a gay school and you will be promptly corrected. There's no entrance criteria on the grounds of sexual orientation or anything else. The school building, an unassuming brick block set back from a main road, doesn't fly rainbow flags or emblazon its walls with posters of pink triangles. Owen guesses about half the students are LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgender). "If you are gay, no big deal," she says. "If you aren't, no big deal."
But the school, which is funded by the state of Wisconsin, is self-avowedly gay-friendly. "Here they can talk about a relationship or a break-up without worrying about how that's going to be received," explains Owen. The posts of Prom King and Prom Queen are open for anyone to run for, regardless of their gender. A mural at its entrance bears the words "knowledge, respect, peace", and a sign saying Stonewall Inn. It's a small school – just 165 students – where everybody knows each other. The corridors host more than the regular share of boys with shoulder-length hair or painted nails. All together it adds up to a critical mass of children who say they felt they didn't fit in elsewhere – whether they are goths, punks or nerds – which makes being a non-conformist at Alliance the norm. The school's art teacher affectionately described the school to Time magazine as "the island of misfit toys".
At a time when sexual diversity has never been more accepted in the US, the emergence of such schools – there are a few around the country – seems paradoxical. "What does it say about our country that we have schools like this?" asks Ritch Savin-Williams, a professor of developmental psychology at Cornell university, and author of The New Gay Teenager. They have come under fire from social conservatives, religious groups and some in the gay community.
Owen admits it is not to everyone's liking. One boy called home after his first few days there and said: "Dad, get me out of here, these kids are freaks."
But to others it's literally a lifesaver. Dylan Huegerich's long hair and occasional use of makeup made him the subject of frequent taunts in school in the small town of Saukville where he grew up. "It hurt so bad," he said. "I hated my life. I hated everything. When his mother complained to the school she was told he should cut his hair and try to act "more manly". Every morning, she told Time, "I knew I was driving him back to this place where he was hurting. Oh, they beat you up? Here, go there again. My heart broke every time he got out of the car."
She decided not to enroll him for eighth grade. "I felt like if I turned in those forms, I was giving him some kind of a sentence." So he went to Alliance, a 90-minute commute away.
The school, founded in 2005, was modeled on Manhattan's Harvey Milk High School, which was named after the late San Fransisco gay activist whose story was the basis for the award-winning film Milk, and which became fully accredited in 2002. It started as a high school (ages 14-18), expanded to include middle school-age children (11-14) as well, and is now about to revert to being just a high school again.
Michael Freytes, 17, who is straight, says he likes Alliance because he doesn't feel judged. "When I was in middle school I was being bullied a lot. I tried to fit in but I couldn't. But if there's a problem like that at Alliance the other students don't tolerate it and the teachers take care of it." The students resolve conflict through what they call "restorative justice", though a "justice circle", governed by students, which Freytes says "tries to figure out the problem and then fix it without things getting out of control".
The primary justification for the existence of schools such as Alliance is safety – an institutional response to the pervasive bullying experienced by LGBT youth and others in mainstream schools.
The problem seems severe. A 2009 survey conducted by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) revealed that 9 out of 10 LGBT students said they had experienced harassment or bullying. Almost two-thirds claimed they felt unsafe in school, while one in five said they had been physically assaulted. A 2007 survey revealed that 39% reported physical assaults and, of those who told teachers or administrators about the bullying, only 29% said it resulted in effective intervention. The 2009 survey also found that the frequency with which LGBT students experienced more severe forms of bullying and harassment had held steady over the previous decade.
Last winter, 14-year-old Kenneth Weishuhn killed himself after he came out at his Iowa high school. Anonymous threats on his voicemail were followed by yelling and physical harassment that got so bad teachers had to stand guard in the hallways. Kenneth eventually hung himself in his parents' garage.
Even when parents aren't prepared to accept their children are gay, says Owen, they understand the need to put their child in a nurturing environment. "They want their kid to be safe. They want to know that their child is not going to be spat on or kicked just because of who they are."
Attitudes towards homosexuality are changing radically in the US, even in midwestern states such as Wisconsin, and even if every time gay marriage has been put to the vote at a state level, it has |
forced to.Legalized cannabis was a hot topic of conversation at Canadian Mennonite University Wednesday night as a pastor, a police officer, a rehabilitation counsellor and a medical marijuana producer shared the stage for a panel on the subject.
More than 100 people showed up to a panel titled "Our Need for Weed?", which was open to the community and free to anyone who wanted to attend.
"The goal of this isn't to develop a position. CMU has no official position, we're not looking to work towards that, so much as bring people who care about this issue together to hear from a range of folks who are involved in it in a variety of ways," said Chris Huebner, CMU Associate Professor of Theology and Philosophy.
'Organized crime is not going away'
Winnipeg police Inspector Max Waddell said based on information out of Colorado and Washington, two American states who legalized cannabis in 2012, legalizing cannabis in Canada will not curb the illicit drug trade. (CBC/Jeff Stapleton) Winnipeg police are in the process of developing a training package for officers ahead of the July 1, 2018 deadline.
"We know Bill C-45 states that a person can have up to 35 grams on their person at anytime, so how are officers gonna enforce that if it's above the 30g?," said Winnipeg police Insp. Max Waddell.
Despite the big learning curve, he said officers will be ready in the next seven months. But Waddell — who is also the head of the organized crime unit — warned the legalization of cannabis will not put an end to the illegal drug trade.
"Organized crime is not going away," said Waddell. "We've seen some history down in Colorado and Washington specifically around organized crime, and those types of outlets, where we really haven't seen significant changes in the illicit market. There's still being marijuana sold illegally."
He said right now in Canada most people with medical marijuana prescriptions are getting their drugs on the black market.
"They're still buying up to 90 per cent of their marijuana through illegal means, so that tells me that there's significant change that needs to be made ahead if we want to truly regulate and control this new change."
'Just because it's legal doesn't mean it's safe'
Daniel Dacombe, rehabilitation counsellor with Addictions Foundation of Manitoba said just because cannabis will become legal, does not make it safe. (CBC/Jeff Stapleton) A rehabilitation counsellor who works with young people told the crowd that Canada has the highest youth cannabis use in the developed world — a figure he said was three times higher than the number of adult users.
"The Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Abuse released a study last year, which revealed that youth perceptions of marijuana in Canada are typically very positive. There's a lot of misinformation in the youth populations," said Daniel Dacombe, a counsellor with the school-based services at the Addictions Foundation of Manitoba.
Dacombe said young people think just because cannabis isn't produced in a lab, that it's somehow safe and okay for them to use.
"There's realities about using marijuana as a young person that will impact them long-term and that can result in some harms to their lives," said Dacombe.
"During the adolescent years, the brain is going through a rapid period of development and growth. This means that it's very vulnerable to change, both positive and negative. And some of those negative changes can result from introducing chemicals into the brain that wasn't really meant to contain."
Pastor hopeful legalization will open discussions in church
A pastor at two Manitoba Mennonite churches hopes the legalization of marijuana will generate discussions in her congregations.
Erin Morash, pastor at two Manitoba Mennonite Churches said she hopes the legalization of cannabis will open up discussions within her congregation about marijuana use and misuse. (CBC/Jeff Stapleton) "The medical users that I have come across in my work in their church families, they all have said that they keep their use very quiet for fear of stigma," said Erin Morash, pastor at Crystal City Mennonite Church and Trinity Mennonite Church.
"I'm not thinking that when this becomes legalized next summer that that's suddenly gonna lift and they're suddenly gonna be able to light up in the church foyer. That's not going to happen. I am hoping though, that it might allow them to become less afraid of judgement in their families, their wider family communities and perhaps in their church communities," said Morash.History Edit
Government Edit
Demographics Edit
Education Edit
Economy Edit
Geology and geography Edit
Transport Edit
Utilities Edit
Energy Edit Victoria's major utilities include a collection of brown-coal-fired power stations, particularly in the Latrobe Valley. One of these was the recently decommissioned Hazelwood Power Station, which was number 1 on the worldwide List of least carbon efficient power stations. Water Edit Victoria's water infrastructure includes a series of dams and reservoirs, predominantly in Central Victoria, that hold and collect water for much of the state. The water collected is of a very high quality and requires little chlorination treatment, giving the water a taste more like water collected in a rainwater tank. In regional areas however, such as in the west of the state, chlorination levels are much higher. The Victorian Water Grid consists of a number of new connections and pipelines being built across the State. This allows water to be moved around Victoria to where it is needed most and reduces the impact of localised droughts in an era thought to be influenced by climate change. Major projects already completed as part of the Grid include the Wimmera Mallee Pipeline and the Goldfields Superpipe.[51]
Sport Edit
Sister states Edit
See also Edit
Notes Edit
^ Due to a previous surveying error, Victoria and Tasmania share a land border on Boundary Islet. At 85 m (93 yd) in length, the border is the smallest between any two Australian states or territories.
References Edit
Further reading EditThe Maryland Open
The GWRM Baltimore Go Club and the Baltimore Country Department of Recreation and Parks Proudly Present the Forty-Fifth Maryland Open
Memorial Day Weekend, May 26 & 27, 2018
Prizes in all sections (Dan and Kyu) Open Section: Even games for Cash Prize!
Entrance Fee: $35
This is an AGA rated event. AGA membership required and available at door. One day memberships available.
FIVE ROUNDS: Three Saturday, two Sunday. Registration from 9 until 10:30 am. First round at 11 am. Come for one day or both! First round Sunday 9:30 am.
SAME GREAT LOCATION:
Catonsville Senior Center 501 N. Rolling Rd. Catonsville, MD 21228
Directions:
From Baltimore Beltway (695)
Go West on Rt. 40 to Rolling Rd.
Left onto Rolling Rd (South).
At 2nd light, turn left into Senior Center
From 95 heading north from DC
Take the Catonsville exit (Rt. 166, Rolling Rd.)
Go North 2 miles to Frederick Rd.
Turn left, go 1/4 mi, then right onto Rolling Rd.
At 2nd light (Old Frederick Rd.), turn right into Senior Center
Nearby Motels
Comfort Inn 410-744-5000 S.E. Corner Rt. 40 & 695
Days Inn 410-747-8900 S.W. Corner Rt. 40 & Ingleside
Brown's Motel 410-465-4000 2 mi West of Rolling Rd. on Rt. 40
Call to confirm!
Questions? Call Keith 410-788-3520John Lineker once again struggled to make weight for a flyweight bout in the UFC, but he’s not considering a return to the bantamweight division.
Lineker entered the UFC with a 19-5 record as a bantamweight, but he cut down to 125 for his first UFC fight. He missed weight for his UFC on FOX 3 loss to Louis Gaudinot, and came up heavy for two of his next four fights inside the Octagon.
The Brazilian needed an extra hour to hit 126 pounds at the scale for his UFC 169 clash with Ali Bagautinov, but eventually made weight. Following a unanimous decision loss to the Dagestani prospect, Lineker will stay in the flyweight division.
"He’s not a bantamweight, he’s a flyweight," Lineker’s manager Alex Davis told MMAFighting.com. "We’ll fix the issues and he will make weight.
"Imagine Lineker fighting a guy the size of Renan Barao. It makes no sense. The 135-pound guys are way bigger than him. He’s a flyweight, and we have to fix the weight issues."
Lineker is shorter than all of the opponents he has faced under the UFC banner, but his camp is still unsure about why he can’t make weight constantly.
"He was doing a great job with Dr. Marco Aranha in Brazil," Davis said. "He went to the U.S. lighter than he did in his previous fights, but he just ‘froze’ during the last cut. We don’t know what happens. He just thinks he won’t make weight and his body stops sweating. We did everything and he cut the last pound."
"He can make 125," he continued. "He doesn’t dehydrate to make 126. I’m sure he’ll make weight, and I’m positive this kid will be the champion one day. Demetrious Johnson, Ali Bagautinov, John Dodson… These guys are great fighters, but Lineker is special. He’s very talented, and he’s only 23 years old."
Alex Davis wants Lineker to cut down to 125 before he gets another fight in the UFC to make him realize he can actually do it.
"I didn’t want a fight that early to begin with, but the UFC needed the fight so we had to accept it," he said. "Now, I’ll make him make weight before his next camp. I’m confident that, when he makes 125 with no fight scheduled, he’ll realize he can make it and won’t panic anymore."
For his next fight inside the Octagon, Davis wants Lineker to train more at American Top Team.
"American Top Team helped him a lot," he said. "Dan Lambert, Ricardo Liborio and Rafael Rebelo helped him a lot. We will make him the champion. I want him training in the U.S., working with some wrestlers, and he’ll be the UFC champion."Timecode and Audio List for popular cameras:
Arri Amira
Timecode - BNC (IN/OUT)
Audio IN - 5-pin XLR + 2x 3-pin XLR
Arri Alexa Mini
Timecode - 5pin Lemo
Audio IN - 5-pin lemo (stereo input)
Arri Alexa (and all versions of it like Alexa XT)
Timecode - LEMO 5-pin Timecode in/out (TC)
Audio IN - 5-pin XLR
I have always found that Arri Cameras like the Alexa have great timecode inputs. These are more reliable because they are built with clock crystals by Ambient, a world class timecode company. Do look out on some older models for the display to be off by 1 second, don't be alarmed, the sync will be fine in the edit, just the display is slow.
RED One Timecode
Timecode - LEMO 5-pin Timecode in/out (TC)
Audio IN - 4x 3-pin mini XLR connectors
as a side note they mentioned these bits relating to audio which could be a job saver if not a life one:
- You should always use a RED DIGITAL CINEMA XLR to mini-XLR adaptor cable, which provides a -4dB pad, to achieve an appropriate input signal level.
- If the camera has an adaptive preview mode on the fan settings then this will allow the camera to stay as quiet as possible without overheating the camera!
- The 48 V Phantom Power source is automatically disabled on each power cycle
- Low sensitivity phantom powered microphones may exhibit excessive noise, so consider an external +48V phantom power source, or use a dynamic microphone.
- Input Level range for Microphone Inputs is +36dB to +54dB.
- Input Level for Line Level inputs may not be adjusted.
RED Scarlet
Timecode - LEMO 4-pin Timecode In ONLY (TC) (Meizler Module has BNC TC Input)
Audio IN - 2x 3.5mm jack (for 2 separate inputs)
I have only worked with the Scarlet a few times but I find it the most reliable in terms of keeping sync compared to its brothers and sisters. Shame the input for it is shoved in a really awkward place for big hands though.
In the fan settings for the Scarlet Dragon you can put the fan on Adaptive Preview Mode which will keep the fan quiet but NOT allow the camera to overheat, this is what DPs worry about when going on 25% fan speed for long takes.
RED EPIC
Timecode - LEMO 4-pin Timecode In ONLY (TC)
Audio IN - 2x 3.5mm jack (for 2 separate inputs)
Epic/Scarlet the 3.5mm inputs are switchable between balanced and unbalanced in the camera's firmware.
80% of the time i have problems with this camera for one reason or another, sometimes the camera people have outdated firmware so that could be why, generally holds timecode while recording but playback and battery changes soon add up, best to use a timecode lockit or timecode buddy solution.
In the fan settings for the Scarlet Dragon you can put the fan on Adaptive Preview Mode which will keep the fan quiet but NOT allow the camera to overheat, this is what DPs worry about when going on 25% fan speed for long takes.
RED DRAGON
Timecode - LEMO 4-pin Timecode In ONLY (TC)
Audio IN - 2x 3.5mm jack (for 2 separate inputs)
4K Broadcast Module (DRAGON compatible - Coming Soon) - TC = BNC / no extra audio IN options
PRO I/O Module (EPIC and SCARLET compatible - Out Now) - TC = 5pin lemo / 2x 3-Pin XLR Input / 1x 5-Pin XLR Output
In the fan settings for the Scarlet Dragon you can put the fan on Adaptive Preview Mode which will keep the fan quiet but NOT allow the camera to overheat, this is what DPs worry about when going on 25% fan speed for long takes.
AJA CION
Timecode - BNC IN
Audio IN - 2x XLR balanced analog audio inputs - independent selections for line, mic and phantom power
Blackmagic 4K URSA
Timecode - BNC IN / BNC OUT
Audio IN - 2x XLR 3pins
Blackmagic Studio Camera
Timecode - N/A
Audio IN - 2x XLR 3pin
Other Black Magic Models (Blackmagic 4K production camera etc..) Timecode - N/A Audio IN - 2 x 1/4” jacks for professional balanced analog audio, switchable between mic and line levels.
SONY F7
Timecode - BNC (only with the XDCA-FS7 module add on)
Audio IN - N/A
SONY F65 Timecode - BNC Audio IN - N/A
SONY HDWF900R Timecode - BNC Audio IN - XLR-3-pin type (Female)MIC IN - XLR-5-pin type (Female)
SONY HDC2500L Timecode - BNC Audio IN - (Ch1, Ch2) XLR 3-pin (x2) (female)
SONY F55 / F5 Timecode - BNC Audio IN - XLR 3-pin female type
SONY F35 Timecode - BNC Audio IN - XLR-3-31 type (Female), line/mic/mic +48 V selectable
SONY F23 Timecode - BNC Audio IN - XLR-3-31 type (Female) line/mic/mic +48 V selectable (via supplied interface module)
SONY PMWF3K/RGB Timecode - BNC Audio IN (mic) - XLR-type 3-pin (female) (x2), line/mic/mic +48 V selectable
Other SONY cameras similar to the professional standard above have timecode with BNC and standard Audio IN as XLR 3-pin but NOT on all cameras.MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. — The president, lawmakers and the National Rifle Association (NRA) are all fighting for their views on gun control; in fact, the only voice that you will not hear is that of gangs. Mint Press brings the voice of battle-hardened gang members who literally fear they would die without a gun. “It’s a way of life, if you don’t have it (a gun) then you know you’re fucked. There’s always someone’s coming for you. I need to know I can take care of a situation,” said gang member Tinie.
Tinie is a part of a North Minneapolis gang — he, like many young African-American men in gangs, live their lives on the streets. In this world, gang members smoke and trade drugs and develop territorial patches where they can control the money made from drugs and stop other gangs from taking the trade. It may be a foreign world for many young men, but for Tinie, it’s the only world he recognizes.
Gang life has become his family, his life and he believes probably his death. “I know it — someone’s got a bullet for me, that just the way.” Despite his young age of 17, Tinie has been involved in gangs for nearly five years and during this time he’s seen gang members holed (shot), he said. “When you see it for the first time, someone die, you feel so angry that you have to let it out — and get the people who did it, now I don’t feel anything any more.”
President Barack Obama has praised Minneapolis for its progressive measures on gun control. He sees the city’s “common sense” gun control as a model the rest of the states should follow. The president is pushing for a bill to renew the 1994 assault weapons ban, limiting ammunition magazines to 10 rounds and to pass universal background checks. But in Tinie’s world, these measures will not make any difference to his way of life.
He looks nonchalantly as he laughs at the law. “The background check don’t apply to us. That’s not how it works. Guns are circulated by different people, from different gangs. So I can get a gun from someone in Brooklyn Park or Cedar-Riverside, or outside (the state) sometimes. I don’t need to go into a shop to buy one. Other people get their girlfriends or a big sister to buy them. The girls are mostly clean, so if the shop checks, there will be no criminal record.”
Showing lots of attitude and bravado, Tinie explains: “Automatic guns are harder to get, but I wouldn’t use them. They are harder to hide, I don’t know people who would use it, so they (the President) can do whatever, cuz it can’t hurt me.”
From Murderapolis to model state
Tinie was too young to remember Minneapolis violent gang warfare of 1995-96 when there was 97 gang-related deaths. Known as Murderapolis, Minneapolis was the leading city for gang-related homicide; now, thanks to the work of youth initiatives, the number of young people injured by guns has decreased by 40 percent. Obama held Minneapolis up as an example of what cities can do to reduce youth violence without passing new gun laws.
“A few years back, you suffered a spike in violent crime involving young people. So this city came together,” Obama said. “You launched a series of youth initiatives that have reduced the number of young people injured by guns.”
Minneapolis youth teams have experienced great success using mentoring strategies for gang members. The mentoring strategy Blueprint for Action has caught President Obama’s attention. Launched nearly five years ago, Blueprint for Action uses mentors to identify issues and intervene at the first signs of trouble, helping youth offenders get back on track and getting young people to reject a culture of violence.
Delivering frontline services to combat gang violence, Sherenia Gibbs, as the supervisor of the Minneapolis Parks Youth Outreach team, told MPN: “The initiative was set up as a public health, not as a crime issue. This is why we’ve had a good success rate. We work with a lot of youth agencies and partners, so the outreach team can identify young people at risk, mentor them and try to reconnect them into caring situations or better a situation where they will not reoffend. Most of the young people in gangs are disconnected from family, church, education — so the only thing that’s left is gangs. So what we do is look at the whole problem. Sometimes that means engaging the youth’s parents in programs of support where they can get help. Or working with local police so that when a young person is caught and is on first offense, that he is not charged, but brought to us, so that he can join a mentor program.”
Minneapolis police also restaffed its juvenile unit which focuses on enforcing curfew and truancy laws. The department has 16 police officers working as liaison officers in more than 70 city schools.
Too many young people are still being lost to gun violence, Minneapolis Police Chief Janee Harteau said. She mentioned the recent deaths of Nizzel George, 5, and Terrell Mayes Jr., 3. Both boys were killed by stray bullets. George’s killer, a teenager, recently pleaded guilty to murder but Mayes death remains unsolved.
Minneapolis lawmakers independently have pursued President Obama’s objective to ban automatic rifles and introduce more stringent background checks on gun owners. According to Harteau: “Access issues are critically important. If people don’t have access to guns; if we can have the ability to keep them out of the hands of people who shouldn’t get them, like convicted felons and others, that’s helpful to the efforts,” Harteau said. “There is no one solution, but all of these things collectively will help us have an impact.”
Harteau was one of 20 people made up of law enforcement, elected officials, activists and gun crime victims who met privately with the president during his recent visit.
Keeping guns out of gangs
Minneapolis has taken huge steps to reduce gang violence with a progressive plan linking up youth support agencies, youth outreach teams and police and juvenile justice workers. But Tinie is living proof that some of these measures will not take guns out of the hands of gangs.
Tinie says: “I don’t see how they can. There are too many guns out there already, what makes them think that some background check is going to make a difference? We already have guns.” Gang members like Tinie are so disconnected from society that the debate about guns seems moot in that environment. The guns that the gangs uses are moved around frequently, on a supply-and-demand basis.
“If a bro needs a gun fast he will call people (sometimes family) from other states or from a different neighborhood. Sometimes it’s delivered by some of the young kids in gangs on their bikes, other times a bro will have to collect it and that’s when the problems starts. If he moves, then he’s a open target.”
This past weekend first lady Michelle Obama joined hundreds of mourners at the Hadiya Pendleton funeral. The teen-age girl was shot and killed about a mile from President Barack Obama’s Chicago home in the Kenwood neighborhood. The Chicago honor student killing again highlighted the need to debate gun violence.
Police say Pendleton was an innocent victim in a gang-related shooting. Michelle Obama met privately with the family and comforted Pendleton’s mother before the service. She put her arm around Cleopatra Pendleton and patted her back as the woman threw her head back and wailed.
Police have said the shooting appears to be a case of mistaken identity involving gang members who believed the park, which is near Lake Michigan and north of the University of Chicago, was their territory. No one has been charged but the police are still investigating the crime.
Pendleton’s death has highlighted Chicago’s homicide rate; in 2012, Chicago recorded 506 homicides. Hadiya Pendleton is another victim caught in a crossfire of gangs. Gang members like Tinie are equally saddened by people being killed by stray bullets. “We don’t think sometimes — it only happens when you are cornered and you’re fighting for your life, things happen fast, you gotta think fast,” he said.
The way forward
NRA lobbyists are still fighting President Obama ideas to reform gun control, and despite the Newtown tragedy, the NRA is spending million to convince Congress to reject any new proposals for gun control. But some lawmakers are addressing the issue of controlling guns in gangs and with convicted criminals. There are skeptics that think banning certain types of weapons and mandating background checks for all weapons sales will not stop the violence.
“Democrats and Republicans in the Senate are working on a bill that would ban anyone from selling a gun to somebody legally prohibited from owning one. That’s common sense,” Obama said. “Senators from both parties have also come together and proposed a bill that would crack down on people who buy guns only to turn them around and sell them to criminals.”
The politics of Washington and its views on the gun debate is a distant world where Tinie shows very little interest. He knows how to survive on the streets and how the law struggles to contain the street violence.
“It (the law) doesn’t apply to me. I don’t think they will ever find out who moves guns around. There are lots of different people who move them around state, from state to state. So I don’t see how they can catch us.”Defense lawyers for Guantanamo detainees asked the judge in the military tribunal on Friday to suspend pretrial hearings as mysterious computer glitches are just the latest technological setbacks to complicate the legal proceedings.
Defense lawyers for Guantanamo detainees asked the military tribunal judge to suspend pretrial hearings as mysterious computer glitches have made their job a ‘hot mess’ forcing some of them to draft motions with pen and paper.
"We're basically put back in the 19th century," Army Major Jason Wright, who represents the alleged mastermind of the terrorist attacks, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, said on Friday, as quoted by Reuters. "It takes about five to 10 times what it would normally take to do defense functions."
Defense lawyers for five Guantanamo detainees said email correspondences they sent were never received, investigative records that took years to compile had disappeared and external monitors were unable to access their internet searches. Even the prosecuting and defense teams had been given access to each other's files.
The technical problems had started earlier in the year but by April they had become so severe that the chief defense counsel, Air Force Colonel Karen Mayberry, ordered defense lawyers not to use their Pentagon computers for any confidential casework.
The situation became so dire that when Pentagon officials wished to convey messages to legal advisors in other cities, they had to place the sensitive data onto external drives, head to Starbucks and file them via Wi-Fi using their personal computers and personal email accounts, Wright revealed.
Defense attorney James Harrington, who represents Yemeni prisoner Ramzi bin al Shibh, said he had been forced to draft motions with pen and paper.
Another defense attorney for Mohammed, David Nevin, commented: "In this day and age you cannot practice law this way."
He said the chief of staff for the Pentagon official overseeing the military tribunals issued her judgment during a conference call on Thursday, declaring: "This is a hot mess."
Pentagon technical personnel have said it would take “up to 111 days” to fix the glitches once a contract was signed and money allocated, and that it was doubtful the work could be finished before the start of 2014.
The judge, Army Colonel James Pohl, said he would give the matter further consideration at a pretrial hearing scheduled to start on Sept. 16 and decide then whether to cancel hearings scheduled for October, November, December and January.
"I understand the serious nature of being able to communicate as a defense counsel," the judge said.
This is not the first time that the maximum-security tribunal has suffered from ‘ghosts in the machinery.’
Judge Pohl in January convened an emergency meeting after it was discovered that some outside source was cutting the audio feed when particular subjects in the trial were being discussed.
The judge stated he was not happy with this interference and added that he would like some clarification on “who turns that light on or off.”
“It’s a ‘whoa moment’ for the court,” Human Rights Watch observer Laura Pitter said in January, as quoted by the Miami Herald. “Even the judge doesn’t know that someone else has control over the censorship button?”
The five defendants are accused of training and funding the hijackers who allegedly crashed four commercial jets into the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001, killing nearly 3,000 people.
The Obama administration has backed down on its promise to close Gitmo and give the detainees civil trials on US territory in the face of extreme Republican pressure.By Colin Marshall
Friends, friends of friends, and acquaintances often ask me if they should make a trip to South Korea, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to all of them — all of them except, perhaps, the vegetarians. I do know a handful of non-meat-eaters living here, all either foreigners or Koreans who grew up abroad, all living proof that a vegetarian can technically find a way to get by in this country. But the all-important social culture here, centered in large part on rounds and rounds of pork, beef, and squid grilled over an open flame, offers few points of entry to those who those who would stick to carrots and tempeh. (And as for the accompanying rounds and rounds of cheap liquor, teetotalers will find this a difficult land as well.) Once, I tried to explain veganism to a lady I met at in language-exchange group. “Oh,” she replied, in less a tone of judgment than of sheer bewilderment, “I think I cannot be friends with someone like that.”
But it’s one thing for a vegetarian foreigner to try living in Korea, where the locals know us by our often baffling lifestyle choices, and quite another for a Korean to decide to stop eating animals. Just such a conversion sets in motion the events of Han Kang’s The Vegetarian (채식주의자), first published in South Korea as a cycle of three novellas starting in 2007, and just this month published as a single volume in English in the United States. The book has sold publication rights in twenty countries and in the Anglosphere received, especially by the standard of Korean novels in translation by authors unknown outside the homeland, a staggering amount of press, all of it positive, and much of it struggling for the right words to describe what, exactly, makes it so very compelling. “I was convinced,” as one character observes, “that there was more going on here than a simple case of vegetarianism.”
Those words come from the plainspoken, unambitious husband of the titular vegetarian, a similarly nondescript-seeming woman in her thirties called Yeong-hye. “I’d always thought of her as completely unremarkable in every way,” he says at the beginning of the novel. “To be frank, the first time I met her I wasn’t even attracted to her. Middling height; bobbed hair neither long nor short; jaundiced, sickly-looking skin; somewhat prominent cheekbones; her timid, sallow aspect told me all I needed to know.” But “if there wasn’t any special attraction, nor did any particular drawbacks present themselves, and therefore there was no reason for the two of us not to get married.” And so their featureless union smoothly goes, until the morning he finds her taking the hundreds of dollars’ worth of meat in their refrigerator out and bagging it up for the garbage.
Yeong-hye can offer only one sentence to explain her actions: “I had a dream.” And she had quite a vivid dream, the glimpses of which we get involve her struggling her way through a seemingly endless, meat-packed tunnel and emerging in shamefully blood-soaked clothes. She makes no attempt to convey the full extent of its horror to those around her, and on some level knows it wouldn’t make any difference to them; a visit with her parents, sister, and brother-in-law turns into a wild suicide attempt after her father, enraged at her intransigence, strikes her after a futile attempt to cram a chunk of pork into her mouth as her panicked family looks on.
But again, we have more going on here than a simple case of vegetarianism: as time passes, Yeong-hye cuts out of her life not just all meat but most sleep, communication, reaction, and ultimately action of any kind. Kang has spoken of asking herself whether someone could live “a perfectly innocent life in this violent world” as well as the inspiration she drew from the poet Yi Sang’s pronouncement that “humans should be plants,” and in Yeong-hye we seem to have the result, examined from three different perspectives in the book’s three sections: first her husband, then her brother-in-law, then her sister In-hye. (Here in Korea, each of those parts constituted one of the novellas.)
The novel only allows Yeong-hye the occasional opportunity to speak to us, or, given the italicized text and internal monologue-like tone of the passages, think at us. She remembers one childhood run-in with a dog and the violent folk remedy that followed: “The saying goes that for a wound caused by a dog-bite to heal you have to eat that same dog, and I did scoop up a mouthful for myself. No, in fact I ate an entire bowlful with rice. Yells and howls, threaded together layer upon layer, are enmeshed to form that lump. Because of meat. I ate too much meat. The lives of the animals I ate have all lodged there. Blood and flesh, all those butchered bodies are scattered in every nook and cranny, and though the physical remnants were excreted, their lives still stick stubbornly to my insides.”
The attitude Yeong-hye develops toward meat and humanity as a whole that reminds me, in certain respects, of that held by another title character: J.M. Coetzee’s Elizabeth Costello, a respected novelist spending the twilight of her life on the lecture circuit who insists that her own vegetarianism “comes out of a desire to save my soul.” She’s made her choice but her inner turmoil continues: “I seem to move around perfectly easily among people, to have perfectly normal relations with them. Is it possible, I ask myself, that all of them are participants in a crime of stupefying proportions? Am I fantasizing it all? I must be mad! Yet every day I see the evidences. The very people I suspect produce the evidence, exhibit it, offer it to me. Corpses. Fragments of corpses that they have bought for money.”
When she looks into the eyes of family, Costello says, “I see only kindness, human kindness. Calm down, I tell myself, you are making a mountain out of a molehill. This is life. Everyone else comes to terms with it, why can’t you? Why can’t you?” Yeong-hye acts as if she sees nothing at all in the eyes of family or anyone else, and nothing raises any kind of desire in her until her sister’s husband, a video artist obsessed with her blue Mongolian spot, convinces her to participate in realizing an image that has come to obsess him: a man and a woman, their bodies painted with brilliantly colored flowers, having sex. At this point having got fairly deep into her own transition to living as a plant, Yeong-hye gladly obliges.
Costello, so far as I can recall, engages in no experience quite like that, and also unlike Yeong-hye has only grown more outwardly stubborn and opinionated with age. Kang’s ever-withering vegetarian, who ultimately refuses to accept food of any kind, locks into what those around her see as an inexorable march toward non-existence. By the novel’s end, when everyone else has turned away in disgust or shame, only In-hye remains to futilely urge her sister her to eat, and even she reaches a breaking point, “no longer able to cope with all that her sister reminded her of. She’d been unable to forgive her for soaring alone over a boundary she herself could never bring herself to cross, unable to forgive that magnificent irresponsibility that had enabled Yeong-hye to shuck off social constraints and leave her behind, still a prisoner. And before Yeong-hye had broken those bars, she’d never even known they were there.”
The myriad strictures of Korean society, as well as their invisibility to those who have never known freedom from them, give this country’s literature one of its major themes. I sometimes hear Korean life described as the challenge of keeping the various groups — social, academic, familial, workplace — who claim you as a member constantly satisfied, and Yeong-hye manages to throw them all into chaos at a stroke. Taking stock of their reactions gives Kang the opportunity to touch on nearly all the other themes Westerners who read about Korea will recognize: not just meat-eating and suicide, but sudden bursts of rage (we learn that Yeong-hye’s father, made a habit of beating her, but never In-hye, throughout childhood), the unenviable position of women (In-hye escaped those beatings through sheer subservience, growing into “the kind of woman whose goodness is oppressive”), and the vast generation gap (that father, before dressing down Yeong-hye for her vegetarianism through it, had “never used a telephone in his life”).
Deborah Smith, who with her work on this book has made herself the young Korean-to-English translator to watch, doesn’t hesitate to speak of her admiration for Kang: “The great strength of Han’s work is that she gets to the universal through specificity,” she told the Guardian. “Historically, that’s been rare in Korea, which is such a homogenous country that the writing it produces has often been too inward-looking to travel.” The Vegetarian clearly can travel, though it also demonstrates that, no matter how astute the translator, awkward cultural artifacts will always remain: Yeong-hye calls In-hye “Sister,” In-hye prepares “side dishes,” and their family enjoys “yuk hwe, a kind of beef tartar.” (Tellingly, the bits of Korean novels that don’t quite translate often have to do with food.)
English-language readers will no doubt hear more from Smith, Kang, and both of them |
junior doctors, five of whom last week sought to have the decision overturned in the high court. Lord Justice Green’s ruling on that is due on Wednesday.
Union sources say hundreds of trainee medics voicing their concern about the proposed walkouts had led to serious fears that strike turnout would be poor and that the BMA would end up divided, weakened and lowered in public esteem as a result of the stoppages.
Many junior doctors were also concerned that the long duration of the planned strike would put patients’ safety at risk and risk a backlash from the public if anything untoward happened in a hospital while they were protesting outside. Medics have also voiced confusion about the objectives of the stoppages, given that the union’s leadership backed in the early summer the new contract they had negotiated, only to see grassroots juniors reject the improved terms and conditions by 58% to 42%.
McCourt was elected as interim chair after the former leader, Johann Malawana, resigned after 58% of junior doctors rejected a compromise contract.
One senior BMA official said: “Junior doctors don’t want to put patients at risk and don’t want to go ahead with a five-day strike. Quite a few don’t want any more strike action at all. Even the few JDC members who still think that they can’t give up totally wanted the 5-day strike scaled down.
“Junior doctors don’t have the heart or the stomach for this anymore. They don’t see the point of industrial action. They feel let down and blame both Jeremy Hunt and the BMA equally.”
There is also mounting anger and confusion among junior doctors at what many see as the BMA’s lack of clear strategy in first electing to hold all-out stoppages of unprecedented duration without defining what their purpose was.
Jeremy Hunt acted illegally over junior doctors, court hears Read more
The Department of Health welcomed the suspension of the strikes, saying: “The best way to rebuild trust now is for industrial action to be called off permanently in the interests of patients – and we urge the BMA to do so.”
The strike action was originally planned for this month, but the first five-day walkout was cancelled after opposition from other members of the medical profession.
Opposition to the planned strikes came from the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, which represents all the doctors’ professional bodies.Among all the charming stories in Shirley Jackson’s two charming midcentury memoirs of raising four charming children in the charming town of Bennington, Vermont, the one that I urge anyone who might ever want to write about his family to study like the Talmud is about a boy called Charles. Charles is a classmate of Jackson’s son Laurie, who at this point very early in Life Among the Savages is in kindergarten. (This summer Penguin is reprinting Savages, first published in 1953, along with its follow-up Raising Demons, first published in 1957.)
Charles is bad. On the first day of kindergarten he is spanked for being fresh with the teacher. He whacks a girl on the head with the seesaw and yells throughout story hour. Laurie’s daily updates on Charles’ misdeeds, which often force the entire kindergarten class to be kept after school, soon turn Charles into a kind of icon among the Jackson family: Laurie is told he’s being a Charles when he pulls a wagon full of mud through the kitchen. Jackson’s husband even invokes Charles when he makes a mess of the living room. For a brief period Laurie reports that Charles is behaving better, but then one Friday he reveals that Charles convinced an innocent classmate to say a very, very bad word. (“She said it twice,” an awestruck Laurie tells his parents. “Charles told her to say it twice.”)
Jackson worries about her little boy falling under Charles’ influence—she can already see that he’s transformed from a “sweet-voiced nursery-school tot” to a “long-trousered, swaggering character who forgot to stop at the corner and wave goodbye.” But her husband reassures her: “Bound to be people like Charles in the world. Might as well meet them now as later.”
As the first PTA meeting of the year approaches, Jackson cannot wait to encounter the mother of the amazing Charles. What must she be like? “Invite her over for a cup of tea after the meeting,” her husband says. “I want to get a look at her.”
And now you must forgive me for presenting the denouement of the story precisely in Jackson’s words, because they offer a textbook case in how a writer may, through pacing and understatement, land a reader as an expert fisherman lands a lake trout:
At the meeting I sat restlessly, scanning each comfortable matronly face, trying to determine which one hid the secret of Charles. None of them looked to me haggard enough. No one stood up in the meeting and apologized for the way her son had been acting. No one mentioned Charles.
After the meeting I identified and sought out Laurie’s kindergarten teacher. She had a plate with a cup of tea and a piece of chocolate cake; I had a plate with a cup of tea and a piece of marshmallow cake. We maneuvered up to one another cautiously and smiled.
“I’ve been so anxious to meet you,” I said. “I’m Laurie’s mother.”
“We’re all so interested in Laurie,” she said.
“Well, he certainly likes kindergarten,” I said. “He talks about it all the time.”
“We had a little trouble adjusting, the first week or so,” she said primly, “but now he’s a fine little helper. With lapses, of course.”
“Laurie usually adjusts very quickly,” I said. “I suppose this time it’s Charles’ influence.”
“Charles?”
“Yes,” I said, laughing, “you must have your hands full in that kindergarten, with Charles.”
“Charles?” she said. “We don’t have any Charles in the kindergarten.”
That’s the end of the story, and there I am, flopping around on the boat’s deck, gasping for air. Notice how perfectly Jackson reels me in, dropping just enough hints so that I arrive at the proper conclusion mere sentences before Jackson herself does. (There’s pleasure in being misled by Jackson the writer, who’s more clever than me, but pleasure too in being just a touch more clever than Jackson the mother.) Notice how easily she intertwines the pride we feel in our children and the anxiety we feel about their behavior; look how she gaily takes her own feet out from under herself for the sake of earning our trust as a storyteller.
It’s a twist worthy of the author of “The Lottery,” which is the tale for which most readers know Shirley Jackson, and the confidence of her storytelling reminds the reader that in addition to that standard Jackson wrote many other stories and novels of psychological suspense. But the story of Charles also demonstrates how much of the way most of us depict parenting when we tell our stories was presaged by Jackson’s slim, wonderful books.
When you read these books—I suggest perusing them, martini in hand, while your children (or better your friends’ children, for whom you are babysitting) run around shrieking—you’ll see every parenting stance you’ve ever adopted, every parent-story trope you’ve ever told or heard, expressed more perfectly than you ever could have. Airy unconcern about the state of one’s home, marriage, or children, masking a deeper unspoken acknowledgment that all will forever exist in a state of chaos? Shirley Jackson did it first. Outward civility masking resentment toward the perfect parents one knows? Shirley Jackson smiles wider than you ever have, and seethes more fiercely than you ever could. Struggling with your children noticing and adopting the vices that you yourself cannot shed? When Shirley Jackson finds a pack of cigarettes inside her son’s fort, she tells him “with some heat that it was perfectly all right with me if he wanted to smoke and stunt his growth and ruin his wind for baseball and basketball and football and ping-pong; it was a silly habit, I told him, expensive and useless, and if he wanted to smoke he could buy his own cigarettes and stop taking mine.”
Author Shirley Jackson. Photo by Laurence Hyman
Though Jackson’s household was a traditional one for its time—with her husband, the literary critic Stanley Hyman, disappearing into the office to type and Jackson handling the housework and child-rearing—the books still feel contemporary both in Jackson’s resistance to the drudgery of housework and in her feminist frustration about the way domesticity changes one’s self-image. Once you were a carefree young person, and now you’re some other creature, a person you barely recognize. Here’s Shirley Jackson tartly addressing that subject: “I was not bitter about being a faculty wife, very much, although it did occur to me once or twice that young men who were apt to go on and become college teachers someday might … wear some large kind of identifying badge,” she writes. “The way it is now, almost any girl is apt to find herself hardening slowly into a faculty wife when all she actually thought she was doing was just getting married.”
It’s worth noting that the books’ very existence suggests there was a bit more going on in that household than the books themselves imply; at no point does the character of Shirley Jackson shoo her children away to write, yet she was during the period of their childhoods monumentally productive, completing short stories and novels, and indeed selling the lightly fictionalized pieces that would eventually become these memoirs to Woman’s Day, Mademoiselle, and elsewhere. I hope Stanley at least took the kids out on the weekends.
However else she was spending her time, Jackson was paying close attention to her children. I’ve never read anyone better at, for example, portraying the odd (and maddening, if you must hear them every day) speech patterns of young children. Just listen to 4-year-old Sally, talking to her hung-over mother in the kitchen one morning: “Well, I told Amy’s mother that I did not have any breakfast, breakfast, because my mommy did not wake up and give it to me, mommy. And Amy’s mother said I was a poor baby, baby, and she gave me cereal and fruit, cereal, and she said there, dear, and she gave me chocolate milk and I did remember to say thank you, remember.” Ah! I want both to hug her and strangle her, as Jackson surely wanted to do at that moment, as all parents feel at least some of the time. At least I hope they do.
The even good humor of Jackson’s prose makes her voice feel perfectly unflappable, even at moments of great flappiness. The disparity is often exquisitely comic or (when she so chooses) quite moving. In Life Among the Savages, 8-year-old Laurie is struck by a car while riding his bike. “I can remember with extraordinary clarity,” Jackson writes,
that one of the people in the crowd which gathered handed me a lighted cigarette, I can remember saying reasonably that we all ought not to be standing in the middle of the road like this, I can remember the high step up into the ambulance. When they told us at the hospital, late that night, that everything was going to be all right, we came home and I finished drying the breakfast dishes.
The restraint with which this story is told—the way she supplies only the barest of details about the vast gulf between those dishes being washed in the morning and dried late that night—is what gives the story its power.
As with all exceptional stories of parenting, the purest joys in Life Among the Savages and Raising Demons come from the recognition that everything you’ve felt and feared and worried about has been felt and feared and worried about before. (Long before; in one section of Raising Demons Jackson remembers her own childhood, nearly a century ago, when her mother, in an eerily precise imitation of me every day, “was always asking us if we couldn’t find something to do, girls.”) And if they’ve happened before, they’re happening now, in households all around us, and not only our own. Reading Shirley Jackson, one of the great memoirists of family life, makes sharp those feelings once more—while reminding us that, yes, thank god and curse time, we too will one day look back on them across a gulf of years.
—
Life Among the Savages and Raising Demons by Shirley Jackson. Penguin.
See all the pieces in this month’s Slate Book Review.
Sign up for the Slate Book Review monthly newsletter.A surge of new-voter registrations in Minnesota this year is happening primarily in DFL strongholds, at a rate that could change the state's political landscape if those new voters show up on Election Day. New registrations in solidly Democratic areas are running nearly 2-1 ahead of the number in solidly Republican areas, according to a computer analysis of the registrations and voting patterns conducted by the Star Tribune. More than 100,000 new voters had registered in the state as of last Tuesday, about 46,000 of them in areas that Democrat John Kerry won by a margin of 10 percentage points or more in the 2004 presidential election. That compares with 25,000 in areas that President Bush carried by that margin. Minnesota does not register voters by political party, so it's impossible to say where the new registrants' sympathies lie. However, the computer analysis shows that nearly three-fourths of the new registrations have come in places where the 2004 presidential margin was 10 points or more, which would give some indication of political leanings. Sensing the tide from record turnouts at state caucuses in February -- about 200,000 participants at DFL gatherings and 60,000 at GOP events -- Democrats and affiliated organizations have been particularly aggressive in pursuing new voters. The increase comes as questions have been raised about voter registration drives elsewhere in the nation, but to date no indications of any pattern of impropriety have surfaced here.
The Star Tribune analysis shows that new registrations have been concentrated in urban areas such as Minneapolis, where more than 16,000 new voters have been registered this year and which John Kerry won by more than 56 percentage points. New registrations are also high in solidly Democratic-voting college towns such as Mankato, where Kerry won by more than 12 points, and Northfield, which he carried won by 36 percentage points. In Mankato, 71 percent of the new registrations were among people between the ages of 18 and 25. In Northfield, that figure was 26 percent, the newspaper analysis found Angela Okon, a 20-year-old college student and nanny in Mankato, is one of the new registered voters. She signed up in August after being approached by a volunteer at a Dave Matthews Band concert in Alpine Valley, Wis. The concert was part of a multi-city voter registration campaign staged by HeadCount, a nonpartisan organization seeking to register 18- to 34-year-olds. "I want to have a part in what's happening in our world, and I want to have the right leader leading us," said Okon, who said she strongly supported Democrat Barack Obama but has been experiencing doubts about his leadership after watching him in debates. Most of her friends, she said, don't plan to vote and have not registered. "They say they don't know who to vote for and they don't want to deal with it." Seeing an opportunity In August, Obama's Minnesota campaign manager, Jeff Blodgett, signaled that the state campaign would strive to identify new voters, particularly given that Minnesota offers Election Day registration. In 2004, about 69 percent of eligible 18- to 25-year-olds voted in Minnesota, more than the national average but below the state's overall voting rate of 77 percent. Blodgett said the campaign would seek to sign up new voters at campuses and high schools but also at events such as concerts and through street canvassing. "We see that as a huge opportunity to take advantage of," he said. The Minnesota analysis appears to closely follow patterns emerging elsewhere, particularly in battleground states. In Florida, Democratic registration gains this year are more than double those made by Republicans; in Colorado and Nevada the ratio is 4-1, and in North Carolina it is 6-1. Even in other states with nonpartisan registration, the trend appears similar; of 310,000 new voters in Virginia, a disproportionate share live in Democratic strongholds, a Washington Post survey found.
The new registrations in Minnesota could have an impact on closely contested congressional races as well. In southern Minnesota's First District, for example, Democrat Tim Walz defeated Republican incumbent Gil Gutknecht by 15,000 votes in 2006. In that district, 11,000 new voters have registered this year. In the Sixth District, where Republican Michele Bachmann won by 24,000 votes in 2004, 9,500 new voters have registered this year. Questions about registration With the upsurge have come questions about potential registration fraud. Last week, authorities in Las Vegas raided the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), which registers low-income people to vote, alleging that canvassers falsified forms with bogus names. Republicans in such battleground states as Ohio, Indiana and North Carolina have accused ACORN of extensive "voter fraud" for allegedly turning in dozens of duplicates and cards with incomplete information. ACORN officials have said the complaints are false. In 2004 in Minnesota, a 19-year-old St. Louis Park man who had worked for ACORN before being fired made news when he was accused of stashing hundreds of voter registration cards in his car's trunk and of forging names on duplicate voter registration cards to obtain extra money. He later pleaded guilty to forgery and failing to submit the cards to proper authorities. There have been no indications of voter registration fraud in Minnesota this election cycle, state and party officials say. ACORN has registered 41,000 voters in Minnesota in the last two years. Getting them out Michael McDonald, an expert on voting with the Brookings Institution and associate professor of public and international affairs at George Mason University, said that new registrations allow candidates and parties to secure lists and better mobilize efforts. While some groups, such as younger voters, are notorious for not showing up on Election Day, registering to vote is one of the prime determinants of who will participate, McDonald said. But Minnesota's Election Day registration makes predictions more of a crapshoot, he said. GOP presidential nominee John McCain has outspent Obama on television advertising here, an indication that the state may still be in play. "Minnesota for me looks like a best bet [for McCain] to pick off a blue state," McDonald said.Donald Trump may not hold office officially until Friday, but his iconic status, and his equally iconic hair, has earned a new moth namesake.
The moth has been named after Trump due to the white scales (or frons) on its head that resemble the president-elect’s signature hairstyle.
Officially, this new species has been given the name Neopalpa donaldtrumpi.
Vazrick Nazari says the name was inspired not just by Trump’s hairdo, but did so in hopes that it would bring awareness to the fragile ecosystems that exist within the United States–and all of the species that remain undiscovered.
This new moth’s habitat makes its home on the west coast, nestled in Southern California and Baja, Mexico.
It is a subset of a relatively new type of moth, known as the twirler moth, that was discovered in 1998 by Czech entomologist Dalibor Povolný on Santa Catalina Island, California.
They are part of the Neopalpa species, of which there are 4,830 known at the moment, though scientists expect there are more yet to be discovered.
This is the second type of twirler moth to be identified.
The twirler moth has earned its name from buzzing around in circles in a seemingly undisturbed manner.
Nazari discovered the moth while looking through borrowed material from the Bohart Museum of Entomology at the University of California Davis.
After noticing that some of the specimens he was looking at were not the same as other species scientists had previously described, he went on a hunt to identify how they were different.
Sure enough, he found a brand new species, which he was free to name himself.
While Nazari tweeted to Trump about the new species named in his honor, he has yet to hear back from him.
When Trump does find out, Nazari said he hopes he’ll react positively, as it was intended both in a good natured tone and to bring awareness to the importance of the government helping maintain ecosystems within its borders.
Nazari says that the tactic of naming new species after a famous person or character is not new and helps bring public awareness to the newly identified animal or plant species.Good afternoon from El Segundo. There wasn’t a ton to report from today’s practice, which was separated into two groups. The power play group took the ice first, with a second group taking the ice at 11:00 a.m. and ultimately skating through a width-of-the-ice three-on-three drill, similar to what the team worked on when practicing in southern New Jersey two weeks ago. As of now, the team isn’t scheduled to practice on Thursday.
I spoke with both Dustin Brown and Darryl Sutter after practice to learn more about the variance in one-goal games and overtimes over the last several seasons. Expect a story to come out this afternoon, as well as a story in the next 24 hours that focuses on the Kings’ attendance, marketing and television ratings. The full transcript of my conversation with Sutter is below.
Darryl Sutter, on whether there are any plans for Matt Greene to be around the team more than other injured players because of his tenure and leadership stature:
I was made aware of it yesterday. [Reporter: So it’s still too early to kind of gauge and assess it?] I just go on what you guys say, how long he’s going to be out, and then we’ll decide. He missed the whole year two years ago … it’s not like we’re doing something that’s new to us. We’re actually very familiar with Greener and what he’s had to go through. [Reporter: During that year, was he treated just like any other injured player, or was he around more just because he’s a leader on this team and he wears an A?] Well, once you have surgery, then you start your rehabilitation and your therapy. He has long days ahead of him.
Sutter, on whether the surplus of one-goal games represents league parity, or whether the strong record indicates that the Kings have simply been playing well and winning games:
Well, we played very well last year, too. It was one of the best records in the history of the organization, and the difference between right now and last year at this time would be overtimes. They were one-goal games, too. To answer your question, they were one-goal games. [Reporter: What have you liked just about the overtime, that the Kings are now 4-0 in games decided in overtime?] We’ve managed to score three-on-three. We didn’t play three-on-three last year. [Reporter: Is there anything other than the world-class players on this team that have led the Kings to be better than other teams?] Generally three-on-threes are all teams’ best players on the ice that have the ability to seal the deal for you. I think that – who’s been out on the ice when we’ve sealed the deal? Kopitar, Carter, and I guess Gaborik the game before. Usually Drew, Marty and Muzz. It’s no deep, dark story that you’re trying to write. I mean, one-goal games, if you only base it on last year, why don’t you go the year before, or the year before that? Most games are one-goal games. Take out an empty net, take out an overtime. [Reporter: So do you just see it as a variable year-to-year that there’s not a ton of correlation? Is it random, then?] To answer what you asked, last year it was overtimes. The year before that, the year before, we had an outstanding overtime and we won the Stanley Cup. Last year we didn’t make the playoffs. We had 96 points.Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
Oct. 14, 2016, 9:34 PM GMT / Updated Oct. 15, 2016, 2:27 PM GMT By Pete Williams and Safia Samee Ali
Three Kansas men were arrested Friday and charged with plotting to attack an apartment building in Garden City, Kansas where Somali immigrants were living.
Prosecutors say the men — Curtis Allen and Gavin Wright, both 49, of Liberal, Kansas, and Patrick Eugene Stein, 47, of Wright, Kansas — who called themselves "The Crusaders," were unaware that the FBI was on to them since February and kept them under close surveillance.
The men had ties to an anti-government hate group, officials said, and talked about carrying out the attack after the election.
Gavin Wright. AP
According to the charges, they considered a number of possible targets before settling on the apartment building and talked about attacking it with car bombs which they said would "wake people up."
The men were arrested Friday morning in the Liberal, Kansas area, after receiving what they thought were working firearms from an FBI undercover operative, officials said.
All three were charged with one count each of conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction, prosecutors said.
"These individuals had desire, the means, and the capabilities and were committed to carrying out this act of domestic terrorism," Eric Jackson, FBI special agent in charge for District of Kansas, said at a press conference Friday.
There is a sizable Somali population in that area working in a Tyson foods processing plant.
The plot involved filling four vehicles with explosives and placing the car bombs at each corner of the building, which has 120 residents, Jackson and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Kansas said.
Stein allegedly showed an FBI source the building they planned to attack, and said he would get ammonium nitrate for the bomb. Stein also was worried that Allen's arrest for domestic violence on Tuesday could lead Allen's girlfriend to expose details to police, the prosecutor's office said.
Curtis Allen. Sedgwick County Sheriff / AP
"This plot was something that was imminent," Jackson said. He described the men as an "isolated group" not linked to any other groups.
The charge of conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction carries a potential sentence of up to life in prison, prosecutors said.
Acting U.S. Attorney Tom Beall said in a statement that the eight-month investigation "is alleged to have taken the investigators deep into a hidden culture of hatred and violence."
"Many Kansans may find it as startling as I have that such things could happen here," Beall said.Phelanpt wrote:
Otomosix wrote:
I'm a HUGE fan of the Battletech CCG (as well as a fan of the classic miniatures game...except that takes way too long in comparison). I love the enthusiasm you have and effort you've put into this Dominion-variant.
A few questions:
1) What is the quality of the ArtsCow cards? Same size as the original CCG? Same feel for shuffling?
2) What's the best way to get these cards (ArtsCow or other source) without making them yourself (don't really have the time to do so)? I saw Phelan's link of (5) 54-card sets but ending up with only (15) Basic Factory and (15) Infantry Platoon cards instead of 25 and 20 respectively. Is there another "complete set" I can order ready-made (from ArtsCow or another company)?
Thanks!
1- It's not the same quality as the CCG in terms of ink, it's slightly lower. The cards might also be a bit down grade from the CCG but not that much. What you might notice more is that if you shuffle a lot, the edges will start getting marked, something that didn't happen with the CCG cards.This is from other artscow sets I printed out.More than 120 graduate students at Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, known as Beihang University, began attending classes on artificial intelligence (AI) Thursday.
Artificial intelligence (AI) [File Photo: sina.com]
As China's first group of graduate students majoring in AI, they will receive joint training from both the university and AI-related companies.
The curriculum includes cognitive science, visual perception, unmanned systems and robotics. Some courses will be taught in company labs and beside production lines. Students are also required to intern and take part in project research and development for at least one year in one of the participating companies.
According to the university, 30 percent of the teachers are leading industry experts, and another 30 percent are renowned scholars. Over 90 percent of the teachers have overseas work or education experience related to AI.As equity markets spike to all new highs with each passing day, the number of fiscal crises springing up within local and state governments around the country are reaching somewhat alarming levels, even if they're being completely ignored by investors. As Reuters notes this morning, the state of Pennsylvania may become the latest example government failure when it runs out of cash later tonight leaving some $860 million worth of bills unpaid.
Pennsylvania could run out of cash on Friday, leaving $860 million of bill payments up in the air as lawmakers continue to argue over a revenue package that is more than two months overdue.
The state legislature passed a $32.5 billion spending plan on June 30, the end of the fiscal year and the deadline for the current year’s budget.
But it failed to agree on a revenue package to pay for those expenses, and the state has been borrowing money from its own short-term investment pool.
Treasurer Joe Torsella has said he will not issue more such loans and that the state’s general fund will likely run down to zero on Friday.
While Pennsylvania will be able to make some payments - including nearly $102 million of debt service costs due on Friday - it will not be able to pay all the bills that are due, said Treasury spokesman Mike Connolly.
An estimated $860 million of payments for various items, possibly including schools and Medicaid, could be delayed until the legislature fully funds the budget.PARIS — European nations moved on Wednesday to intensify their involvement in Iraq, announcing further humanitarian aid and, for the first time, pledging to supply arms to the embattled Kurdish forces fighting the Sunni militants who have overrun much of northern Iraq.
The shift is an important one for Europe, where the legacy of the first Iraq war remains divisive, but several factors in the current conflict are steadily tilting nations here toward deeper engagement now that President Obama has begun sending military advisers for the first time since American troops left in 2011.
Analysts said that the images of dusty families sleeping in the open on a barren, rocky mountain had put pressure on officials to take action, despite what for many here remains the toxic legacy of the American-led invasion of 2003.
For Europeans, the specter of a humanitarian calamity — particularly involving what is being portrayed here as a Christian minority — has resonated.An integrated development environment (IDE) such as PHPStorm, Eclipse or Netbeans provides a set of tools and integrations available together to make development easier.
Common features are:
Text Editor
Project search and replace
Automatic building, testing, linting
Source control integration
The command-line meets all of these features.
Editor
First, my text editor is vim. I don’t use vim as an IDE, which some do, I use it as a text editor. Vim opens so quickly, it’s no hassle to open and close it frequently. Just like the editor text pane in an IDE, if I’m editing a file its open, if not its closed.
There are plenty of vim tutorials and articles, I wrote a vim cheat sheet which has a few tips on how I use vim. I’ll include one new tip here on plugin management, check out vim-plug.
Here is the section in my.vimrc to setup plugins, which to install I just run :PlugInstall or to update :PlugUpdate plus more commands for managing plugins.
call plug#begin('~/.vim/plugged') Plug 'fatih/vim-go' Plug 'junegunn/fzf', { 'dir': '~/.fzf' } Plug 'junegunn/fzf.vim' Plug'scrooloose/nerdcommenter' Plug 'SirVer/ultisnips' Plug 'tpope/vim-surround' call plug#end()
Search
I’m recently discovered ripgrep, which is a fast search tool, tops compared to grep, ack, silver searcher (ag), and the previous champ platinum searcher (pt).
Ripgrep is fast, but the real power comes when you pair it with fzf which is a fuzzy search tool. This combination is so powerful, and can be used both inside vim and on the command-line.
First, install fzf by either simply downloading the binary, or you can clone the repo and run the install strip with --all flag to configure bash and extras.
Next download and install ripgrep, required a bit of manual copy of binary and completion files, but depends on your OS.
Use fzf and ripgrep in vim
You can see above in the editor section, how I add the fzf plugins in vim using vim-plug. There are two plugins, one applies basic support (fzf) while the other (fzf.vim) adds some nice functions for using deeper in vim, for example to search buffers or tabs.
Add the following environment variable to your ~/.bashrc, or ~/.fzf,bash to configure fzf to use ripgrep by default.
export FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND='rg --files --hidden --follow'
My fzf file search will then use ripgrep to find the files by filename. I map <Leader> p to open using fzf: map <Leader>p :Files<CR> See the benefit of fzf illustrated below, it help even misspellings.
You can also fzf to search open buffers, hat tip to Ian. I map ; to search buffers using fzf: nmap ; :Buffers<CR>
To use ripgrep to search inside of files in vim, I map <Leader>f to call the custom function :Find to perform the search.
" map key to command map <Leader>f :Find<space> command! -bang -nargs=* Find call fzf#vim#grep( 'rg --column --line-number --no-heading --fixed-strings --ignore-case --hidden --follow --color "always" '.shellescape(<q-args>), 1, <bang>0)
Configure fzf in Command-line
All this searching and opening files in vim is pretty nice, let’s do the same in the command line. By adding the following to your ~/.fzf.bash you can use fzf when using ctrl-r to search bash history.
export FZF_CTRL_T_COMMAND="$FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND" bind -x '"\C-p": vim $(fzf);'
The above also maps ctrl-p to search for files and open in vim, ctrl-p on the command-line, WUT?
Search & Replace
Another common task of an IDE is multiple file search and replace. Unix has so many utilities working with text, there is no shortage of options. I tend to use the trusty sed command. It works across one or multiple files as you would expect.
sed -i's/old/new/' file
Build, Test, Lint
There is not much to comment on building, testing, or linting. These are all command-line tools which the IDE abstracts and integrates in. If you work on the command-line, no abstraction required.
My tip is to create scripts to make it consistent and easy on yourself when switching between projects, Makefiles work well here, or whatever tool you like. So you can just run make build or make test in each of your projects.
Source Control Integration
Source control integration is the same as above. Your source control is just commands on the command-line, so simply use them. Removing the layer of abstraction helps prevent errors, and makes sure you do what you intend. This may require learning the tools a bit more; but source control is critical to software development, you should know how they work.
Workspace
An IDE usually has panels that are configured into a workspace. It might have a file browser on the left, editor in the middle, maybe a panel on bottom or right. I use tmux as my way to setup and extend my workspace. You can even start tmux with a given configuration and commands.
Tmux gives you an almost unlimited workspace that you can configure however you wish. Create more tabs to keep a build-watch process running, open up more terminals to search or edit, create split windows to monitor performance. Whatever you need you can set it up.
Another valuable tool that I use to navigate through my workspace is rupa’s z.sh which allows you to quickly jump to any directory by simply typing z <str> where the str is any partial directory name. It navigates by recency so is almost always just what you want.
Last tip, if you are working on a certain set of files over and over again, write a little script to open them all up. A quick way to get going, for example:
#!/bin/bash ## wksp-gallery-block.sh vim blocks/library/gallery/* blocks/library/index.js
Summary
As you can see, the command-line provides a rich set of powerful tools, which for me replaces the need for an all-in-one IDE. It really is the Unix way, simple powerful tools for each job.
Check out my dotfiles to see my config files, or my command-line basics and tips for more CLI goodness.The budget President Barack Obama will submit on April 10 will contain a proposal that would prohibit individuals from accumulating more than $3 million in Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) and tax-preferred retirement accounts.
According to a White House statement, the Obama administration believes the current rules allow some wealthy individuals “to accumulate many millions of dollars in these accounts, substantially more than is needed to fund reasonable levels of retirement saving.”
“The budget would limit an individual’s total balance across tax-preferred accounts to an amount sufficient to finance an annuity of not more than $205,000 per year in retirement, or about $3 million in 2013,” the statement said. “This proposal would raise $9 billion over 10 years.”
Brian Graff, executive director and chief executive officer of the American Society of Pension Professionals and Actuaries, told Bloomberg News his group intends to “vigorously oppose” the proposal.
“It is a plan killer,” Graff said. “As business owners reach the cap, they will lose their incentive to maintain a plan, and either shut down the plan or greatly reduce benefits. This would leave workers with a greatly diminished plan or without any plan at all.”Mixed Reality Devices VR devices
Other Versions Cannot access other versions offline!
VR overview
Unity VR lets you target virtual reality devices directly from Unity, |
wide receiver Jacoby Ford will be placed on injured reserve following foot surgery. (Translation: Ford will be placed on injured reserve.) It's unclear if Ford could be "designated to return" later in the season, but Ford clearly won't be around for a while.
The team was hoping Ford, Denarius Moore and Darrius Heyward-Bey would form an explosive starting combination. Moore missed all of the preseason and Week 1 with a hamstring injury, although he may be back this week against the Miami Dolphins.
Undrafted rookie Rod Streater will have a bigger role throughout the year with Ford on the shelf. Streater had only 27 receiving yards in the season opener despite seeing 10 targets sent his way.
Follow Gregg Rosenthal on Twitter @greggrosenthalProud of her natural curves, Kate Winslet has declared that she will never give in to Hollywood pressure to undergo cosmetic surgery.
“It goes against my morals, the way that my parents brought me up and what I consider to be natural beauty," says the 35-year-old star of Titanic. “I will never give in.”
Winslet, who is the daughter of “jobbing actors” from Berkshire, adds: “I am an actress, I don’t want to freeze the expression of my face.”
Her comments echo those by her Oscar-winning friend Emma Thompson, to whom she has been close since they appeared together in Sense and Sensibility in 1995.
“I’m not fiddling about with myself,” said Thompson, 52. “We’re in this awful youth-driven thing now where everybody needs to look 30 at 60.”
Rachel Weisz, 41, who won an Oscar for her role in The Constant Gardener, said: “People who look too perfect don’t look sexy or particularly beautiful.”
However, Gwyneth Paltrow, the American actress, who lives in London with her husband, the Coldplay singer Chris Martin, says she would consider surgery on her breasts.
“I still refuse to use silicone, Botox or any other of those gimmicks of pure vanity, but a breast correction after breast feeding – why not?" she says. "There’s actually nothing else to restore the original condition, is there?”Taxes in Prolog
(This is the text of an article that was originally published in PCAI magazine in 1988. The tax code that is referenced is from that time, but the ideas are still valid. The source code for the tax program is part of the Amzi! Prolog samples and also included with the Building Expert Systems in Prolog disk.)
Introduction
Prolog is extremely well suited to laying out tax forms. This is because the forms are really just composed of rules for filling out various lines. Those rules map almost directly into Prolog syntax, giving a very desirably small "semantic gap".
Semantic gap refers to the difference between expressing a problem in its own domain, and expressing it in some programming environment. For example, the tax program could have been written in C or Assembler. Assembler would have the largest semantic gap, since the semantics of assembler are concerned with moving and manipulating bits and bytes. This is far from the semantics of the tax form which are concerned with relationships between monetary values. A C program would have a semantic gap somewhere in between that of Assembler and Prolog.
The programmer's job is to map a problem specified in problem domain semantics into the programming environment semantics. The smaller the semantic gap, the easier the job. The greater the semantic gap, the higher the salary the programmer commands.
A tax program also requires a database of raw data, and the ability to bring that data into the tax forms. Prolog's built-in database of facts and rules is ideally suited to this purpose. The raw data is represented as simple facts, and rules express more complex relationships between the data.
The architecture used had two files. The first had the rules for filling out the lines of the tax form that were relevant for my situation. The second had the data which was referred to by the rules.
This basic structure was extremely well suited to the "what- if" types of games associated with financial hacking. The program could be run for various cases by simply changing the data.
It is also well suited for getting estimated results. Guesses can be filled in for values which are not initially known, and the program run to get a feel for what your tax situation will be.
There are other advantages as well. The program and its data become a clean record for the taxes of that year. If you need to file estimated taxes, just plugging in new data for the current year and running the program gives as accurate a picture as possible for quarterly estimates.
The final advantage is, if you buy a Prolog to do your taxes, you can write off the cost on your taxes. (I won't go to the audit with you, but bring your code, maybe the IRS will buy a copy of your program.)
The Basic Idea
Let's start with an oversimplification, and fantasize about a simple tax form, 1040F in figure 1.
line 1 wages | | line 2 tax - enter 5% of line 1 | | line 3 withheld | | line 4 refund (line 3 - line 2) | |
Figure 1 - Fantasy Tax Form, 1040F
Each line of the tax form can be represented as a rule, with the name line. The line predicate has four arguments: the form name, the line number, a description, and a value. The rules for each line will refer to the database and to each other as necessary. Given this, here is a Prolog program to compute taxes for form 1040F. (Remember, terms beginning with upper case are variables.)
tax:- line('1040F', 4, refund, X), write('They owe you: '), write(X), nl.
line('1040F', 1, wages, X) :- wages(X). line('1040F', 2, tax, X) :- line('1040F', 1, _, WAGES), X is.05 * WAGES.
line('1040F', 3, withheld, X) :- withheld(X). line('1040F', 4, refund, X) :- line('1040F', 2, _, TAX), line('1040F', 3, _, WITHHELD), X is WITHHELD - TAX.
wages(30000).
withheld(2000).
In this program, tax is the top level predicate which is called in a query to start the program. In true business like fashion, it immediately asks for the bottom line. The rule for line 4 calls rules for line 3 and 2, which call other line rules etc. This program accesses data from the predicates wages and withheld.
This basic scheme can be applied to the entire tax form, however there are a few changes to be made which make the total job simpler. First, this program computes the bottom line, but doesn't "remember" the numbers that go on all of the other lines of the tax form. In addition, if the same line is needed more than once either due to backtracking, or just the nature of the tax law, this program will recompute it.
Instead of having each line refer directly to other lines, we can add an intermediate predicate which "remembers" the value of each line as it is computed. It will then use the remembered value if it is available, or if not, compute it and remember the answer in the database.
The intermediate predicate is getl, which is called by the lines in the tax form when a value from another line is needed. If a line hasn't been called before, getl will call the line and save the result in the predicate lin (using assertz). If the line has been called, getl will simply get the saved value from lin. Since every line that is called should have a value, getl returns an error message if it fails to come up with an answer.
getl(Form, Line, X) :- lin(Form, Line, _, X),!. getl(Form, Line, X) :- line(Form, Line, Description, X), assertz( lin(Form, Line, Description, X) ),!. getl(Form, Line, X) :- write(' *** error on: '), write(Form-Line), write(' ***'), nl.
The predicate getl is then used in the tax form rules instead of direct references to other lines.
line('1040F', 1, wages, X) :- wages(X). line('1040F', 2, tax, X) :- getl('1040F', 1, WAGES), X is.05 * WAGES. line('1040F', 3, withheld, X) :- withheld(X). line('1040F', 4, refund, X) :- getl('1040F',2,TAX), getl('1040F', 3, WITHHELD), X is WITHHELD - TAX.
Now that the data for each line has been saved, we can write a report predicate which lays out the tax form as it needs to be filled out. Note that even though we start at the bottom line, the first line actually computed is line 1. Seeing as getl uses assertz to add things to the end of the database, the clauses for lin (stored by getl) are generally in the correct order for the report.
report(Form) :- write('----- '), write(Form), write(' -----'), nl, lin(Form, Number, Description, Value), write(Number), tabto(10), write(Description), tabto(40), write(Value), nl, fail. report(_).
Since many of the lines of the tax form involve adding together multiple other lines, or taking the difference of two lines, it would be useful to write two utility predicates which perform these functions, so that the readability of the program is not adversely affected.
The first is sum_lines which takes for arguments a form name and a list of line numbers on the form. It returns the sum of all of the values from those lines. It uses a secondary predicate sumlin to ensure a more efficient tail recursive execution.
sum_lines(F,L,X) :- sumlin(F,L,0,X).
sumlin(F,[],X,X). sumlin(F,[H|T],X,Y) :- getl(F,H,A), XX is X + A, sumlin(F,T,XX,Y).
The second is line_dif which computes the difference between two lines on a given form.
line_dif(F,A,B,X) :- getl(F,A,AX), getl(F,B,BX), X is AX - BX.
To use the program, the goal tax is first used to get the bottom line. Then the report predicate is used to get a detailed listing.
?- tax. They owe you: 500
?- report('1040F'). ----- 1040F ----- 1 wages 30000 2 tax 1500 3 withheld 2000 4 refund 500
The same tax formulas can be used with different data. To use the program for a different individual, simply change the data values for wages and withheld.
Back to Reality
Given this basic strategy, and the tools developed so far, one can easily build a customized tax program covering those forms and lines applicable to a particular case. Lets look at various excerpts from the program in listing 1.
The dependent calculations indicate how to use multiple versions of a line to cover different situations. The two clauses for line 6b represent the two cases of a spouse exemption depending on whether the status is married joint or not. Line 6e shows how sum_lines is used. This segment of code makes use of two data section predicates, status and children.
line(1040,'6a','exemption self',1). line(1040,'6b','exemption spouse',1) :- status(married_joint). line(1040,'6b','',0). line(1040,'6c','dependent children',X) :- children(X). line(1040,'6e','total dependents',X) :- sum_lines(1040,['6a','6b','6c'],X).
The income calculations on form 1040 show how calculations from different forms are tied together. In this case data is drawn in from schedules B and C.
line(1040,7,'wages salaries etc',X) :- wages(X). line(1040,8,'interest income',X) :- getl(b,3,X). line(1040,13,'business profit or loss',X) :- getl(c,31,X). line(1040,22,'total income',X) :- sum_lines(1040,[7,8,13], X).
The following rules from the adjusted income section of 1040 and the medical deductions for schedule A, show how straight forwardly Prolog represents some confusing intertwined tax code. The rule is, you can deduct the minimum of either: 25% of your health insurance, or your income from a business from taxable income. However, if you take a deduction on line 1040 - 25, then you must not include that amount in schedule A.
line(1040,25,'health insurance',X) :- health_insurance(A), B is integer( 0.25 * A + 0.5 ), getl(c,31,C), minimum([B,C],X). line(1040,30,'adjusted gross income',X) :- line_dif(1040,22,25,X).
line(a,2,'medical fees',X) :- medical_fees(A), getl(1040,25,B), X is A - B. line(a,3,'7.5% of income',X) :- getl(1040,31,A), X is integer(0.075 * A + 0.5). line(a,4,'total medical',X) :- line_dif(a,2,3,X).
Here is the code that calls schedule A to get itemized deductions, calculates the appropriate standard deduction, and makes the right decision on which to use for the tax form.
line(1040,'33a','itemized deductions',X) :- getl(a,26,X). line(1040,'33b','standard deduction',2540) :- status(single). line(1040,'33b','standard deduction',3760) :- status(married_joint). line(1040,'33b','standard deduction',1880) :- status(married_separate). line(1040,34,'less itemized deductions',X) :- getl(1040,'33a',A), getl(1040,'33b',B), A > B, line_dif(1040,31,'33a',X),!. line(1040,34,'less standard deductions',X) :- line_dif(1040,31,'33b',X).
The tax computation is done by another predicate which knows how to build tax tables. It breaks income into a step function in $50 increments and uses the formulas for the midpoints of the steps. An excerpt is included here:
line(1040,37,'tax computation',X) :- getl(1040,36,A), compute_tax(A,X).
compute_tax(A,Tax) :- % adjust for tax table calc B is integer(A / 50), C is B * 50 + 25, comput_tax(C,Tax).
comput_tax(A,Tax) :- status(single), rate_single(A,T),!, Tax is integer(T + 0.5). rate_single(A,T) :- A =< 1800, T is 0.11 * A. rate_single(A,T) :- A =< 16800, T is 198 + 0.15 * (A - 1800).
Some forms require tabular information to be filled in on the form. So far, the tax program does not handle this case. To include it, certain lines have as their value a Prolog data structure of the form table(TableName). TableName is the name of a predicate in the data section which will write the required table. The report predicate calls TableName when it encounters this type of value.
For example, on schedule B - 2, you must list all of the banks you earned interest from. The clause for line B-2 has as its value table(int_inc_tab). This means there is a predicate int_inc_tab in the database which displays the banks and interest.
line(b,2,'interest accounts',table(int_inc_tab)). line(b,3,'total interest income',X) :- getl(b,2,_), interest_income(X).
The report predicate is modified to call a predicate process to deal with the Value. If Value is a structure of the form table(T), then the predicate T is called. Otherwise the Value is printed as before.
report(Form) :- nl, write('----- '),write(Form),write(' -----'),nl,nl, lin(Form,Line,Desc,Value), process(Line,Desc,Value), fail. report(_).
process(Line,Desc,table(T)) :- write(Line), tabto(5),write(Desc),nl, T,!. process(Line,Desc,Amount) :- write(Line), tabto(5),write(Desc), tabto(45),write(Amount),nl.
Next let's look at the data portion of the program. On the fantasy form we saw how simple data such as wages and withheld are stored in the data section. Let's look now at the messy case of interest income. With the Prolog database, the data need not just contain data, but can contain rules as well.
Besides having to provide a table, interest income is further complicated in Taxachusetts by the necessity of having to distinguish between interest from Massachusetts banks and non-Massachusetts banks. However, the tax form program is unaware of the underlying complexity and simply goes to the database for int_inc_tab and interest_income. It does not know if these are simple facts, or more complex rules.
% ----- data for schedule b -----
interest_income(Z) :- mass_interest_income(X), non_mass_interest_inc(Y), Z is X + Y.
int_inc_tab :- get_int_inc(Account,Amount), tabto(5),write(Account),write(':'), tabto(40),write(Amount),nl, fail. int_inc_tab.
% ---
mass_interest_income(X) :- bagof(A,T^int_inc(T,A),L), list_sum(L,X).
non_mass_interest_inc(X) :- bagof(A,T^non_mass_int_inc(T,A),L), list_sum(L,X).
get_int_inc(Acc,Am) :- int_inc(Acc,Am). get_int_inc(Acc,Am) :- non_mass_int_inc(Acc,Am).
int_inc('first bank',186). int_inc('second bank',170). int_inc('wife''s checking',79) :- status(married_ joint). int_inc('wife''s savings',721) :- status(married_joint).
non_mass_int_inc('other bank',812) :- status(married_joint).
The bagof predicate is used to assemble the separate clauses into a list. It is a built-in predicate of Prolog which was used for this program, but most Prolog's have a similar predicate, usually findall. (If not, Programming in Prolog by Clocksin & Mellish has the code for writing your own.)
Notice how even the data can have rules associated with it. Some of the int_inc clauses will be included only if the filing status is married_joint.
It is useful in the data section to distinguish between those predicates which are required by the tax form predicates, and those which support other data predicates. This way there are no errors when the data is replaced since it is clear which data predicates need to have a value.
The data section is especially useful for keeping track of business expenses. Again the data contains the rules for the specific case. In my case I use 1/7 of my apartment for my home business. This figure is built into the rules which calculate the utility expense which winds up as a line item on schedule C. For next year I simply need to plug in the new values for the electric bills. This data could also have been saved in the separate clause format used for interest income if preferred.
utils(XX) :- phone(A), gas_total(B), elec_total(C), oil_total(D), X is A + (B + C + D) / 7, XX is integer(X + 0.5).
elec_total(X) :- elec(L), list_sum(L,X).
elec([30,59,42,22,34,30,40,34]).
Conclusions
Prolog's use of logic to express programming constructs is exceptionally well suited to financial applications. This is due to the fact that financial applications are made up of rules for relating data. This is exactly the paradigm that Prolog uses.
In the case of a tax program, the advantage is even more significant. The tax law is made up of many logical (this could be debated) rules. The rules are represented almost verbatim in Prolog code.
One issue that must always be raised is performance. It seems as if this year I had one of everything the IRS cares about. As a result my program had to deal with seven different forms. The tax computation on a Macintosh SE was under two seconds.
There is an opportunity to utilize Prolog for developing intelligent financial applications. In particular a commercial tax program might also include various rules which give advice above and beyond the IRS rules. That is, it would become an integrated tax program and expert system.
In addition, the straight forward rule syntax of Prolog makes for code which is very easy to modify from year to year. The proliferation of Prolog's on various machines makes the code reasonably easy to port from machine to machine. In short, the vendor working with Prolog has a tremendous advantage over vendor's working with more conventional languages.Indeed, wonders shall never end in the crypto land. Stratis, the Blockchain application token, which entered the top 10 less than two weeks ago selling for a few dollars, is now being sold for $11.42.
At 10:00 GMT on Saturday, it sprang 52.55 percent making a casualty of Monero and Dash to become the seventh most expensive digital currency in the world. Its market capitalization is now worth more than $1 bln.
On its way to the elite range, it displaced Golem and later Stellar Lumens to occupy the ninth spot. It then overtook Monero to take the number eight spot but Monero fought back to push it back to the ninth rank.
Ecstasy for holders
Cointelegraph reached out to Stratis holders to gauge their opinion. "Well, I bought early, so I am happy, I guess," exclaims Thegoodhen. "I think Stratis has a lot of upward potentials," he adds. Another holder, TJAndy, says he bought Stratis when it was just 60 cents, and it has since shown tremendous growth ($11.42 as of now) within a short period of time. "This is just the beginning - you can think of this as filling the rocket with fuel right now, preparing to take off in the near future," he notes.
"I am feeling amazed and hoping everyone that has joined did it due to the promising technology of Stratis. The gains are impressive. They are happening when I am sleeping, so every day is a day when I wake up surprised,” Pvink states.
When Cointelegraph asked JPR how he feels, he smiled and said: "Well it changed my life. I left my day job and now I can just do what I like, which is investing in Blockchain projects."
The holders of Stratis are optimistic about its future and believe there is more to come. JPR says: "It looks promising. The team announced they are about to double the number of full-time developers. At the moment, they have over $20 mln to spend on development and marketing and they have not even finished the funding round yet. The growth is going to explode now."
Even though Thegoodhen says he is not an oracle, he states that it would be "fair" to foresee Stratis reaching the price of ETC based on its similarity and the fact that it has better development.
He explained further: "I wouldn't put my life savings into it but I feel it's still undervalued, probably. The price of cryptos is mostly driven by speculation at this point. I wouldn't put a million bucks into it but it's a good thing to have in your portfolio. The best thing would be to save some money you can afford to lose every week and put it in cryptos, Stratis being one of them. I personally hope for Stratis to reach $100."
Moreso, Pvink believes the future looks bright, so long as the team keeps up with the development. "For now, I have a good feeling as they never missed a deadline," Pvink concluded.
Either way, it is only with time in which the sustainability of a coin can be determined. Thus, for example, Ripple gained a market cap of $18 bln and reverted back to $8 bln.
One more thing to consider is the performance of coins after the ICO. The price change of Stratis token is quite impressive leaving even Augur and Lisk behind.Why the South China Sea tensions were removed from Australian Greens’ speech
By Oscar Grenfell
20 May 2016
On Wednesday, Greens leader Richard Di Natale delivered a foreign policy speech to the Lowy Institute think tank in which he made criticisms of the US-Australia alliance and called for a more “independent” Australian foreign policy. As the WSWS noted on May 18, there were substantial discrepancies between the speech Di Natale delivered, and the preview of his remarks in the Murdoch and Fairfax press earlier that day.
A review of the initial version of Di Natale’s speech, which his office had sent to the Australian and other media outlets, underscores that the changes to the speech were of considerable political significance.
The Greens leader removed any reference to the mounting tensions in the South China Sea, and any remarks that would have drawn attention to Australia’s integration into the growing US confrontation with China on the economic, military and ideological fronts. The Greens made a conscious decision that their leader would not challenge either of the major parties, Labor and the Liberal-Nationals, or the Obama administration, over policies that are threatening to provoke a war with China.
On the tensions in the South China Sea, the earlier version of Di Natale’s speech contained the following passage: “Australia is rapidly escalating our military technology so as to join and contribute to a regional arms race, interceding in a South China Sea proxy war between our two largest trading partners over 4,000 kilometres from our shores, all without diplomatic efforts having even gotten out of first gear.”
By the time Di Natale mounted the rostrum at the Lowy Institute, this passage had been removed entirely.
Over the past 12 months, the US and its allies, including Australia, have ramped-up their campaign against China over longstanding territorial disputes in the South China Sea. Last week, the US military conducted its third “freedom of navigation” incursion into Chinese-claimed territory in the Sea, provoking the Chinese military to scramble jet fighters and deploy warships.
A report released by the Pentagon this week made clear that the US is planning to escalate its military forays into Chinese territory, in a bid to provoke even more bellicose responses from the Chinese military. This reckless policy has the full backing of both the Liberal-Nationals and the Labor Party.
The Coalition government of Malcolm Turnbull has repeatedly declared its support for the US provocations and indicated that it asserts the right of Australia to conduct its own “freedom of navigation” operations. The Labor Party has been even more aggressive, with shadow defence minister Stephen Conroy denouncing Turnbull for not immediately ordering Australian warships and aircraft into Chinese-claimed territory.
Di Natale’s silence is a signal that the Greens will not speak out as the war dangers grow in the South China Sea and will not oppose direct Australian intervention into the conflict.
On the economic front, the earlier version of Di Natale’s speech had denounced “the dogged pursuit of the US-backed Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement by the Abbott-Turnbull government—and backed by the Labor Party…” The Greens leader was to say: “With the potentially massive cost to Australia of investor-state dispute settlement provisions, it is clear that this deal doesn’t benefit Australian’s at all.”
All references to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) were deleted from the speech that Di Natale ultimately delivered.
The investor-state dispute settlement provisions are a draconian clause of the TPP that allows corporations to sue governments on the grounds that state policies have hindered investment and business operations. More importantly, the TPP is not a trade agreement. It is an economic bloc dominated by the US and explicitly directed against China. US President Barack Obama made this clear last year, declaring “we can’t let countries like China write the rules of the global economy. We should write those rules.”
The omission of the TPP from Di Natale’s remarks are in line with the support for the US trade war agenda by the dominant factions of the Australian political and corporate establishment.
Most significantly, Di Natale’s speech was edited to remove sentences and expressions that undermined, or even mildly questioned, the underlying ideological justification of the US “pivot to Asia”—that China is an “aggressive” and “expansionist” threat.
In the draft speech, the Greens leader was to state that the massive military procurement program outlined by the Liberal-National government and supported by Labor—which includes over $50 billion allocated to the purchase of 12 potentially nuclear submarines and $17 billion for F-35 Joint Strike Fighters—was being carried out “in the absence of an increase in direct threats to Australia.”
Later on, Di Natale was to state that that the “Greens believe we need a defence force that protects Australia, not one that exists to play gate-keeper between two regional powers.”
Both these comments were deleted. Instead, Di Natale claimed that the military spending was merely an “industry policy.” He followed this with populist rhetoric about reallocating funding to health, education and climate change policies. The Greens apparently decided that the remarks in the initial version of the speech came too close to the great unmentionable of Australian politics—that the build-up of the armed forces is aimed at preparing for war with China.
At the same time, the reference in the draft to the “absence of direct threats” to Australia would have called into question the incessant declarations by Washington, its allies and the pliant corporate media that China is a threat to countries throughout the Asia-Pacific. When asked by the moderator for his position on the South China Sea, Di Natale confirmed that the Greens will not challenge the ideological pretext of the “pivot.” He echoed the establishment claims, referring to “what some would say are China’s aggressive actions” and declaring that the Greens were “concerned.”
As the WSWS commented on May 18, Di Natale’s speech underscores the duplicity of the Greens. While criticising Australia’s participation in US-led wars in the Middle East, and the use of the Pine Gap military base in central Australia to coordinate the Pentagon’s criminal drone strike program, the Greens leader contributed to the conspiracy of silence on the danger of war with China.
The purpose of Di Natale’s speech was not to oppose militarism, but to give voice to the concerns of sections of business over the consequences of Australia’s alignment with the US for its trade relationships, particularly with China. Di Natale was at pains to emphasise that his views were “not radical” and to stress that they were derived from the positions of former conservative Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser.
The truth is that the Greens, no less than Labor and the Liberals, support the US confrontation with China. They have always couched their criticisms of government foreign policy, including the 2003 invasion of Iraq, from the standpoint that the Australian military should focus its operations in the “arc of stability” in the South Pacific and the Indonesian archipelago, to protect the interests of the Australian corporate and financial elite in its “backyard.” In 2010, for instance, then Greens leader, Bob Brown warned of growing Chinese influence in East Timor and cited it as a reason to bring troops back from Afghanistan. In 2011, the Greens welcomed President Obama’s announcement of the “pivot to Asia”—its massive military build-up in the Asia-Pacific—from the floor of the Australian parliament.
The author also recommends:
Australian Greens leader criticises the US alliance—without mentioning China
[18 May 2016]
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Helmut Schmidt, the West German chancellor from 1974 to 1982 and one of Germany’s most respected postwar politicians, has died at the age of 96.
The health of Germany’s longest-surviving chancellor deteriorated rapidly in the last few days and he died at his home in Hamburg-Langenhorn of an infection following a long illness, his doctor, Heiner Greten, said.
How Helmut Schmidt helped Germany thrive in tough times Read more
Although Schmidt was sometimes criticised during his time in power, which included eight critical years during the cold war, for his aloofness, vanity and rudeness, in retirement he became a hugely loved and respected elder statesman whose popularity seemed to grow from year to year.
Schmidt served as defence minister, then minister for finance and economy under Social Democrat chancellor Willy Brandt before rising to the top job when Brandt resigned in 1974 after a top aide was unmasked as a Stasi agent.
As chancellor, among the challenges the trained economist had to face was the worldwide oil crisis in the 1970s and the fight against the Red Army Faction (RAF), which terrorised Germany in the late 70s and 80s.
Schmidt was voted out of office in 1982 after the Free Democrats, the junior partners in his coalition government, turned their loyalty towards his conservative rival Helmut Kohl, who stayed in office for the next 16 years.
Schmidt was a popular guest on late night talkshows in recent years, ever keen to offer his opinion on world affairs while chain smoking. He insisted on being given an ashtray wherever he was, blatantly ignoring all smoking bans. A leading proponent of the European project, he heaped both praise and criticism on Angela Merkel’s handling of the Greek euro crisis.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Helmut Schmidt dancing with his wife Loki at a ball in Berlin in January 1977. Photograph: Chris Hoffmann/AFP/Getty Images
Highly quotable, among his most memorable phrases was the remark: “People with visions should go to the doctor.” He said he feared death, referring to it as “finally having to change addresses”.
His weekly column – called Having a cigarette with Helmut Schmidt – appeared in the magazine of the Hamburg newspaper Die Zeit, where Schmidt had become one of the publishers in the mid 1980s. It allowed him to air his sometimes uppity, often pithy views on life and politics in an interview with the paper’s editor in chief, Giovanni di Lorenzo, who reported having to air his office for hours after Schmidt’s smoky visits.
Born in Hamburg in 1918, the grandson of a docker, Schmidt married Hannelore Glaser in 1942, a union that both described as extremely happy and which lasted for 68 years until the death of Loki, as she was popularly known, in 2010. He surprised the public by remarrying just two years later.
Helmut Schmidt: 'Britain's empire has gone, though you think it still exists' Read more
During the second world war Schmidt served as a soldier in a tank division on the eastern front, later on the western front. He repeatedly said he had been shaped by the “shit of the war”. He admitted that he had marched with the naval branch of the Hitler Youth movement in the 1930s, but was repeatedly heard saying during the war how grotesque he found the Nazi regime. Army generals intervened on his behalf to insist he had an anti-Nazi stance, so he avoided being put on trial following the war. He spent a short time as a prisoner of war under the British in 1945.
Schmidt often referred to the fact that it was his time as a PoW that politicised him and persuaded him to become a Social Democrat in 1946. Thereafter he had a rapid career, studying political science and economics before entering the Bundestag in 1953.
The way he skilfully took charge of managing the crisis caused by the great floods of Hamburg in 1962 first secured his reputation as someone with solid leadership skills.
He later became something of a hero in German eyes for his dealing with two hostage crises in 1977: the capture of a Lufthansa plane by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which was linked to the RAF’s imprisonment of German Employers’ president Hanns Martin Schleyer. A day after the airplane hostages were released in Mogadishu, Schleyer was found dead in the boot of a car. Schmidt took full responsibility for the political decision not to give in to the RAF’s demands.
Following his retirement from the Bundestag in 1986, he became one of the founding supporters of the European Monetary Union and the creation of the European Central Bank. It was often pointed out they were odd things for a man who said he did not believe in visions to support.
Schmidt, who wrote many bestselling books, repeatedly said that people were to be divided into two categories: those who had experienced the war and those who “approach political tasks with a large amount of impartiality and naivety”.
His modest home, a semi-detached house in the Langenhorn district of Hamburg, is to be kept by its current owner as a small museum in honour of Germany’s fifth postwar chancellor, where parts of his estate will be on display.It was a gesture of sympathy and encouragement.
"America, you guys are already great," it said, of course referencing the ubiquitous Trump campaign mantra.
The slogan came courtesy of a Toronto-based creative agency. Its aim was to "make a positive contribution to an election season that has been downright depressing".
Canada is used to being in the shadow of her big, brash sister. This was like putting a hand on her shoulder and saying "you'll get through this", yet lots of Americans are still joking about moving to Canada if Donald Trump wins.
Trump: 'This is bigger than Watergate'
:: Hillary Clinton 'confident' over new FBI emails probe
Judith Timson writes a weekly column in the Toronto Star.
"It's the number one topic of conversation here and two words are being used - anxiety and fascination," she said.
"It's an amazing spectacle but there's also high anxiety about who's moving in next door - is it the bigot and the bully or is it a women who's going to make history?"
The world is watching this unprecedented election but geography makes the Canadian perspective more intense |
/O). For :datagram sockets, this argument is ignored (the format of a datagram socket is always :binary).
This argument is currently ignored (it is accepted for compatibility with Franz Allegro).
This argument is only relevant to sockets of type :stream. One of :active (the default) to request a :passive to request a file or TCP listener socket.
One of :stream (the default) to request a connection-oriented socket, or :datagram to request a connectionless socket. The default is :stream.
The address/protocol family of this socket. Currently, :internet (the default), meaning IPv4, :internet6, meaning IPv6, and :file, referring to UNIX domain addresses, are supported.
A socket representing a packet-based UDP/IP connection. A udp-socket supports I/O but it is not a stream. Instead, you must use the special functions send-to and receive-from to read and write to it. Created by (make-socket :type :datagram...)
A passive socket used to listen for incoming UNIX domain connections named by a file in the local filesystem. A listener-socket is not a stream. It doesn't support I/O. It can only be used to create new file-socket-streams by accept-connection. Created by (make-socket :address-family :file :type :stream :connect :passive...)
A passive socket used to listen for incoming TCP/IP connections on a particular port. A listener-socket is not a stream. It doesn't support I/O. It can only be used to create new tcp-streams by accept-connection. Created by (make-socket :type :stream :connect :passive...)
A buffered bi-directional stream over a "UNIX domain" connection. file-socket-stream is a subclass of stream, and you can read and write to it using all the usual stream functions. Created by (make-socket :address-family :file :type :stream :connect :active...) or by (accept-connection...),
A buffered bi-directional stream over a TCP/IP connection. tcp-stream is a subclass of stream, and you can read and write to it using all the usual stream functions. Created by (make-socket :address-family :internet :type :stream :connect :active...) or by (accept-connection...).
Clozure CL supports three types of sockets: TCP sockets, UDP sockets, and Unix-domain sockets. This should be enough for all but the most esoteric network situations. All sockets are created by make-socket. The type of socket depends on the arguments to it, as follows:
All symbols mentioned in this chapter are exported from the CCL package. As of version 0.13, these symbols are additionally exported from the OPENMCL-SOCKET package.
IPv6 is supported by the :internet6 address family. Applications should use the resolve-address function to translate host and port specifications to socket addresses. While host and port numbers can still be dealt with separately, it is preferable to use ccl::socket-address instances to specify socket endpoints for unified parsing of string representations and printing.
Clozure CL supports the socket abstraction for interprocess communication. A socket represents a connection to another process, typically (but not necessarily) a TCP/IP network connection to a client or server running on some other machine on the network.
A process can't successfully join itself, and only one process can successfully receive notification of another process's termination.
Waits for the specified process to terminate. If the process terminates "normally" (if its initial function returns), returns the values that that initial function returnes. If the process does not terminate normally (e.g., if it's terminated via process-kill and a default argument is provided, returns the value of that default argument. If the process doesn't terminate normally and no default argument is provided, signals an error.
The values returned by the specified process's initial function if that function returns, or the value of the default argument, otherwise.
A default value to be returned if the specified process doesn't exit normally.
Waits for a specified process to complete and returns the values that that process's initial function returned.
The command yields control of terminal input to the process p, which must have used with-terminal-input to request access to the terminal input stream.
:Y is a toplevel command, not a function. As such, it can only be used interactively, and only from the initial process.
a lisp process (thread), designated either by an integer which matches its process-serial-number, or by a string which is equal to its process-name.
Controls how attempts to obtain ownership of terminal input are made. When NIL, a message is printed on *TERMINAL-IO*; it's expected that the user will later yield control of the terminal via the :Y toplevel command. When T, a BREAK condition is signaled in the owning process; continuing from the break loop will yield the terminal to the requesting process (unless the :Y command was already used to do so in the break loop.)
Requests exclusive read access to the standard terminal stream, *terminal-io*. Executes body in an environment with that access.
Executes its body in an environment with exclusive read access to the terminal.
process-input-wait has a timeout parameter, and process-output-wait does not. This inconsistency should probably be corrected.
If process-output-wait is called on a network socket which has not yet established a connection, it will wait until the connection is established. This is an important use, often overlooked.
Wait until output is possible on fd or until timeout, if it is not NIL, has been exceeded. This uses the select() system call, and is generally a fairly efficient way of blocking while waiting to output.
either NIL or a time interval in milliseconds. Must be a non-negative integer. The default is NIL.
a file descriptor, which is a non-negative integer used by the OS to refer to an open file, socket, or similar I/O connection. See stream-device.
process-input-wait has a timeout parameter, and process-output-wait does not. This inconsistency should probably be corrected.
Note that it's possible to read without blocking if the file is at its end - although, of course, the read will return zero bytes.Pilliga Scrub
1978
Visit any Australian trucker’s forum and search for “Pilliga”, or “Piliga”. You’ll soon be rewarded with stories of “min-min” lights (an old aboriginal legend), vicious unseen creatures, ruined vehicles and sightings of the Pilliga Princess.
A common sight reported by truck drivers is that of small lights travelling at high speed through the trees, keeping pace with the trucks. Sometimes at ground level, others rising high above the trees. Others talk of localised wind storms, like mini hurricanes that shake and rock trucks and other vehicles, while coloured lights dance and sparkle in the air.
Image of a ruined vehicle in the Pilliga. Note the signage on the
door: Coonabarabran Contracting. Image ©local-legends.net
One story I heard many years ago was that of a truck driver who stopped for a couple of hours sleep on the roadside, right in the middle of the Pilliga. During the night, he was woken by a terrific banging and screeching of twisted metal. His truck was rocking violently and terrified, he cowered in the cabin without a wink of sleep until dawn. When he finally emerged in daylight, he was struck with the sight of the trailer tarpaulin shredded and strewn for a hundred metres up the road. The metal ribs of the trailer cage were twisted and bent beyond repair.
From hankstruckpictures.com (trucker’s forum)
“On a 120 km stretch of the Newell Hwy between Coonabarabran and Narrabri is the Pilliga State Forest… It’s a beautiful drive during the day but at night, some of the toughest men fear to travel along this stretch of highway unless they know they wouldn’t have to stop, even down to hearing about drivers blowing out a tyre and driving it flat until they reach the other side.”
On a late night-early morning Australian radio programme called ‘Overnights‘ (2am – 6am), they held a few special nights dedicated to stories from the Pilliga region. Listeners could call the station and tell their Pilliga stories on the air. On that night, the radio station had two of their people in the Pilliga Scrub reporting live by satellite phone. At one point, the connection dropped and the signal wasn’t restored for some time. When it finally returned, the reporters were OK and the cut signal was unexplained.
During the programme, one caller who identified himself as “Bongo” told a harrowing story of the night he endured in the Pilliga way back in 1978. The ordeal he endured that night affected him in such a terrible way that, to this day, he remains in psychiatric care.The recording of Bongo’s call is freely available from the radio station’s website, so I’ve put it on the Flash timeline with a play button. You absolutely must NOT listen to this unless it’s late and night and you have turned off your lights. Good luck!
NOTE: If you don’t see the ‘PLAY’ button here, you will need to allow Flash on your browser to hear the call. Simply click the padlock at the top of this page in the address bar and allow Flash. Then refresh the page and press play.Ancient human remains were found by two students on a river bank in Kennewick, Washington in 1996, leading to the skeleton’s nickname: Kennewick Man. The remains are roughly 9,000 years old, and it is one of the most complete skeletons ever recovered for its age. Kennewick Man is currently housed at the Burke Museum in Washington and access to the remains is controlled by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Preliminary genetic analysis has revealed that he was likely a Native American, but the matter is far from settled.
Determining the ethnicity of Kennewick Man is extremely important, as ownership of the remains has been a fierce legal battle since its discovery. Regional Native American tribes view Kennewick Man as a revered ancestor. If he was, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) mandates that the remains be turned over to the tribes for burial. If he was not Native American, as some anthropologists believe due to the skeleton’s age, the remains can be kept, studied, and used for educational purposes.
Anthropologists who disagree with the claim that Kennewick Man is Native American have done so based on the morphology of the skull. The narrow brain casing and prominent forehead are more closely aligned with those living in coastal Asian locations, not Native Americans. However, a 13,000-year-old skeleton recovered in Mexico had a similar skull shape to Kennewick Man, but was found to be genetically related to Native Americans. If Kennewick Man was a Native American, he was one of the oldest in the region.
Genetic analysis of the remains, which would settle the matter absolutely, has been ongoing for several years. Extracting ancient DNA (aDNA) for analysis is delicate work, and the field is still relatively young. As samples of bone need to be destroyed in order to extract the DNA, it needs to be scientifically “worth it” to test samples.
A research update via email in 2013 from researcher Thomas Stafford Jr. to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has indicated that the first samples of aDNA recovered from two small bone fragments suggest that Kennewick Man has “normal, standard Native-American genetics,” with “no indication he has a different origin than North American Native American.”
However, Stafford went on to say that the bone fragments used for testing weren’t ideal and could have been contaminated by environmental factors. Using one of Kennewick Man’s teeth would be ideal, he explained, but it would be several more years until the technology is where it needs to be in order to justify using a tooth. While the preliminary results point to Kennewick being of Native American origin, it is possible that more detailed analysis could refute the findings. It’s not incredibly likely, but it is possible.
Not much more will be known about Kennewick Man’s origins until the researchers publish their results in a peer-reviewed journal. If he is Native American, it will then become a question of which tribe he belongs to. That could prove to be fairly difficult, as the genetic record of Native American tribes is woefully incomplete.
[Hat tip: Sandi Doughton, The Seattle Times]Slag Gaming Community Rules
#1 Be nice to each other
#2 Don't grief, cheat or "troll"
#3 Do not spray any racist/discriminating/porn/nudity/gore/other bad pictures
#4 Listen and respect admins
#5 Use your Microphone properly
#6 Provide constructive criticism
#7 Just because a rule isn't written down, doesn't mean you can break it
You can do little taunts, but don't start a flamewar, dont hurt peoples' feelings. You can be a douche as long as your insults do not target any specific active Slag Gaming player. More info here Anything that is hindering your team's progress, ruining the fun for other players, or attempting to anger fellow players for your own entertainment is not tolerated.This is a community for all kind of players.They are here to help. They also decide who gets banned.If people say that you are annoying with your microphone, please stop using it. Spamming music and sound with your microphone is not allowed: we have made music tokens specifically for this purpose!We want to improve, but being mean with the only intend of demoralizing is just rude! More info here This is maybe a little bit hard to understand. If you think you do something not allowed, ask better before doing it. It can save you trouble.“If you let boys be boys, they will murder their fathers and sleep with their mothers.” This shocking statement came from Stephen Marche’s recent New York Times column, titled “The Unexamined Brutality of the Male Libido.”
Marche’s column shows that, after the unfolding of waves of sexual harassment scandals, the radical left’s moral signaling has reached a new height. It’s not enough to call all men pigs. The radical left wants to condemn all boys, too.
What’s their proposed remedy to cure sexual harassment? Make boys and men more feminine. This approach can’t be more wrong.
Boys and Men Are Sexually Harassed, Too
Whenever the topic of sexual harassment comes up, most people immediately fixate on the image of a powerful male sexually harassing a powerless female. While that image can be true sometimes, it represents an incomplete picture.
A recent study published in the International Journal of Public Health, based on interviews of more than 3,000 high school students in Norway, finds non-physical sexual harassment in schools happens to boys and girls equally. For physical sexual harassment, more and more female teachers are being charged for having sex or sexually harassing male students.
A CBS News site documents 61 notorious female teachers’ sex scandals in American schools. While mainstream media generally underreports sexual harassment cases when boys or men are the victims, Instapundit.com, a libertarian blog maintained by Glenn Reynolds, has been tracking such cases through its “teaching women not to rape” section.
Beyond schools, a growing number of men report being sexually harassed at workplaces. In 2015, 17 percent of the workplace sexual harassment claims to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission were filed by men. If that number seems low to you, it’s because many males choose not to report harassment. Like female victims, males are embarrassed and are afraid of losing their employment. In addition, these male victims face credibility issues because many people simply don’t believe a man can be sexually harassed.
Sexual harassment is wrong no matter which sex is the aggressor and which is the victim. We as a society can’t condemn an entire sex based on a few highly publicized cases. We need to treat each case seriously and honestly without starting a gender war.
Our Schools Do a Poor Job of Nurturing Boys
This nascent gender war is already having real consequences. For decades, there has been a widening academic achievement gap between American girls and boys, with girls leading the way. Girls today are more likely to graduate from high schools and colleges than boys are. Girls also earn higher grades than boys in all school subjects, according to an analysis published by the American Psychological Association in 2014.
The co-author of this analysis, Susan Voyer, points out that “The fact that females generally perform better than their male counterparts throughout what is essentially mandatory schooling in most countries seems to be a well-kept secret, considering how little attention it has received as a global phenomenon.”
The Washington Post recently reports that “The differences (academic gap) between boys and girls are largest among the most disadvantaged children. But socioeconomic status does not entirely explain the gender gap. Even well-off boys struggle to compared to well-off girls.”
The same article finds that boys start to fall behind girls at an early age. They are less likely to be kindergarten-ready than girls, “less likely to identify letters of the alphabet, less likely to be able to communicate their needs.” As they grow, boys continue to lag behind girls academically, but lead in absences and suspensions. These gaps are especially wide for kids from the most disadvantaged families: “Boys in broken families were 8 percentage points less likely than girls to be kindergarten ready.”
Given this context, it is an especially poor time to aggravate attacks on the masculine sex as a whole.
Why Do Girls Perform Better in Schools than Boys Do?
Researchers have several explanations for boys’ lag behind girls. One is that the traditional schooling model of students sitting in a classroom quietly for a long period of time favors girls. Boys learn differently than girls. Girls make more serotonin and oxytocin, chemicals that enable them to sit for a long time. But boys learn better through hands-on activities, visual experiences, and movement.
So in a traditional classroom setting, boys, especially young boys, are more likely to move around and disrupt, which leads to them being disciplined by teachers more, which can lead them to like school less. While these differences are a powerful argument for school choice, in the absence of real choice, boys are being left behind.
There are many programs inside and outside schools that nurture girls and encourage them to be whoever they want to be. Yet young boys don’t get as much attention. On the contrary, schools seem to have lower expectations for boys. Some parents say teachers tell them things such as “Your kid’s handwriting is so-so. But it’s good enough for a boy.” Very few teachers will speak like that about a girl.
This is all the more reason we should evaluate each person on his or her own needs and merits rather than talk down to boys and slam their entire sex.
Good Male Role Models Benefit Both Boys and Girls
Researchers also notice the behavior differences between boys and girls (must be shocking to liberals). Boys are more impulsive, more likely to act out than contain themselves. Therefore, boys need different attention, nurturing, and role models to help teach them good behavior. This starts with parents. “When boys don’t get enough parental attention, they misbehave. Boys are particularly at risk when they grow up in single-mother households.”
A strong masculine character is able to stand next to a strong feminine character, which can enhance both.
Besides parents, boys also learn from other males they encounter. Our entertainment industry, one of the most liberal places on earth, has been churning out strong female characters and denigrating male characters for decades. The TV sitcom doofus dad paired with a highly competent mom is a common cliché.
Also, look at the Star Wars franchise. Since Disney took it over, the last two movie installments and the upcoming new one all feature strong heroines in leading roles, while the men are in supporting roles. In the Star Wars universe outside the movies, Leia takes a leading role while Han Solo and Luke Skywalker act the idiot, running around like chickens with their heads cut off.
As someone who has four young nieces, I welcome these strong female characters. But I can’t help worrying about two things: how does this lack of strong male characters affect young boys? And how will it affect perceptions of males when girls turn into women?
A strong masculine character is able to stand next to a strong feminine character, which can enhance both. A character like the marshal played Gary Cooper in “High Noon” will not only teach boys what it means to be a good man and how to treat women, but also teach girls what a loving and respectful relationship looks like.
Condemning Males Will Hurt Females, Too
Now liberals want us to ignore these biological differences between boys and girls, to either condemn all boys as bad or treat them like girls, erasing the sex difference, which will further delay boys’ development. Boys who don’t do well in school are more likely to end up with lower-paying jobs as young men. Such economic realities have ripple effects on women, too.
The share of Americans who are married is at its lowest point since at least 1920. Pew Research shows one of the main reasons is that young people, especially young men, do not feel financially prepared for such a commitment. I know several women who are beautiful, intelligent, and have good-paying jobs, but have been single for a long time because they just can’t find men who are emotionally mature, sharing their intellectual and financial abilities.
The NYT column is wrong. In their quest for gender sameness, liberals have gone too far. It’s time to stop their war on boys and men. Our society should treat boys and girls, men and women, equally, while honestly taking into consideration their biological differences. We need to nurture boys as boys and girls as girls. One way to start is by not telling men they are horrible beasts just for the sin of being born with XY chromosomes.Researchers strike gold with nanotech vaccine
| Source:
Scientists in the US have developed a novel vaccination method that uses tiny gold particles to mimic a virus and carry specific proteins to the body’s specialist immune cells.
The technique differs from the traditional approach of using dead or inactive viruses as a vaccine and was demonstrated in the lab using a specific protein that sits on the surface of the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).
The results have been published today, 26 June 2013, in IOP Publishing’s journal Nanotechnology by a team of researchers from Vanderbilt University.
RSV is the leading viral cause of lower respiration tract infections, causing several hundred thousand deaths and an estimated 65 million infections a year, mainly in children and the elderly.
The detrimental effects of RSV come, in part, from a specific protein, called the F protein, which coats the surface of the virus. The protein enables the virus to enter into the cytoplasm of cells and also causes cells to stick together, making the virus harder to eliminate.
The body’s natural defence to RSV is therefore directed at the F protein; however, up until now, researchers have had difficulty creating a vaccine that delivers the F protein to the specialised immune cells in the body. If successful, the F protein could trigger an immune response which the body could ‘remember’ if a subject became infected with the real virus.
In this study the researchers created exceptionally small gold nanorods, just 21 nanometres wide and 57 nanometres long, which were almost exactly the same shape and size as the virus itself. The gold nanorods were successfully coated with the RSV F proteins and were bonded strongly thanks to the unique physical and chemical properties of the nanorods themselves.
The researchers then tested the ability of the gold nanorods to deliver the F protein to specific immune cells, known as dendritic cells, which were taken from adult blood samples.
Dendritic cells function as processing cells in the immune system, taking the important information from a virus, such as the F protein, and presenting it to cells that can perform an action against them―the T cells are just one example of a cell that can take action.
Once the F protein-coated nanorods were added to a sample of dendritic cells, the researchers analysed the proliferation of T cells as a proxy for an immune response. They found that the protein-coated nanorods caused the T cells to proliferate significantly more compared to non-coated nanorods and just the F protein alone.
Not only did this prove that the coated-nanorods were capable of mimicking the virus and stimulating an immune response, it also showed that they were not toxic to human cells, offering significant safety advantages and increasing their potential as a real-life human vaccine.
Lead author of the study, Professor James Crowe, said: “A vaccine for RSV, which is the major cause of viral pneumonia in children, is sorely needed. This study shows that we have developed methods for putting RSV F protein into exceptionally small particles and presenting it to immune cells in a format that physically mimics the virus. Furthermore, the particles themselves are not infectious.”
Due to the versatility of the gold nanorods, Professor Crowe believes that their potential use is not limited to RSV.
“This platform could be used to develop experimental vaccines for virtually any virus, and in fact other larger microbes such as bacteria and fungi.
“The studies we performed showed that the candidate vaccines stimulated human immune cells when they were interacted in the lab. The next steps to testing would be to test whether or not the vaccines work in vivo” Professor Crowe continued.
This paper can be downloaded from http://iopscience.iop.org/0957-4484/24/29/295102Four weeks ago, we put together a 30-stadium bracket to determine the best Major League Baseball stadium. Then you got us down to 16. Then, eight. Last week, four.
Now, there are only two.
The semifinals featured PNC Park in Pittsburgh knocking off No. 1 seed Fenway Park by a 55-45 percent margin. (Again, the seeding was done based on the objective measure of a ballpark's age.)
The Pirates' home stadium advances to play … Kansas City's Kauffman Stadium, which defeated Baltimore's Camden Yards in a blowout -- 59 percent to 41 percent. Those Royals fans do love to get out and vote.
But now we're down to the end.
I'll visit the winning stadium later this year and write up a thorough, This Is What This Place Means review. Your future is in your hands, so don't blow it. Vote with your heart, your head and your soul.
Voting will close on Thursday at noon.
Make your voice heard, and we'll be back with your winner next week.
No. 6 Kauffman Stadium vs. No. 21 PNC Park
Which is the better stadium: Kauffman Stadium, or PNC Park?
* * *
Email me at leitch@sportsonearth.com; follow me @williamfleitch; or just shout out your window real loud, I'll hear you. Point is, let's talk.Expecting the worst
Feminists get the best from girls by expecting the best from them, yet they expect the worst from boys and then fly into a rage of condemnation for men when they get what they expect.
Feminists know that to get the best from a girl, you need to expect the best, so we might assume they know that's true for boys, as well. Yet, from the day time shouting shows to the evening news, we are flooded with images of everybody expecting boys to be bad.
Men behave badly, boyz are gangstas in the hood, young men only want one thing, and those who want more, like marriage and responsibility, just don't get it, while their leaner, meaner, pack it, pound it, treat women like whores, spread their sperm anywhere but on the ground and brag about it to the posse, get it, and more.
In the schools, six year old boys are bad because they harass little girls with a kiss. (Never mind if the girls ask for it. Never mind if the tikes don't know the meaning of the word sex, let alone harass.) In the later grades, boys are sexual predators while the pop feminists froth at the merest hint girls ought not to be having sex. "Our bodies, our lives!" At work, let no man dare read Esquire for fear of offending one of the Cosmopolitan-reading sisters.
The androphobes frame all male behaviors in the context of evil, then they run to their book stores to consume volumes that confirm their cherished myth, that those bad boys have grown up into monstrous men.
"Men Are Not Cost-Effective," they wail. It's a "War Against Women," they scream. Do something, do something, fight "Fire With Fire," they leer. Katie Couric commends castration while Stone Phillips solemnly shakes his head and sighs, "Can men ever be taught sensitivity?" All that's missing are the mobs with torches and pitchforks.
You might think it would require no great intellectual leap to conclude that, if you expect the best to get the best from one class of children, you will get the best from another class of children if you expect the best. Since they expect the worst from boys and men, we can only conclude that this is what feminists want.
So, we need to ask ourselves, what sort of sick pervert would purposely expect the worst of a boy to get the worst from the man? A bigot? Could be.
Regards,
Rod Van MechelenNear-optimal Character Animation with Continuous Control
Abstract
We present a new model for real-time character animation with multidimensional, interactive control. The underlying motion engine is data-driven, enables rapid transitions, and automatically enforces foot-skate constraints without inverse kinematics. On top of this motion space, our algorithm learns approximately optimal controllers which use a compact basis representation to guide the system through multidimensional state-goal spaces. These controllers enable real-time character animation that fluidly responds to changing user directives and environmental constraints.
Project Members
Resources
Near-optimal Character Animation with Continuous Control
Treuille, A. Lee, Y. Popović, Z.
ACM Transactions on Graphics 26(3) (
[ Treuille, A. Lee, Y. Popović, Z.ACM Transactions on Graphics 26(3) ( SIGGRAPH 2007 Paper (0.8 Mb)] (Requires Quicktime to view.)
[ SIGGRAPH video (5 mins) - Movie (139.2 Mb)]
SupportWhy Women are Turning to Conservatism
In trying to win arguments with liberals, it soon becomes apparent that we are looking at things from different sides of the fence, different reference frames if you will. Women shade to the liberal side for reasons that are as old has humanity.
According to liberal language crafter, George Lakoff, liberals are the “nurturing parents” while conservatives are the “strict fathers”. There is some truth in that. A more accurate characterization may be that liberals are the “permissive parents” while Conservatives are the “disciplining parents”. His theory is that decisions about politics are based on decisions about families.
When you consider issues and philosophies, you can easily see there is a lot of truth in the permissive vs discipline frames. For instance, Liberals want to spend, spend, spend. The mean-old-strict-dad Conservatives, who take a long view of consequences, insist on restraint. For Liberals there is never enough for all their programs. The need for more is generated by the need to expand the satisfaction created by the prior programs. Nor is there a limit on their thirst for more money from the Conservatives, who have exercised enough discipline in their lives, to earn large incomes. Conservatives who resist are fair game. They are shamed and called greedy. They are accused of buying elections. See the Koch Brothers. Every modest vice or maleficence is amplified a thousand times with fanciful conspiracy theories; while Liberals get quick passes on more severe charges: see Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Jesse Jackson, or Al Sharpton. The basic philosophy of Liberals is “to each according to his needs”. And in words of five year old, they want the state, run by Liberals, “to be the boss of that”. Once upon a time, women primarily took care of their families; “to each according to his needs” is the way resources were divided within a healthy family. It is natural that they apply this same philosophy to government -- making them lean to the Liberal side according to Lakoff’s theory.
The beginning of the current Liberal generation of baby boomers is rooted in the prosperity this nation experienced after WWII and spurred by Dr. Benjamin Spock’s Baby & Child Care. Parents were taught that discipline would destroy the creativity of their darling little bundles of joy. It was better to nurture their creativity so they could grow to their full potential. Bad behavior was tolerated so sacred creativity would not be stifled. Thus a largely self-indulgent generation was born and has become self-replicating in the Generation-X and the Millennials. As each generation had received little discipline and they had little to give.
There is an offbeat theory as to why women are more Liberal today. It involves the birth control pill. The pill works by making the woman “pregnant enough” for the egg not to attach to the wall of the uterus. According to research, while on the pill women are more attracted to sensitive, attentive guys than they are to the macho, take-no-prisoners, ambitious guys. Being pregnant or “semi-pregnant” they are looking for a guy who will nest with her. Unpregnant, she is looking for the more ambitious provider: the Conservative.
Conservatives descended from our hunter-warrior past. Discipline and skills were necessary for survival. You had to learn to hunt. A cracked twig could end a day’s hunt with empty game bags for all. It also takes discipline to be successful in the modern hunt, to learn work skills: how to be a butcher or a baker or software developer. You have to give up carnal pleasures and money today to reap a generous income stream later. It takes discipline, and real belief in your abilities to succeed.
Discipline is even more important in the military. A disobeyed order or an unnecessary risk can mean instant death not only to the violator, but also to fellow soldiers. The military is Conservative.
In times of increased danger, when she feels her immediate or her greater family threatened, it is only natural that she turns her allegiance toward the warrior-hunter-disciplined conservative as her surrogate spouse government instead of the sympathetic-permissive surrogate government. There is a real uneasiness even among the crowd that watches "The View" that America is headed in the wrong direction. Numerous concerns about unresolved scandals, the messes in the Middle East, Ebola in Texas and NY, and unrestricted flights from Ebola-stricken countries are beginning to bleed through. Even Russia is beginning to stir up some of that old cold war feelings that got Reagan elected over Carter. These concerns are beginning to outweigh their stoked-up concerns about the “war on women”.
When we win in November, we will owe a huge debt to the women who realized that at this point in our history, America needs more disciplined-conservative governance to steer a safe course through the challenges we currently face.
You can view CM Phillips work at his new blog at http://www.CMPhillips.com or email: cm@cmphillips.comThe United Team of Germany (German: Gesamtdeutsche Mannschaft) competed in the 1956, 1960, and 1964 Winter and Summer Olympic Games as a united team of athletes from West Germany and East Germany. In 1956 the team also included athletes from a third Olympic body, the Saarland Olympic Committee, which had sent a separate team in 1952, but in 1956 was in the process of joining the German National Olympic Committee. This process was completed in February 1957 after the admission of Saarland into the Federal Republic of Germany.
History [ edit ]
As East Germany had introduced its own national anthem in 1949, Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 melody to Schiller's Ode an die Freude ("Ode to Joy") was played for winning German athletes as a compromise. In 1959, East Germany also introduced an altered black-red-gold tricolour flag of Germany as the flag of East Germany. Thus, a compromise had to be made also for the flag of the unified sports team. It was agreed upon to superimpose the plain flag with additional white Olympic rings. This flag was used from 1960 to 1968.[citation needed]
At the Games of 1956, 1960, and 1964 the team was simply known as "Germany" and the usual country code of GER was used, except at Innsbruck in 1964, when the Austrian hosts used the German language "D" for Deutschland.[1] Yet, the IOC code EUA (from the official French-language International Olympic Committee (IOC) designation, Équipe Unifiée d'Allemagne) is currently applied retrospectively in the IOC medal database, without further explanation given. Only in 1976 did the IOC start to assign standardized codes. Before that time, the local Organizing Committees of each Olympic Games had chosen codes, often in the local language, resulting in a multitude of codes.
In the 1968 Winter Olympics, East and West German athletes competed as separate teams while still using the compromise Olympic flag and Beethoven anthem. While today listed under the IOC codes of FRG (West) and GDR (East), respectively, in 1968 they were asymmetrically called in French Allemagne (Germany) and Allemagne de l'Est (East Germany), and in Spanish Alemania and Alemania del Este. The codes for Germany (West) were ALL (in Grenoble) and ALE (in Mexico City), and ADE for East Germany.
The separation was completed at the 1972 Summer Olympics with the use of separate flags and anthems. Because of the boycotts of the 1980 and 1984 summer games, only in 1972, 1976, and 1988 did two different German teams with different symbols compete against each other at Summer Olympics (not counting the Saar team of 1952). The German Democratic Republic ceased to exist after 1989, when it joined the Federal Republic of Germany in the process of German reunification in 1990.
Medal tables [ edit ]
Medals by Summer Games [ edit ]
Medals by Winter Games [ edit ]
Medals by summer sport [ edit ]
Sport Gold Silver Bronze Total Equestrian 5 5 4 14 Athletics 4 18 8 30 Canoeing 4 5 2 11 Rowing 4 4 1 9 Diving 3 1 0 4 Swimming 1 5 6 12 Wrestling 1 5 3 9 Cycling 1 4 2 7 Boxing 1 3 2 6 Fencing 1 1 2 4 Gymnastics 1 1 1 3 Sailing 1 1 1 3 Shooting 1 0 1 2 Judo 0 |
one year at McAllister college in St Paul, Minnesota, and did his masters in the University of Helsinki, plus a PhD in Oxford. He later became a columnist for several Finnish newspapers. Oh, and he speaks Finnish, English, French, Swedish and German.
5. He doesn’t hang around. He got his first political appointment in 1988, when he was made deputy leader of his party. But don’t get too excited – 4,000 other people are members of the congress of the Center Party of Finland. It has the biggest congress in the world, after parties in China and the USA. Its meetings are held in an ice-hockey rink.
He became an MP for the first time in 1991, and by the following year had been appointed special adviser to the prime minister. He stood in the European elections in 2005, and became economic policy adviser to the Finnish government in 2003-2004, at a time (pay attention down the back) when it was grappling with a serious depression. Now he’s the EU’s monetary affairs commissioner.
6. He’s trained to fire machine guns, thanks to his stint in military service in Finland, and is a keen hard rock fan. But he must have a softer side too – he’s said to like jazz.
7. All that, and modest too. “One of the greatest moments in my historical memory has been the release of Nelson Mandela from prison in South Africa. I can’t claim credit for that, of course,” he has conceded.KAZAN, Russia -- PSV and Mexico midfielder Andres Guardado said on Sunday he is not on the brink of a move to Major League Soccer but admitted there have been approaches, following a report the 30-year-old had agreed a four-year deal to join Los Angeles FC.
"They've placed me in MLS for three years," Guardado told reporters after Mexico's 2-2 draw against Portugal in the Confederations Cup. "They say I'm tied to Atlanta and then somewhere else."
Guardado said he is used to the rumors that surround him, adding his agent deals with his transfers and that he is completely focused on the Confederations Cup.
The former Valencia player didn't deny the MLS link entirely, however, just that a deal is already in place.
Andres Guardado still has a year left on his contract with Dutch Eredivisie side PSV Eindhoven.
"There is [something], I've never denied it," he said when asked by ESPN FC. "There are approaches; they've made approaches from a long time ago and there are always offers."
Guardado suggested that he'd need to consider his age, his situation in Europe and whether a project convinces him or not before he would sign for MLS.
"I've still got a year left in PSV and I'm not thinking of leaving just to leave," he said. "I'm happy there."
Expansion franchise LAFC makes its MLS debut in 2018 and is reportedly seeking to sign star names.
Guardado joined Eindhoven from Valencia after a loan spell in 2014, having previously played for Deportivo La Coruna and Liga MX side Atlas.
Tom Marshall covers Liga MX and the Mexican national team for ESPN FC. Twitter: @MexicoWorldCup.NOTICE : Activation key must be used on a valid Steam account, requires internet connection.
About the game
You are an exile, outcast and downtrodden, sentenced to walk in a barbaric wasteland where the weak are crushed and only the strong can live. Here you must fight to survive, build, and dominate the world alone on your own server, or with enemies and allies in online multiplayer.
Journey through a vast, seamless world filled with the ruins of ancient civilizations and uncover its dark history and buried secrets as you seek to conquer and dominate the exiled lands yourself. Start with nothing but your bare hands and forge the legacy of your clan, from simple tools and weapons to gigantic fortresses and entire cities. Enslave the bandits of the exiled lands to do your bidding by breaking them on the grueling Wheel of Pain. Sacrifice the beating hearts of your enemies on the blood-soiled altars of your god to seize true power and glory. Summon the colossal avatar of your god and see them lay waste to your enemies and their homes.
Just remember: in this brutal land of vengeful gods, bloodthirsty cannibals, and vicious monsters, survival is more than tracking down food and water. Explore mysterious ruins in search of treasure and knowledge, but beware the risk of your mind being corrupted by the dark forces of the world. Traverse vast sand dunes and seek shelter from scouring sandstorms sweeping across the burning sands. March into war against your enemies and unleash your savage fury in brutal combat. Go in unprepared and it will be your head rolling and limbs flying.
KEY FEATURES
SURVIVE THE BARBARIC WASTELAND In the world of Conan the Barbarian, survival is more than being well-fed and hydrated. Here you must weather scouring sandstorms, save your mind from being corrupted and going insane, and fight vicious monsters from the darkest holes of the earth.
BUILD YOUR LEGACY IN A VAST, SEAMLESS WORLD Journey through a huge, seamless world filled with danger and opportunity, exploring everything from sand dunes to towering ruins. Harvest resources to craft tools and weapons, then build everything from a small settlement to entire cities.
DISCOVER THE DARK HISTORY OF ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS Explore shadow-haunted ruins of ancient civilizations and discover great treasures and knowledge. Learn about the people who inhabited this world before and what led to their demise through inscriptions, wandering NPCs, and the environment itself.
CALL UPON THE POWER OF THE GODS Cut out the hearts of your enemies and sacrifice it upon the altars of your god to earn their blessing. Summon and take direct control of huge, towering avatars and wreak havoc on your enemies as you crush their homes and drive them from their lands.
DEFEND YOUR LAND WITH AN ARMY OF SLAVES Enslave the criminals of the exiled lands and force them to join your cause and defend your territory. Put them through the grueling Wheel of Pain to break their will, then turn them into archers, crafters, entertainers, and more. Find rare thralls for the greatest rewards!
DOMINATE YOUR ENEMIES March forth to war against your enemies, use explosives and see their fortifications crumble to dust, then unleash your savage fury with brutal attacks that will see heads rolling and limbs flying. Find or craft a wide range of weapons and armor.
PLAY TOGETHER OR ALONE Play alone locally or fight for survival and dominance in persistent multiplayer on public servers. You can also host your own server and invite others to join you in a world where you have full control of the rules and settings. Want to play with just handful of friends? Try co-op mode!
CONTROL YOUR EXPERIENCE When playing alone locally or on a server you are the administrator of you have access to a range of in-game tools. These allow you to change progression speed, spawn monsters, turn yourself invisible, deactivate avatars, and much more. Be the dungeon master of your own server!
PLAY WITH MODS Download Conan Exiles mods directly from the Steam workshop to customize your game experience. You can also download the custom Conan Exiles Unreal Editor and start creating your own!
System requirementsFertility rates boosted by new £600 test that identifies embryos most likely to survive IVF
A test devised by British scientists promises to make successful pregnancies far more likely through IVF treatment.
The test, which costs £600, helps doctors find the embryos with the best chance of surviving in the womb before they are implanted.
In trials, pregnancy rates have been boosted by 25 per cent.
Better odds: The EmbryoSure test could cut the number of IVF treatment cycles women need to become pregnant
Many women need to have several cycles of treatment – each one costing at least £4,000 – before they give birth. At present, just one in four cycles of IVF results in a successful pregnancy.
However, in an initial trial of the test with 50 women, 31 per cent of them became pregnant.
Success: In an initial trial involving 50 women, 31 per cent became pregnant
In the screening method, eggs fertilised using IVF are placed in amino acids to replicate conditions in the womb.
The technique was developed by Professor Henry Leese, a biologist at York University and Hull Medical School. He said: ‘We found the very best embryos were ones that were “quiet” and got on with feeding on the amino acid.’
Further trials of 400 women have now begun at fertility units in London, Leeds and Liverpool.NHL.com will periodically be doing a series called "Five Questions With …," a Q&A with some of the key movers and shakers in the game today aimed to gain some insight into their lives and careers.
This edition features Ottawa Senators coach Paul MacLean:
Hockey fans everywhere know the mustache -- but do they know the man behind it?
Ottawa coach Paul MacLean introduced his mustache to the NHL in 1981, when he became a full-time player with the Winnipeg Jets. For 10 seasons, the first seven spent in Winnipeg, MacLean was a consistent 30-goal scorer who put up 40 or more three times.
MacLean retired from playing at 32 and quickly became a scout for the St. Louis Blues at the request of general manager Ron Caron. He soon got into coaching and made stops at various minor-league cities with one season with the Phoenix Coyotes mixed in before he got to the NHL and found a way to stay.
He hitched on with Mike Babcock with the Anaheim Ducks, rode with the championship coach to the Detroit Red Wings, won a Stanley Cup, and last year finally got his chance to be a coach in the NHL -- 18 years after he got into the business full time.
MacLean's Senators overachieved last season by every measure, making the playoffs as the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference after many pundits picked them to be among the worst teams in the League. This is the same Senators team that finished 13th in the East in 2010-11 and added several rookies from the American Hockey League to the roster when MacLean arrived.
MacLean discussed his career path, some of his coaching philosophy and, yes, his mustache with NHL.com this week.
Here are Five Questions With … Paul MacLean:
Looking back on the several seasons you spent working on the Detroit Red Wings staff with Mike Babcock, Todd McLellan, Brad McCrimmon and Jim Bedard, can you describe how that experience helped you when you were able to take that next step to become a head coach?
"I think it's the experience of winning and the tremendous success that the Detroit Red Wings had. Being in second place or not winning is not acceptable in the Detroit Red Wings organization. That pride of winning and that pride of doing things right is the biggest thing anybody can take away from being a Red Wing.
"I guess it is a pressure, but it's an everyday thing that you're there to do things right to find a way to win a game. It's all about winning and that's the biggest thing I take away from there.
"Mike, Todd and Brad were great to work with. You gain great experience working with those guys. Jim Bedard on the goalie side, you gain great experience on how to talk to a goaltender from him. The whole thing from Mr. Ilitch all the way down is a great experience and what it gives me is confidence, the confidence that I know how to win."
You took a circuitous route to being a coach in the NHL, holding jobs in the International Hockey League and the United Hockey League while also being a scout for a brief time -- all after finishing a successful playing career in the NHL. What type of perspective did you gain in those stops in Peoria, Kansas City and Quad City as you tried to get back to the NHL?
"I didn't start off being a coach. I started off being a scout after I was done playing and I fell into the coaching helping Bob Plager in Peoria in 1991. I scouted for a year-and-a-half after that experience and finally talked Ron Caron into letting me have the Peoria job. At that point I knew I wanted to coach, and I was probably better behind the bench than as a scout.
"We had some success, some good players in St. Louis at the time, and that gave me the bug to do it more. Also, to be honest with you, I needed a job too. I played through the '80s and '90s -- it's not playing through 2011, with the amount of money players make. I had three kids starting high school and going into university.
"I started to get a handle for it and all the stops I made along the way have been great experiences for me and made me realize for the most part how hard the job of coaching is and how hard you have to work at it. At the same time it's a very humbling occupation. You can be really good one year and no good the next year and a lot of it isn't always about you -- it's about circumstances getting in the way.
"For me now getting to be a head coach at the NHL level, I realize that I have to work harder to stay here. Just getting here isn't enough. The work you have to put in to stay here and to be successful is phenomenal. That's what I learned through the various stops. Sometimes you think it's real hard to get here when in reality it's harder to stay."
You put up 673 points in 719 career games as a forward for Winnipeg, Detroit and St. Louis, yet you retired after 10 seasons at the age of 32. Why retire then? Why not keep going?
"Twenty-one teams in the League and there's people coming from behind and pushing. You may lose a half a step and all of a sudden they want a young guy in the lineup. You're 32 and you can't play anymore. That's as simple as it was. In 1990 I scored 34 goals for the Blues and the next year I was done in February. That had to do with the 21 teams in the League more than anything else. It was harder to hang on. It was the evolution of the game.
"For me now getting to be a head coach at the NHL level, I realize that I have to work harder to stay here. Just getting here isn't enough. The work you have to put in to stay here and to be successful is phenomenal. That's what I learned through the various stops. Sometimes you think it's real hard to get here when in reality it's harder to stay."
-- Ottawa Senators coach Paul MacLean
"The big thing for me with Ron Caron and the Blues is they thought enough of me to offer me a job outside of hockey. That was an eye-opener for me. I came home and had three kids in grade school and it was like, 'What are we going to do now?' You have this infallibility about yourself as an athlete, but this gave us an opportunity to stay in the game and see if maybe we can establish some kind of career outside of playing."
Coaching question: If you have your ideal roster, one that allows you to coach exactly how you would like, what type of style do you prefer?
"We go fast and we play 200 feet and we try to fill the net. I think one thing I learned is you have to coach what you have, but if I have the perfect roster that I want, we're going fast, going 200 feet and we're trying to score. I think we made some real good inroads to doing that last year. A big part of our success was when we skated. We finished fourth in the League in goals for. We could score more. I thought we made some real good strides, though."
Personal question: The mustache, when was it born and tell us the history of it?
"I always say 1958 is the answer, but I think that's a little too early. It's something that started with some buddies in high school saying can you or can't you, and since then it's just been there. I believe it started on a hot streak where things were going good and you don't change anything and the mustache gets out of control. It goes from there. I've never thought of shaving it off. I love my wife too much to do that."
Follow Dan Rosen on Twitter: @drosennhlWhat Happened in 2014 Globally?
I Know First is a financial services firm that utilizes an advanced self-learning algorithm to analyze, model and predict the stock market. The algorithm predicts the flow of money in almost 2000 markets across a range of time frames (e.g., 3-day, 1-month, 1-year). The algorithm's predictability becomes stronger in the 1-month, 3-month, and 1-year horizons, so it is particularly useful as a long investment tool, albeit that it can also be used for intraday trading.
In the article "Stock Market Forecast For 2015 Based On A Predictive Algorithm" from December 17th, 2014 I Know First was very bullish for all US equity markets going into 2015; however, since then the S&P 500 (NYSEARCA:SPY) have gone up by 4.4%. The algorithm updated the growth projection for US markets in this forecast to stable with low volatility. This makes global markets much more attractive, and brings new strong players.
The top 10 world indices to buy hit ratio in 2014 was 100%. Not only that, the average return was 11%, an impressive achievement. On the left is our original 1 year projection from 2013 and on the right our performance review.
So who were the top performers? Indeed, the ISEQ (reflects the Ireland stock exchange) rose a staggering 15.24% since the forecast date, and performed in accordance with the algorithmic prediction as the highest signal going into 2014. Although not the top signal, the top performer was the NASDAQ100 (NASDAQ:QQQ) gaining 21.59% since the forecast date, reflecting a strong year for the technology sector. The S&P500 saw its index go up 14%, closing a very strong year for the US equity markets. The Israeli stock index, the TA100 (NYSEARCA:EIS) performed well with a 9.7% gain, followed by Canada GSPTSE (NYSEARCA:EWC) that rose by 7.71% and the Spanish Continuous Marke0t IBEX (NYSEARCA:EWP) that rose by 7.03%. The bearish forecast for Russia s RTS index (NYSEARCA:RSX), index that fell by -42.4%, was perhaps the largest event. Many of the underlying factors were discussed in the article "Russia Shocks The Markets: Fundamental And Algorithmic Analysis" we released after the interest rate hike by the central bank. All these prediction were made by a state of the art predictive algorithm. They are not based on a fundamental or technical analysis, rather an algorithmic analysis. The algorithm forecasts all markets (equity, commodities, interest rates, currencies, indices), and thus a market prediction includes correlative elements to anything which could affect the market. Gold (NYSEARCA:GLD), oil, USD, and thousands of other factors have to be taken into account when making an algorithmic analysis for an index. While many believe 2015 will be another strong year for US equities, we believe differently and can't reinforce enough the need to begin looking at other markets where the algorithm projects much stronger growth.
Algorithmic Analysis
The signal represents the predicted movement direction or trend, and is not a percentage or specific target price. The signal strength indicates how much the current price deviates from what the system considers an equilibrium or "fair" price. The signal can have a positive (predicted increase) or negative (predicted decline) sign. The heat map is arranged according to the signal strength with strongest up signals at the top, while down signals are at the bottom. The table colors are indicative of the signal. Green corresponds to the positive signal and red indicates a negative signal. A deeper color means a stronger signal and a lighter color equals a weaker signal.
The predictability indicator measures the importance of the signal. The predictability is the historical correlation between the prediction and the actual market movement for that particular asset, which is recalculated daily. Theoretically the predictability ranges from minus one to plus one. The higher this number is the more predictable the particular asset is. If you compare predictability for different time ranges, you'll find that the longer time ranges have higher predictability. This means that longer-range signals are more important and tend to be more accurate.
World Indices Forecast Tables and Map
The algorithm projects that US equity markets will have very little volatility and growth next year, on the other hand Russia will have very big volatility and might go either way. The three most attractive markets to invest in are Singapore (NYSEARCA:EWS), India (NYSEARCA:EPI) and Taiwan (NYSEARCA:EWT). The signal of 20.65 and predictability of 0.53 suggests Singapore as the top pick out of the three. The two markets to avoid are Brazil (NYSEARCA:EWZ) and China (NYSEARCA:FXI), which have a very bearish outlook going into 2015
I Know First Research is the analytic branch of I Know First, a financial startup company that specializes in quantitatively predicting the stock market. This article was written by Daniel Hai, one of our interns. We did not receive compensation for this article, and we have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.
Disclosure: The author has no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. The author wrote this article themselves, and it expresses their own opinions. The author is not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). The author has no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.Avalon ICO Introduces Group Purchasing Power Into The Crypto Space
TokenLot Blocked Unblock Follow Following Jul 30, 2017
WHAT IS AVALON?
Avalon is a premier members-only platform, and a grоuр рurсhаѕing organization (GPO) that represents the cryptocurrency consumer-based and its purchasing power. The hеаrt аnd ѕоul оf Avalon iѕ tо allow members to realize discount on goods and services they purchase as well as the other life-changing opportunities.
Work Description
Avalon will tаkе many оf thе innovative соnѕumеr-bеnеfiсiаl idеаѕ you already knоw аnd love likе the diѕсоunt section оf AAA/ARC Europe, thе раid-tо-ѕhор mоdеl of еBаtеѕ, thе grоuр diѕсоunt mоdеl оf Groupon/Mass drор, thе “Pаid Survеуѕ” mоdеl аnd mаrrу it with ѕоmе уоu may not be аѕ fаmiliаr with; the GPO mоdеl (mаѕѕivе liѕt оf businesses — online аnd brick аnd mоrtаr — thаt diѕсоunt аll their рrоduсtѕ tо Avаlоn) аll whilе hаving сrурtосurrеnсу bе bоth thе infrastructure and the bеnеfiсiаrу.
VALUE
1. Passion: By being genuinely passionate аbоut their subject mаttеr, they сrеаtе аn аtmоѕрhеrе thаt is inhеrеntlу biаѕеd in еvеrу dесiѕiоn wе mаkе and еvеrу dеаl they negotiate fоr their mеmbеrѕ.
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4. Cоmmunitу: Emроwеr the соmmunitу and you еmроwеr innоvаtiоn.
FЕАTURЕЅ
· Thе GPO
· Mеmbеr’ѕ Onlу “Group Buуѕ”
· Thе Avalon Think Tank (The “Rоundtаblе”)
· Vеndоr initiated, inсеntivе-bаѕеd mеmbеr раrtiсiраtiоn орроrtunitiеѕ
· Mobile APP
· Mеmbеr-tо-mеmbеr smart contracts
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KNOW HOW?
Thеir tеаm iѕ dеdiсаtеd tо running Avalon likе a business while marrying аll thе аttributеѕ that make сrурtосurrеnсу grеаt. Bу рrоviding their mеmbеrѕ a сеntrаl, соllаbоrаting lосаtiоn in a dесеntrаlizеd world, they allow thе grеаtеѕt tесhnоlоgу ѕinсе thе intеrnеt tо bеgin fоrming a fасе that саn intеrасt with trаditiоnаl buѕinеѕѕ wоrld and ѕuсh rеар аll thе bеnеfitѕ that come аlоng with it, аll whilе keeping the individual аnоnуmоuѕ. Thrоugh the dеvеlорmеnt tеаm, their members, and significant lеvеrаgе, they can соnnесt сrурtосurrеnсу tо ѕееminglу еndlеѕѕ аvеnuеѕ оf nеw utility, аll whilе bеginning tо re-shape hоw thе gеnеrаl рubliс viеwѕ thiѕ technology wе knоw and love.
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**Avalon will he hosting their ICO exclusively at TokenLot. Sign up for updates on their website to get the most up to date information.BRUSSELS -- The attacks in Brussels exposed a gaping hole in the airport security net.
The Brussels airport bombs went off in the departure area -- before the security checkpoint. It's open to anyone, with or without a boarding pass.
At airports across country -- from the nation's capitol to California -- passengers were greeted by a heavily armed, stepped up police presence.
Officers checked arriving vehicles outside New York's JFK Airport.
Several Americans among wounded in Belgium
In Miami, cart loads of customs officers patrolled the departure area.
But the attack in Brussels exposed a vulnerability at all airports -- the area before security checkpoints: the curb side, the ticket counter, even the line for coffee.
"The question is how do you best push those layers of security out -- recognizing there's no perfect system?" said former transportation security administration head John Pistole. "It becomes the question of do you bring in additional officers that you pay overtime to and how many bomb sniffing dogs do you have, and then once you start that how long do you sustain?"
Graphic shows the site of the blast inside the Belgium airport. CBS News
TSA said Tuesday it is increasing security at some airports, but it did not announce plans to push security perimeters back to cover softer targets.
Last March, a New Orleans man was shot by airport police while wielding a machete in the unsecured area of the city's airport.
In 2013, an armed man walked into LAX and killed a TSA officer outside the checkpoint.
"We're dealing with a large volume of people in confined spaces that are relatively easy targets," Ron Hosko a former assistant director of the FBI said. "We cannot secure every space, we cannot secure every space in America where people congregate, gather, we cannot do that effectively, and I believe our intelligence services and law enforcement working as hard as they are, are able to do it less and less effectively now because of the reality of encryption."
By encryption, Hosko is talking about secure phones and apps that let terrorists communicate undetected. There were calls in Congress Tuesday for strengthening airport security, but there will always be a soft target outside a security checkpoint.by Ferimer » 22 Jul 2017, 17:25
Lets try and get through some of these with common sense.
Answers to your questions
1: Your'e dead you cant participate so you will have to respawn. THis should be common sense already, you cant be somewhere when youre dead.
2.If youre poisoned you'll go in as you are (I assume). You have 5 mins to set up beforehand so get healed and rest and hope for full health and other things. Its a teleport system from where ever you are (i assume from what they said in the Dev News) Youre not online then thats too bad, If youre constantly re-logging thats not their fault call your ISP or get better internet. There is a set time for the IB's to take place so like anything try to make sure your own 30 mins before hand.
3. Honestly? YOu cant figure this out? You cant be at two battles at the same time its not possible. So pick the one you want to be in. No Warrior has ever been in two battles in two seperate areas at the same time.
4. I dont think you'll be able to register for several instances. and i think this answers 3 as well if you wont be able to register for many instances you wont be able to get more than one invite.
5. If youre in a battle and you leave, you lose your stuff and it counts as a death so youll lose skills too.
6. Desertion probably gets you blacklisted or some sort of alignment drop as well as known as a deserter so when you go to sign up you may not get picked as youre known as a deserter. You have 5 mins to accept then another 5 to set up inside the IB. TIme zones differ so they will have that 5 minute window.
7. Thats the same as deserting. See 6.
8. Why would you want to build carts? Either way you have a set up time of 5 mins to do whatever, However you have to run to the middle to defend so carts and barrels there is no need because you wont want to be stationary.
9. No graves all loot appears at the end of the battle.
10. You take what you can carry. SO pick the best stuff. Keep that in mind when looting any battlefield. Just becuase this is an IB doesnt mean you get to carry everything out. If you want more stuff register more people and carry less so you can take more.
11. Dont take the horses then? THis is the same as 10. Thats how looting works in anygame if you cant carry it you cant take it. SO takes what most valuable and most important to you at that time.
12.Same as before make sure you have a good connection. the game cant always be responsible if youre trying to play on a crappy connection its why they have Connection Requirements for games to ensure proper connections. Youll probably have like a 30 second window maybe to rejoin but i couldnt see it being anymore than that.
13. JH will be seperate.
14. If you can only sign up for one IB per time then this one answers itself. So Probably not.
15. I think they are as big as a server tile. and the capture point is somewhere in between the two armies.
16. Like any Capture The Flag/point. If youre there you are capturing if the enemy is there they are contesting it. SO Kill to make sure youre the only one inside the zone to capture. Numbers wont matter just as long as someone is in there.
17.If you leave the zone obviously you arent capturing it. Read #16.
18. There will more than likely be a meter that fills up, the more people the faster it (should) go. ALso hence the testing in the CBT to see what works and what doesnt, you havent even tried it yet and already you seem mad about it.
19. You have 5 mins to set up, again why would you do that in a capture point? you'll be exposed. But you could ultimately bring what you want. But Instances (not sure if you know the definition) will always reset after its over. meaning no matter what you built in there the next IB even if its the same guild and server the stuff will be deleted. SO choose wisely.
20. I dont think you'll be able to place more than one also you have to be at war and have to have a tier 2 monument (both sides) If you lose an attack you cant attack anyone for 3 Days (not sure if RL so 72 hours or In-game 15 hours). but either way you wont be able to do anymore IB's for 3 days. So answer No.
21. No I assume once one Guild adds a Battle Totem it may limit others from doing so for that day. But I beleive Monument size affects that meaning Tier 3, you can be attacked 3 times in one day. (if i read that correctly)
22. If they have a Monument they can be attacked. Any Claim with a Tier 2 Monument (fine Monument) can be engaged to an IB. Anyone can sign up for an IB from anywhere (vassals, mercs, randoms)
23. Then it will more than likely Cancel out if any of those factors happen. HOwever if you drop from tier 2 to tier 1, you can be seiged without the need of IB's.
24.Read 23. If it drops to tier 1, you dont have to worry about the battle because you can just seige. Its better for you if the realm drops anyway saves you the battle then you just place another one.
25. It will register to that Guild so you wont have to worry, but if the claim shrinks then you wont have to worry about the battle. The point of the IB's is to Shrink Claim and decay monument. so if the guild doesnt feed the monument and it shrinks then they are doing the job for you and making it easier for you.
26. According to Bobik. Even if you dont meet the Minimum requirements of 10 players the enemy army can still take 30. Its alll approval by an officer or Guild leader. so the members participating are hand picked no matter how many sign up.
27. You can probably check by looking at the MOnument when signing up. You will probably see how many have been picked but probably not who has been picked to make it a mystery.
28. Read 27. You'll probably have an option to see how many have been selected. but remember if you make the same amount as them they can go 3x above it still. and you wont be able to go past 30 if they pick only 10.
29. You willl Have 1 hour in the instance to win if youre an attacker, so worrying about how many are left shouldnt matter just trying to win should. If the defenders want to hide then you can capture the zone.
30. You will have a timer to accept, then have 5 mins to do what you want in the instance server. This was already answered.
31. Yes thats how it works, but the Tile drop is also relevant to the Tier level. so 7-Monument level is how much tiles you lose. (3-5)
32.Im sure that will be a thing and it will probably be random depending on the time you set it up. As its a 24 hour wait window. So dropping a battle totem on a claim an hour before IB server battle time. you wont be able to do it until the next day. So if you drop one on Sept 25th, you'll battle the 26th. If you drop on the 26th at like 12:05am youll battle the 27th.
33.Im sure the Monument when signing up will tell you what time the battle is taking place.
34. I dont think so, like i said its a teleport but i think once you win or lose you will be set back to your spawn point. Why would you travel half way across the map if youve signed up for an instance battle?
35. Well you arent gonna be able to to know if someone is going to have to partake in an IB unless you either here it from them through in game or through a discord channel. You have to physically go there and sign up. Which makes more sense then just Website signing up and makes it more realistic. You realize you have 24 RL hours to sign up for it right? SO its not Impossible to sign up. Also Dont make allies with someone on the other side of the map then. In Real medieval times it would take days for messengers to inform their allies they needed reinforcements we have discord. I think its fine that way.
36. Dont think thats fair you should have to go there physically to sign up or else it would be pointless to have the Battle Totems.
Ultimately i think you are forgetting what the IB's are all about, they are literally part of the game to drop a monument and shrink the claim |
bored out of their minds. Anyway, haven’t we had enough movies about movies? Aren’t we overdue for a movie about life?
It’s sometimes said in Tarantino’s defense that his movies are witty, but the humor is too shallow and too trivial. The great comic masters—Chaplin, Mike Leigh, Elaine May, Mark Rappaport—know that comedy is a deadly serious form. In their works, we laugh from the shock of recognition. We see ourselves in extremely complex ways. The comedy is a way of suspending a viewer within the complexity. Tarantino never uses comedy that way. It’s always merely for a cheap laugh at some easy irony or obvious incongruity—usually a sudden change of mood. The comedy doesn’t reveal anything interesting. In Pulp Fiction, when the druggie couple unexpectedly flips into their Ralph and Alice Kramden argument with the body lying on the living room floor, it shows us nothing. It illuminates nothing. It’s just done to surprise and shock us. It’s a cheap trick—a circus stunt like when the tight rope walker pretends to slip and everyone gasps. That’s not art, it’s the Ice Capades.
In Chaplin, May, Leigh, and Rappaport the comedy draws us into states of intricately multivalent sympathy with the characters, while in Tarantino, it just makes us feel superior to them. The one kind of comedy makes things more complex; the other kind, Tarantino’s, makes them simpler. Like Altman, Tarantino reduces and demeans, but above all he simplifies.
Many viewers prefer flash to real insight because flash gives the illusion of insight without requiring the actual effort of learning anything new.
If you want a crash course on the difference between gimmicks and revelations, watch Pulp Fiction and Elaine May’s Mikey and Nicky on successive nights. May creates characters who have a superficial similarity to Tarantino’s in their guttersnipe jitteriness and scenes that similarly switch tones and defeat our expectations. She doesn’t do this to astonish us, but to show us astonishing things. She doesn’t hold our interest with gimmicks but by showing us interesting things about our emotions. She doesn’t use suspense to scare and surprise us; she gives us a scary, surprising conception of who we are. She imagines experience as having a mercuriality, onwardness, and open-endedness that is more exhilarating and terrifying than any of Tarantino’s tricks. Like Tarantino’s, May’s scenes can be both shocking and extremely funny, but the difference is that in her work these feelings are side-effects of the insights. In Tarantino, the shocks and the jokes are ends in themselves. They reveal nothing. They are all there is. Mikey and Nicky does what great art always does: it invents a new language of feeling. That’s what Henry James, Emily Dickinson, George Balanchine, and Robert Kramer all do. They find ways to say things that have never been said—or known—before. They reveal magical new forms of experience. They discover new forces and endow us with new powers.
Many viewers prefer flash to real insight because flash gives the illusion of insight without requiring the actual effort of learning anything new. It’s a fact of psychic life that our ideas and emotions are organized to resist fundamental change. Real art is always resisted because its experiences will never neatly fit into pre-existing categories. It makes us work. We can’t just sit back and take it in. We have to wake up and scramble.
Truth is messier and more complex than a trick. Art doesn’t give us pre-cooked, pre-digested experiences, but raw, rough, unclassifiable ones. Real emotions defy verbal summaries. And they leave us more confused than analytic. In fact, if you can say what emotions you are feeling while you watch a film, you probably aren’t having an emotional experience in the way I mean. Thinking in a new way is more likely to bewilder than to enlighten us, at least at first. If an experience is truly original, it puts us in places we’ve never been before and may not want to be. In this sense, art can point a way out of the traps of received forms of thinking and feeling. It reveals the emotional lies that ensnare us. It opens new and potentially revolutionary understandings of our lives.
Most film professors simply don’t ask enough of movies. They’ve seen so many bad ones that they are absurdly grateful for a moderately interesting and mildly intelligent one. Is it any surprise what makes the A-list? Citizen Kane, 2001, Blade Runner, Pulp Fiction. The professors want easy knowledge—knowledge that will snap like Legos into place with their preexisting world view. They want quick, portable knowledge—something they can get at a glance, and carry away with them when the movie is over. They want painless knowledge that won’t make any real demands on them, that won’t cost them more than the price of their ticket. In short, they want fake knowledge. They don’t go to movies to learn or feel something genuinely new, but to have their received ideas and emotions confirmed. Their real problem is they have already decided who they are and what life is.
John Cassavetes’s Faces is a great example of what art can do. It simply leaves behind most of the ways other movies organize and present experience, as if Hollywood had never existed. At a stylistic level, it literally shows us life in a new way—ignoring all of those old clichés about how scenes should be shot and edited: all that stuff about using intercut shot/reverse-shot close-ups for conversations; star system hierarchies of importance for actors; melodramatic conflicts and confrontations between the characters to generate drama; and an action-centered plot to keep the nonsense zooming right along.
At the level of experience, Cassavetes shreds most of the myths that American life and film are organized around: the worship of personal glamour and power; the myth that actions and material rewards are what matter in life; the belief that we validate ourselves by competing with each other. That’s what it means for a film to reject old formulas, clichés, and myths and present new forms of understanding in their place. The problem is that films like Faces make demands that most viewers simply won’t sit still for. Cassavetes asks us to think and feel in fundamentally new ways. He denies us easy answers and knee-jerk responses. His movies get under our skin. They assault and batter us. They get in our face. Cassavetes puts us on screen and forces us to come to grips with what we are. Our culture teaches us to blame others, but Husbands, Faces, and A Woman Under the Influence won’t let us locate the stupidity or cruelty somewhere else. They have neither heroes nor villains, but only in-between characters, because that’s what we are. In short, Cassavetes is not Altman. He doesn’t flatter us and allow us to feel superior to his characters and events. He doesn’t offer easy ironies or intellectual shortcuts to knowledge.
I can’t see much difference between Spielberg’s so-called serious movie and his boy’s-book movies.
Altman is the master of cheap shots and quick knowledge. He and Cassavetes both present eccentric characters and situations, but that’s where the resemblance ends. Oddity in Altman is always used to make an easy, satiric point; in Cassavetes our individuality won’t be reduced this way. Behavior stays much more complex. Cassavetes appreciates the eccentricities of his characters. He watches them in amazement and wonder. He learns from them. He respects their mystery. But Altman, like Hitchcock, has decided what he thinks about his figures before he ever walks on the set.
Cassavetes denies himself the luxury of reclining into past forms of knowledge, just as he denies his viewers easy, pat, preformulated understandings. This makes his work ultimately much harder to “figure out” but much more fascinating to “experience.” Save us from films we can understand in the Tarantino and Altman way! Save us from films we can understand at all.
Cassavetes’ films are difficult only if you refuse to give up your old ways of knowing. They’re frustrating only if you refuse to learn from them. His truths seem fierce only because we resist them so fiercely. If we allow ourselves to learn from them, rather than fight them, his movies are joyous, spiritually exultant viewing experiences—because they open the door to the discovery of new truths about ourselves.
Do I need to add that twenty years later, many of Cassavetes’ greatest works still are not on video? Neither Faces nor Husbands, for example. So much for the brave new world of video that those film professors were waxing poetic over at the MIT conference. Let’s see how far they get trying to convince Bill Gates to release Ice or Milestones or Local Color or The Scenic Route in digital form!
Now, fans of films like Schindler’s List will claim that they reveal new truths too. But I can’t see much difference between Spielberg’s so-called serious movie and his boy’s-book movies. Schindler’s List simply rehashes Spielberg’s inflatable, one-size-fits-all myth about how a clever, resourceful character can outsmart a system. Is that what the meaning of the Holocaust boils down to—Indiana Schindler versus the Gestapo of Doom? Schindler is a Hollywood producer’s self-congratulatory fantasy of how giving people a chance to work for you is doing them a big favor. What real courage did it take to make this movie? What new understanding of the Holocaust did it reveal? Spielberg could have made a really courageous film if he had dared to make a movie sympathetic to the SS, a movie that deeply, compassionately entered into the German point of view in order to reveal how regular people with wives and children could be drawn into committing or silently consenting to such horrors. How about a movie that showed that, at least potentially, we are them? A film that didn’t locate the bad guys in an emotional and historical galaxy far away? Of course, Spielberg could never make that film even if he tried to, because it would require too much insight on his part. And if he did make it, it would not get Academy Awards. It would require viewers to think. And thinking, real thinking, is always dangerous. Audiences might be forced to confront truths that they would rather avoid. Instead of affording them another opportunity to revel in their own virtue, they just might be made to squirm a little.
It’s a curse of our culture, this addiction to smartness and knowingness. It’s not just Tarantino. Look at MTV. Look at Spy magazine. Look at the ads in The Sunday Times Magazine. What’s so great about being so knowing, so smug, so cocky? Why do we want to be cool and ironic? Why are we so afraid of emotion? It’s an American disease. Our emotions can help us out of our traps. Emotions are the way of truth. We need works of art that defeat our intellectual and emotional habits, that force us to see and feel freshly. We need an education in emotion. That’s why we have artists. They can be our teacher, if we are willing to let them.Nicholas Xenophon (né Xenophou; 29 January 1959) is an Australian politician who was a Senator for South Australia from 2008 to 2017. He was the leader of two political parties: Nick Xenophon Team federally, and Nick Xenophon's SA-BEST in South Australia. In October 2017, Xenophon resigned from the Australian Senate to contest a seat in the House of Assembly at the 2018 South Australian state election. From 1997 to 2007, he was a member of the South Australian Legislative Council, serving as an independent on a No Pokies policy platform. When the Nick Xenophon Team changed its name to Centre Alliance, Xenophon himself ceased to be directly involved with the party.[3]
Xenophon initially focused on his central anti-gambling policy, but also embraced other issues in federal parliament such as civil liberties, defence, education, foreign policy, health, infrastructure, manufacturing, national security, and regional affairs.
Xenophon failed in his central mission to have poker machines curbed or eliminated in a lasting way, but was instrumental in the Rudd Government's repeal of WorkChoices legislation and the passage of the economic stimulus package, as well as the Abbott Government's repeal of the Clean Energy Act 2011. Additionally, Xenophon was pivotal in the obstruction of the Abbott Government's 2014 austerity budget, the plan to build next generation submarines overseas, and the Pyne higher education reforms.
Early life [ edit ]
Xenophon (born Xenophou) was born in Adelaide, South Australia, the older of two children to Theo Xenophou from Cyprus and Georgia from Greece.[4]
Xenophon attended Prince Alfred College, and graduated with a Bachelor of Laws at the University of Adelaide. From 1976 until 1981, he was a member of the Liberal Party of Australia and the Young Liberals. In his first year, Xenophon was elected on the Adelaide University Liberal Club ticket to On Dit student magazine. At the end of his eighteen month term, Xenophon wrote as a whistleblower in On Dit that the Young Liberals had rigged the vote in order to secure the unlikely victory of their editing team.[5]
According to Xenophon, the party politics of the On Dit incident disenchanted him, although some Labor members maintain that he considered joining the Australian Labor Party while at university.[6] In 2015, the publishers of former Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard's 2014 memoir My Story retracted [7] a false allegation that Xenophon had been "infamously excluded from university for a period as punishment for stuffing a ballot box full of voting papers he had somehow procured".[8]
Legal career [ edit ]
In 1982 and 1983, Xenophon worked as a lawyer in the private practice of Jacob van Dissel.[5] In 1984, van Dissel gave Xenophon the personal injury part of his practice, enabling Xenophon to become principal of his new firm, Xenophon & Co. Lawyers. The firm continues and deals primarily with workers compensation and personal injury claims on a no-win-no-fee basis.[9][10]
In 1992, after the Bannon Labor government passed legislation that saw the introduction of poker machines (pokies) into South Australia the following year, the increased incidence of problem gambling came to Xenophon's attention in his legal practice.[11][12][13]
In 1994 and 1997, Xenophon served as President of the South Australian branch of the Australian Plaintiff Lawyers' Association. During this time, Xenophon also taught law at the University of South Australia, where future political opponent Christopher Pyne was among his students.[14]
Political views [ edit ]
Xenophon speaks to the media in a courtyard of Parliament House, Canberra.
Xenophon considers himself to be a centrist politician [15][16] with strong views against poker machine gambling.
In 2008, The Australian quoted many Liberal and Labor politicians who believed Xenophon had shown himself to be a "lightweight" political opportunist during his decade in state politics.[5]
In 2012, Xenophon co-sponsored a bill with Victorian Senator John Madigan to restrict federal government subsidies for wind farms. Xenophon's concerns about wind turbines were predominantly related to anecdotal evidence of health problems and the reliability of wind-sourced power.[17][18]
In 2015, Xenophon appealed in person to Indonesia’s largest Islamic body to support a reprieve for two Australian convicted drug smugglers sentenced to death in Bali. Xenophon's translator reportedly stated, “We are aware that the death penalty is the right of the Indonesian government. Therefore, we do not ask that it be cancelled but plead that it be delayed”.[19]
Political career, 1997–2018 [ edit ]
South Australian Legislative Council (1997–2008) [ edit ]
At the 1997 state election, Xenophon stood for the South Australian Legislative Council under an Independent No Pokies ticket, advocating the reduction and abolition of poker machines (colloquially known as "pokies"). He received a vote of 2.86 percent, a statewide total of 25,630 votes – much less than the 8.33 per cent needed to be elected in his own right – but by receiving a large number of preferences first from microparties and then from Grey Power, he went from a quota of 0.34 to 1.08 and was therefore elected.[20] This made Xenophon the first independent elected to the Legislative Council in 60 years.[6]
Following the 1997 election, the Olsen Liberal government needed the support of an additional two non-Liberal upper house members in order to pass legislation, with the Australian Democrats retaining the balance of power on three seats. However, defectors from Labor in the upper house, Terry Cameron and Trevor Crothers, often brought Xenophon in to play. In 1998, Xenophon voted with Cameron and the government to proceed with the second reading of the ETSA power sale bill.[21][22] The bill became law when Cameron and Crothers voted with the Liberal government, although Xenophon voted against the bill in its final form.[23] Following the election of the Rann Labor government at the 2002 state election, the government needed an additional five non-Labor upper house members to pass legislation, giving a shared balance of power to the Democrats on three seats, incumbent independents Xenophon and Cameron, with the Family First Party winning their first seat.
Xenophon was an activist for a range of issues apart from the elimination of poker machines, speaking out on consumer rights, essential services, the environment, taxation, and perks for politicians.[10] Xenophon was also vocal in the Eugene McGee hit-run affair, becoming an advocate for the victim's wife, with public opinion eventually forcing the Kapunda Road Royal Commission that led to harsher laws for hit-run offences.[24]
At the 2006 state election, he ran an aggressive campaign and attracted considerable publicity through a range of imaginative stunts, including riding a model locomotive "gravy train" outside Parliament House to protest MPs' superannuation entitlements, parading along Rundle Mall wearing a sandwich board to advertise his campaign, and bringing a small goat to Parliament urging voters not to "kid around" with their vote.[25][26] Despite media speculation that he would struggle to be re-elected due to the major parties preferencing against him, he attracted sufficient funding and volunteers to staff most state booths on polling day.[27] He received 190,958 first preferences or 20.51 per cent of the total vote, enough to not only be re-elected himself, but also to elect the second No Pokies candidate, Ann Bressington.[28][29] His total was 5.46 per cent less than the Liberal Party, and he outpolled the Liberals in some booths, including the electoral district of Enfield.[30] With the Labor government needing four non-Labor upper house members to pass legislation, No Pokies on two seats shared the balance of power with Family First on two seats, the Democrats on one seat, with the SA Greens winning their first seat.
Australian Senate (2008–2017) [ edit ]
2007 election campaign [ edit ]
On 11 October 2007, Xenophon called a press conference at the Adelaide Zoo in front of the giraffe enclosure, declaring he would "stick his neck out for South Australia" by announcing his resignation from the South Australian Legislative Council in an attempt to gain election to the Australian Senate at the 2007 federal election.[31] His platform consisted of anti-gambling and consumer protection measures, attention to the water crisis affecting the Murray River, ratifying Kyoto, opposition against a "decrease in state rights", and opposition to WorkChoices.[32][33][34] Nick Minchin, a Liberal senator from South Australia, urged people not to vote for Xenophon.[35][36][37] Due to running as an independent Xenophon's name did not appear above the line on the ticket, instead he was represented only by the letter "S" above the line, with voters having to search for his details.[38]
As Xenophon had vacated his Legislative Council seat to run for the Senate, a joint sitting of the South Australian parliament was convened for 21 November 2007 to select Xenophon's replacement. Former valuer-general John Darley, who had stood as the third candidate on Xenophon's ticket in 2006, was appointed.[39] During the joint sitting convened to confirm the nomination, Ann Bressington criticised Xenophon, questioning his integrity and suitability for federal parliament, suggesting that his "anti-politician" image was more spin than reality.[40] She also said Xenophon had demanded she contribute $50,000 towards campaign expenses at the 2006 state election. Xenophon said in response that he was "shocked and hurt" and "deeply upset" that she had failed to share her concerns with him in person, saying "privately and publicly, I have been very supportive of her."[41] Some people whose causes Xenophon had championed also came forward to defend Xenophon, like Di Gilcrist, whose husband's hit and run death resulted in the Kapunda Road Royal Commission. In an interview the following day, Ms Gilcrist said "based on my experience not only as a victim who's dealt with Nick but also somebody who's worked with Nick and his office... Nick is passionate and he cares and he is empathetic. And he is truly committed."[40][42] Lower House independent Kris Hanna also defended Xenophon, arguing Bressington had "obviously been out to do some damage" and injure Xenophon's election chances.[43]
Towards the end of the campaign, Xenophon walked a large mule down Rundle Mall to symbolise his stubbornness.[44] Xenophon received 14.78 percent of the vote.[45][46] This was down from his 2006 state election result of over 20%.
First term (2008–2014) [ edit ]
Xenophon in September 2008
Xenophon shared the balance of power in the Senate with the Australian Greens and the Family First Party. The First Rudd Government required the support of two crossbench senators or the opposition to pass legislation.[47]
In February 2009, the Rudd Government needed to pass its $42 billion economic stimulus package. Xenophon initially voted against the package, but ultimately voted in favour after amendments were made. Xenophon persuaded the government to bring forward $900 million in Murray-Darling basin funds and other water projects, which included $500 million over three years for water buybacks.[48][49]
In November 2009, Xenophon labelled the Church of Scientology as a criminal organisation, alleging members had experienced blackmail, torture and violence, labour camps and forced imprisonment, and coerced abortions.[50][51][52] On 7 September 2010, a Senate committee recommended that a charities commission be formed with the purpose of investigating and monitoring transparency of charitable organisations.[53] This recommendation received bipartisan support.[53][54]
In July 2011, Xenophon lost the balance of power to the Greens,[55][56] however his anti-pokies stance was bolstered when independent Andrew Wilkie was elected to the lower house at the 2010 election, resulting in a hung parliament. Wilkie had campaigned heavily against pokies at the election.[57] In exchange for Wilkie's support, the Gillard Government legislated for mandatory pre-commitment technology which would require people using high-bet machines to pre-commit how much they were willing to bet on a machine before actually playing,[58] as well as introducing safer $1 maximum bet per spin machines, which would not require pre-commitment.[59] The plan came under sustained attack from sporting clubs and various businesses that financially benefit from poker machine use.[60][61]
In September 2011, Xenophon controversially used parliamentary privilege to accuse a Catholic priest of rape, in regard to accusations around events that occurred in the 1960s. He also accused Monsignor David Cappo and Philip Wilson, the Catholic Archbishop of Adelaide, of failing to properly investigate the allegations in 2007. All three men denied the senator's claims. Xenophon chose such action after receiving an "unsatisfactory" response from the Church when advising them of his intentions and ultimatum. Cappo subsequently stepped down from several of his public positions.[62][63][64] Several days later, after high-level media coverage, Xenophon indicated he might not have used parliamentary privilege had he known the person he accused was about to take a period of leave.[65]
In November 2011, Xenophon voted against the Clean Energy Bill. The carbon pricing scheme passed with the Labor government receiving Green support for the legislation in the Senate.[66][67]
In May 2012, Xenophon - a vocal supporter of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim - visited Malaysia to independently observe anti-government protests. The New Straits Times questioned Xenophon's impartiality in an article, which included part of his 2009 speech criticizing Scientology. The newspaper replaced Scientology with the word Islam.[68] Xenophon threatened to sue for defamation, and the article was removed from the newspaper's website.[69][70]
On 16 February 2013, Xenophon attempted independently to revisit Malaysia but was refused entry by immigration authorities and sent back to Australia.[71][72] It was confirmed that Xenophon was not on an Australian Delegation list scheduled to meet the Malaysian parliamentary affairs minister.[73]
2013 election campaign [ edit ]
During the 2013 federal election, Xenophon nominated four key policy issues; gaming machine reforms, stopping palm oil from being sold in Australia, breaking up the supermarket duopoly, and better deals for Riverland irrigators in the Murray-Darling basin rescue plan. Xenophon's voting result increased to 24.9 percent, a few percent short of two quotas.[74] A record number of candidates stood at the election.[75] Group voting tickets came under scrutiny because multiple candidates were provisionally elected with the vast majority of their 14.3 percent quotas coming from the preferences of other parties across the political spectrum.[76][77][78]
Second term (2014–2016) [ edit ]
After returning to a balance of power position in the Senate, Xenophon focused on defence materiel, particularly the Collins-class submarine replacement project,[79] and cuts made by the Abbott Government in the 2014 Australian federal budget.[80]
In October 2014, Xenophon supported the Abbott Government's Direct Action plan for combatting Climate Change, enabling it to pass the Senate.[81] However, he later stated that the plan had been "neutered" because of changes made to it via regulation.[82]
In December 2014, Xenophon voted against the tertiary education reforms proposed by Minister for Education and Training Christopher Pyne which would have seen a shift towards privatisation of universities in Australia.[83]
In March 2015, Xenophon opposed the amendments to the national security legislative framework, particularly on the issue of telecommunications data retention.[84] In his 2014 "spycatcher" speech to the Senate, Xenophon stated that the new laws would have a chilling effect on investigative journalism in Australia.[85] Xenophon negotiated with then Minister for Immigration and Border Protection Scott Morrison for the reintroduction of the Temporary Protection Visa.[86]
In March 2015, Xenophon independently travelled to Indonesia with an Adelaide sheikh to unconvincingly seek clemency for the Bali Nine duo who were on death row.[19][87]
In November 2015, Xenophon joined calls for a royal commission into the Australia-East Timor spying scandal.[88][89]
In February 2016, Xenophon joined with the Australian Greens and the Government to support a reform of the Senate election system.[90] Other crossbench senators, including John Madigan and David Leyonhjelm, whose re-election prospects would be bleak under the new voting arrangements, accused Xenophon of "political trickery of the highest order".[91][92]
2016 election campaign [ edit ]
During the 2016 federal election campaign, Xenophon was the subject of attacks from both major political parties,[93] including his failure to declare a directorship of Adelaide Tower Pty Ltd, which involved his father. Xenophon accused proponents of a "partisan and personal campaign".[94] Labor requested the Australian Electoral Commission investigate questionable loans given to Xenophon by businessman Ian Melrose.[95]
Third term (2016–2017) [ edit ]
In August 2016, Xenophon and NXT colleagues opposed the proposed same-sex marriage plebiscite on the basis that it was not binding and a waste of public resources.[96]
In March 2017, Xenophon announced that he would launch a new party in time for the 2018 South Australian state election.[97] In July 2017, Nick Xenophon's SA-BEST was registered by the Electoral Commission of South Australia.[98]
In August 2017, Xenophon became embroiled in the 2017 Australian parliamentary eligibility crisis [99] and asked to be referred to the High Court for clarification of his 2016 eligibility.[100][101] On 27 October 2017, the High Court found he had been eligible in 2016 to nominate and be validly elected.[2]:para 135
In September 2017, the Turnbull Government with the support of Nick Xenophon (by a vote of 31-27), was able to pass changes to media legislation including the repealing of the "two-out-of-three" rule (which allowed a company to own a TV station, newspaper and radio station in a single market) and the "reach rule" (which prevented a single TV broadcaster from reaching more than seventy-five per cent of the population).[102][103]
On 6 October 2017, Xenophon announced that he would resign in order to stand for the Parliament of South Australia at the 2018 South Australian general election.[104] On 31 October 2017, Xenophon resigned from the Senate, and was replaced by his party's senior advisor Rex Patrick.[105][106][107]
Constitutional eligibility (2017) [ edit ]
On 19 August 2017, Xenophon announced that British authorities had confirmed that he was a British Overseas Citizen because his ethnic Greek father was born in Cyprus when it was a British colony.[99] Xenophon's subsequent application to renounce that citizenship became effective on 30 August.[2]:para 123 Separately, Xenophon later said that he had already renounced Greek citizenship acquired through his mother. Xenophon asked the Australian government to have him referred to the High Court in the Court of Disputed Returns for consideration and clarification of his 2016 eligibility.[100][101] On 27 October 2017, the High Court found that Xenophon had been eligible in 2016 to nominate and be validly elected.[2]:para 135
South Australian House of Assembly (2018) [ edit ]
On 17 March 2018, Xenophon unsuccessfully contested the seat of Hartley in the South Australian House of Assembly at the 2018 South Australian state election. Although he came second on the primary vote ahead of Labor's Grace Portolesi by 202 votes, upon the preference distribution of the eliminated fourth-placed Greens candidate, Xenophon's 99 vote lead over Labor became a 357 vote deficit. Third-placed Xenophon was therefore eliminated, with Hartley reverting to the traditional Liberal vs Labor contest.[108][109]
Personal life [ edit ]
In 1990, Xenophon married physiotherapist Sandra Kazubiernis.[5] When their only child was born in 1992, Xenophon changed his own surname by deed poll from Xenophou to Xenophon; his paternal grandfather's surname. Kazubiernis and Xenophon separated in 1995 and later divorced.[110]
Xenophon is expecting his second child in early 2019 and is "very much a private citizen and glad to be out of politics". [111]
Allegations of abuse [ edit ]
In 2017, former staffer Jenny Low claimed, in response to an article appearing in The Australian, that she had been in a seven-year secret relationship with Xenophon that was psychologically abusive, "destructive" and detrimental to her career.[112] Xenophon admitted that a relationship had commenced in 2007,[113] but rejected any negative assertions.[112]
Filmography [ edit ]I currently find myself living in Romania for a bit. One thing that bothers me is that if I spend time in a place where I don’t speak the language and make the locals speak English to me all the time (provided they can!) is that it feels like I’m rude and not making an effort to meet them halfway. Why should (many) be the ones to adapt rather than me (one)?
So I make it a point to make a strong attempt to learn the language of the place where I currently live. I’ve landed a short-term contract (which hopefully will not interfere with all my other plans too much) and currently live in an apartment in Bucharest. Bucharest, Romania is a place where younger people will all speak English in various degrees of fluency, but older people and most people you will interact with in stores and other day-to-day situations do not. So there is not just a sense of balance involved in this but also a simple need. In order to get through a normal day it would very much help if I spoke the language.
Romanian is best described as modern day Latin with a number of Slavic influences. It has all the complexities of Latin as well (conjugations, declensions) and has numerous exceptions to the regular rules of the language as well as a whole bunch of extensions to the normal Latin alphabet indicated using diacriticals. Romanian is hard. It’s certainly not the hardest thing I’ve learned but it is harder than I expected it to be (normally I start picking up the basics of a language after a few weeks). I’ve been here for two months now and am not making the progress that I would like to make so somewhere last week (after delivering the first part of the job to the customer, a program that spots spammers before they can become a nuisance to a community, tons of machine learning and interesting tricks in order to output a single bit of data for every new signup) I decided to get serious about this language business.
After reading this very fortunately timed thread on HackerNews I found out about MemRise (I first tried ‘Anki’ but it wouldn’t work for some reason and I gave up after getting stuck in dll hell and versioning conflicts for longer than I have patience for).
Memrise is an instance of a technique called Spaced Repetition Software. What that does is to set you up with a set of flashcards that are presented at precisely timed intervals and various ways of responding to input the expected answer. Optionally flash-cards are accompanied by audio files or pictures that you can upload yourself as memory hints. The whole thing has been gamified to the max (the MemRise people were coached by some guy that was responsible for the farmville cancer), though the leaderboard has been shut down because there was too much cheating (who on earth would cheat to fake learning a language just to be top of a leaderboard is a mystery to me). MemRise is very slick and I took to it with total abandon. They use a ‘gardening’ metaphor where you first ‘plant’ a word or sentence and then you ‘water’ it in subsequent reviews. It works very nice in the first few days.
But after completing the first ‘course’ for Romanian (user contributed content) I noticed a few things. For one, the courses are supplied by the end-users and they do not appear to be ‘natives’ to me. Quite a few mistakes in the deck marred the experience and caused me to learn the wrong translations very rigorously. This is a real problem. The second issue with MemRise floated to the top as soon as I added a second course (deck). There was a lot of overlap with the first and yet MemRise wasn’t clever enough to realize I’d already learned a lot of those words in the previous deck (you can solve this using the ‘ignore’ option but that’s a ton of manual work that could easily be automated). Another problem that surfaced is that two decks do not necessarily agree on what a word means. Maybe both are right, maybe one of the two is wrong. Regardless, at a minimum it will cause you to not know what you’re supposed to answer because invariably the answer that will float to the top will be the one from the other deck (because that’s the one you saw last).
Another issue is that the MemRise courses vary greatly in usefullness and quality but the courses are not graded in any way, nor is there any indication of whether or not they have been made by someone fluent in the target language. There is also no way to flip or reverse the deck. Decks (courses) may contain (lots) of words of questionable usability and of course you’ld like to know the most useful words first. (why would I have to learn ‘sobolanul’ (the rat in Romanian) before learning a useful word like ‘toothpaste’ or ‘ticket’ in the first few hundred words in a new language?). I can’t search for a word in the courses that I’m learning (for instance, during the setting up of a new deck to check if a definition interferes with a previous deck) and I have no quick way to compare two decks side-by-side. So it somewhat works but is starting to frustrate me and I feel that the more time I spend on MemRise the stronger those frustrations will become. (and none of them seem to be too hard to fix).
This is written after I’ve been playing with MemRise for only a few days (but full-time, I cranked up about half a million ‘points’ in their system so I think I have some right to speak here) but still I already find myself wondering if there is a way to improve on MemRise.
MemRise is made by ‘Neuroscientists, GrandMasters of Memory and software developers’ and they are reinventing learning. I’m a-ok with that and I think it is a great product to get a first grasp on a new language but I really think they could do a much better job of this than they are doing right now when it comes to learning a new language (which is a very large part of the use-case of memrise, but when you’re on a mission to ‘reinvent learning’ you might miss that little detail).
Spaced Repetition Software not exactly a new concept (even though memrise is a nice and slickly packaged example of it the first SRS dates back decades ago). Currently there are a lot packages that attempt to do this out there, with mobile phone and tablet support and all kinds of goodies. But most of them look pretty arcane (MemRise definitely looks good), and I wonder about |
quickly secured a portion of the shipyard, hijacked an Imperial pleasure craft that they believed had belonged to an Imperial art collector, and blasted away from the station. Calrissian piloted the ship, the Imperialis, while Lobot acted as his co-pilot. Lobot was unsure of Calrissian's rejoicing in escaping so easily; Lobot believed there was still trouble to come.[5]
Escaping Castell Edit
"Three? They sent three Star Destroyers?"
"Bad news."
"No, this is good. Can you imagine how much this thing must be worth?"
"To us? Nothing, once we are dead."
"Cheer up, pal. Suddenly…I feel very much alive." ―Calrissian and Lobot [src]
Lobot was soon proven correct when a trio of Imperial-class Star Destroyers emerged from hypersapce near the Imperialis. Lobot grew frustrated as the "easy score" that Calrissian had promised began to disappear. Calrissian argued that it was a good thing that the Star Destroyers arrived; it meant the ship was incredibly valuable to its owner—who, unknown to Lobot and his fellows, was none other than Galactic Emperor Sheev Palpatine. The Star Destroyers dropped gravity-based mines to prevent the Imperialis from entering hyperspace, but the yacht's automated defenses destroyed the mines. When the Star Destroyers captained by Shan and Conro activated tractor beams to reclaim the vessel, Lando had Lobot upload the ships' coordinates to Lando's piloting computer. With the coordinates uploaded, Lando piloted the Imperialis between the two Star Destroyers, causing them to lock onto each other. Unable to disengage in time, the capital ships collided, giving the Imperialis the opportunity to jump to hyperspace. Free from the Castell system, Lando and Lobot were approached by Sava Korin, who said the yacht was filled with treasure. Touring the crew around, Korin explained that one area of the ship, the central chamber, was very well secured, so Lobot volunteered to open the sealed door with his implants. When he did, however, he was confronted by a pair of Imperial Guards, one of which immediately impaled him through the chest with their staff.[8]
A turn for the worse Edit
"What's wrong with him, Calrissian?"
"When Lobot loses focus, his implants start to take over his mind, Korin. If we can't figure out something now, he'll just…lose himself." ―Korin Pers and Calrissian [src]
The Guards were quickly engaged by Pavol and Aleksin, while Lando rushed to Lobot's side. Lobot, struggling to maintain consciousness, fought against his implants from taking over his mind. Pers, informing Lando of a medical bay one deck from their location, helped Lando rush Lobot to a bacta tank. Not sure if the semi-conscious Lobot reached the bacta tank in time, Lando apologized to his friend. Pers, deducing the Imperialis belonged to Palpatine, told Lando that the entire crew would die. Lando, unable to withstand the recent events, went to check on the twins.[11]
Aleksin and Pavol defeated the Guards, so the crew examined the central chambers artifacts. Pers, attributing the pieces to be works by Lord Momin, an ancient Sith sculptor, estimating the artifacts to each be worth an entire moon or two. While Calrissian and Pers discussed the loot, Aleksin became possessed by a helmet imbued with the dark side of the Force, igniting a double-bladed lightsaber and attacking Pavol. Shocked, Calrissian and Pers fled the chamber, resealing the door behind them. Pers argued to enter the escape pods, but Lando refused to leave Lobot behind. Meanwhile, unknown to Lando and Pers, Chanath Cha, now working for the Emperor, had infiltrated the ship. Preventing the crew's escape, Cha disabled the pods, and the ship relayed the message over the intercom. Lando realized that someone else must be on the ship, and, soon after, Pers and Lando encountered the bounty hunter at gunpoint. However, Cha recognized Lando and lowered her weapons. Cha explained her presence, saying that she was sent to kill anyone aboard or destroy the vessel.[12]
A change of plans Edit
"Can't…stop the auto-destruct. It's… hardwired. Designed not to be… messed with. Probably 'cause of… guys like me. NEURAL RE-ROUTE EIGHTY-FOUR PERCENT COMPLETE. NEURAL RE-ROUTE EIGHTY-FIVE—Think I can turn the…escape…pods…back on, though." ―Lobot, trying to save his friends while fighting his implants [src]
While Chanath couldn't reactive the escape pods, she agreed to let Lando and Korin escape aboard her ship, the Scimitar, and destroy the Imperialis. However, when Calrissian told Cha that Lobot was aboard the Imperialis and was injured, Cha succumbed to Calrissian's plan of stopping Aleksin and Pavol and keeping the ship intact. Immediately after, Aleksin and Pavol confronted the group, saying that Pers was a victim, before killing her. Sealing the door between them and the twins, Cha went to dock the Scimitar while Calrissian went to retrieve Lobot. Despite Lobot needing more time, Calrissian removed him from the bacta as the ship announced it would self-destruct. Helping Lobot out of the medical bay, Calrissian encountered Aleksin, fatally shooting the alien. The two reunited with Cha, and Lobot told her that he'd missed her company. When Lando asked if the Scimitar was prepped, Cha explained that her ship's droid pilot, O-66, had fled, trapping them on the self-destructing Imperialis. Lobot then requested to be taken to a computer interface, where he attempted to disable the auto-destruct. Unable to do so, Lobot realized he could turn the escape pods back on, but he couldn't do so while fighting his implant from taking over. Deciding to save his longtime friends, he enabled the pods, allowing the implants to take over his mind. Moving to the escape pods, Lando invited Cha to come with them, saying that it might bring Lobot back, but Cha declined, saying that he'd made his choice and picked Lando. After Cha said goodbye, Lando and Lobot's pod ejected. As it departed, Lando told Lobot he'd find a cure to bring him back. Upon hearing the word "cure," Lobot's cybernetic construct played a pre-recorded contingency message to his friend, saying that Lobot believed Lando could find a cure, but either way he wouldn't be upset, as he had lived by his choices. Lobot's message went on to tell Lando that people trust his leadership, and that he needed to do something good with that power. Lobot's recording then ended with, "Lando. Old buddy. You're better than this."[9]
Aide to the Baron Administrator Edit
"Well done. Hold them in the security tower. And keep it quiet." ―Calrissian, upon Lobot's execution of Code Force Seven [src]
In the time to come, Lobot and Calrissian returned to Bespin, where Calrissian was appointed to be Baron Administrator of Cloud City, a Tibanna gas mining-colony located in the planet's atmosphere. In Cloud City, Lobot was given the responsibility of managing day-to-day affairs,[4] serving as Calrissian's Chief Administrative Aide and the city's computer liaison officer.[3]
Shortly after the Battle of Hoth, Calrissian was contacted by his old friend Han Solo, who requested shelter for his rebel companions Princess Leia Organa, the Wookiee Chewbacca, and the protocol droid C-3PO. Unknown to Solo and his companions, Calrissian had already made a secret agreement with Darth Vader to hand Solo over to the bounty hunter Boba Fett, who was working for the Hutt crime lord Jabba. While the Empire agreed not to arrest Solo's rebel companions, they would not be allowed to leave Cloud City.[2]
Later, Lobot was present when Vader, Fett, and several Imperial stormtroopers apprehended Solo and his companions at a banquet hall. After the Imperials froze Solo in carbonite and handed him over to Fett, Darth Vader altered the terms of the deal by arresting Organa, Chewbacca, and C-3PO. Unhappy about Vader's unilateral changes and feeling guilty for his role in betraying Solo, Calrissian, via comlink,[2] issued Code Force Seven,[13] ordering Lobot and the Bespin Wing Guard to detain Vader's troops and free Solo's rebel associates. Lobot was successful, and he held the stormtroopers in the security tower as Calrissian fled the planet with the escaped prisoners.[2] Although Lobot helped evacuate the city, it soon fell to the Empire, and Lobot was captured.[14]
The Iron Blockade Edit
"Tell Lobot to make sure he's standing by with the intrusion team. And get a message to Calrissian. Tell him we're almost in and that he can transfer the credits—No, you know what? Tell him we're doing this one gratis. On the house. He and his New Republic pals can owe me a favor." ―Kars Tal-Korla [src]
In 4 ABY,[15] the rebellion against the Empire won a major victory at the Battle of Endor, in which Emperor Palpatine was killed. In the following months, the Rebel Alliance reorganized into a New Republic,[6] which continued to fight against remaining Imperial forces. Bespin, still under Imperial control, was subjected to the Iron Blockade under the order of Governor Ubrik Adelhard of the Anoat sector.[16] Lobot, still present on Bespin, relayed messages through the blockade to Calrissian, who had been promoted to a general in the Republic following his departure from Cloud City. At one point during the blockade, Lobot hired the pirate Kars Tal-Korla to capture Borgin Kaa, an Imperial collaborator, and extract a code needed to open an access panel connected to Adelhard's personal chamber; once the panel was opened, Lobot and an intrusion team would apprehend the Governor. Rather than being paid for the act, the pirate said to treat it as a favor.[6] Despite their efforts, Adelhard eluded capture, although the planet was liberated by the Uprising soon after.[16]
Retaking Cloud City Edit
"I know. It's allright. I'll have two to make it equitable. That way, we both win." ―Lando Calrissian, trying to please Lobot's personal tastes [src]
Around the time of the Battle of Jakku, Lobot accompanied Lando as New Republic forces mopped up the remaining Imperial holdouts on Cloud City. When Lando remarked that the Empire had left Cloud City in a mess, Lando responded that he would look into rehiring staff immediately. Lando then told Lobot to make sure that they hired refugees since Cloud City was inundated with expats and evacuees who needed work. As Lando went to deal with Imperial holdouts in the Bolo Tanga room, Lobot informed Calrissian that his friend Princess Leia Organa was expected to give birth soon and that he had forgotten to send a nuptial gift. At Lobot's insistence, Calrissian agreed to think of a gift to send his friends.[17]
Lobot followed Calrissian as they approached the Bolo Tanga room, which was surrounded by several Wing Guards and New Republic soldiers. Lobot stood by Calrissian as the Baron Administrator convinced the Imperial troops to surrender. However, an Imperial sergeant refused to surrender and tried to shoot Calrissian. However, Lando killed him with his Vitiator blaster. After neutralizing the Imperial, Lando toyed with the idea of sending Leia's child a lamp. Lobot disagreed.[17]
When Lando suggested giving the child a blaster, Lobot opposed the idea on the grounds that children should not play with blasters. Lando suggested keeping the blaster in a safe till Leia's son came of age. When Lobot vetoed the idea, Calrissian finally settled with giving Leia's family the Vantillian catamaran in the western skipdock. Lobot accepted the idea. When Calrissian toyed with the idea of starting his own family, Lobot vetoed the idea. When Lando suggested they should go and share some drinks, Lobot responded that he did not drink.[17]
Personality and traits Edit
"Hey, Lando. If you're hearing this recording, I'm gone, and you just said the word 'cure.' I bet it didn't take you very long, either. Maybe you'll pull it off. I wouldn't put it past you. I've seen you beat crazier odds. But even if you don't, I'm not angry about what happened to me. Not now, and definitely not by the time you hear this. I live by my choices." ―Lobot's recording to Calrissian [src]
Lobot was a 1.75 meter–tall[3] male human with blue eyes, light skin,[2] and an AJ^6 cyborg construct[4] attached to the back of his bald head. His implant detracted some of his personality, but it allowed him to make quick calculations,[7] and he used this ability to help Lando determine the risks of missions they underwent. Prior to her departure, Lobot had a romantic relationship with Chanath Cha, and he missed her in her absence. Lobot placed trust in his friends, yet he held himself accountable for his actions, as demonstrated following his injuries acquired on the Imperialis, when his construct played a recorded message for Lando. The injuries he sustained weakened him, so he was forced to sacrifice his mind to save his friends, leaving him without a personality or ability to speak.[9]
Lobot also displayed some introspection. Before losing his personality, he counseled Lando to use his charm and talents to find something bigger to believe in than himself and to use that power to do something good. Lobot opined that Lando was made for better things than being a scoundrel.[9] His efficiency and near-silence made him the perfect match for Calrissian's flamboyant personality.[13] Lobot was also known for his strict, no-nonsense personality. He was a teetotaler and opposed Calrissian's idea of gifting the young Ben Solo a blaster and lamp. He appeared to be the only person who could say no to Calrissian.[17]
Equipment Edit
"I mean…uh…let's see… Yeah. The implants tell me the chances of that working were something like one in ten thousand. At best." ―Lobot, joking to Calrissian after hearing the tale of how he manipulated Moff Ssaria [src]
During his time with the Galactic Empire,[5] Lobot had an AJ^6 cyborg construct[4] implanted into the back of his skull,[7] allowing him to make battlefield calculations.[5] The implants, which traded personality for productivity,[7] would take over his mind if he lost focus. After sustaining severe injuries while aboard the Imperialis, Lobot was unable to prevent the implants from taking over,[9] permanently making him a machine-like assistant.[13] Years later, when Lobot worked on Cloud City, his implants allowed him to communicate directly to the city's central computer, positioning him to be the city's computer-liaison officer.[3]
Lobot's clothing consisted of a belt projecting a clear-signal field and a Fineweave sherculién-cloth shirt.[13] Lobot was incapable of speaking verbally and communicated using his cyborg construct, which could transmit messages to a communication device on his friend Lando's wrist.[17]
Behind the scenes Edit
Creation and portrayal Edit
"If you've got a part where you're walking around with lights flashing on your head, you can't really fail, can you?" ―John Hollis [src]
Lobot first appeared in the 1980 film Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back, in which he was portrayed by John Hollis. A character serving as Lando Calrissian's assistant was present in most of the original screenplays of The Empire Strikes Back, and many production paintings depicted this character as a tall, regal dark-skinned woman. One of the later drafts of the script established this character as a cyborg, and it was then that actor John Hollis was selected for the role by the filmmakers. The cybernetic implant prop Hollis wore on his head was completely battery-powered and was connected to a spring clip that was fit around the actor's head. However, the prop was quite heavy and uncomfortable for Hollis to wear. Hollis was originally only hired for a week's worth of work, but because of the film's extended shooting schedule, he remained on the Bespin set at Elstree Studios for ten weeks.[18]
Throughout most of the film's production, Lobot was only referred to as "Lando's aide"[19] and is referred to as such in the credits. He was to have a great deal of dialogue, mostly with Calrissian. However, the filmmakers decided that the character had been lobotomized as a result of the installation of his cybernetic implant, causing him to become a mute. This decision reportedly did not concern Hollis.[18] As a reference to this change, the character was named "Lobot," a corruption of the word "lobotomy."[19] This idea was later reflected in The Empire Strikes Back when Lobot mouths a soundless reply to Lando before taking captured stormtroopers to the security tower. However, the French dub from the 2004 European release adds an audible answer.
A scene cut from The Empire Strikes Back called "Lobot's Capture" depicted Lobot being detained by a pair of stormtroopers,[20] while another showed a critically-injured Lobot being carried away by several men wearing white masks. This was meant to serve as Lobot's death scene, but it was ultimately removed by the filmmakers because there was a possibility that the character would appear in the following film, Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi.[18]
Cultural impact Edit
Look at him. He looks like he didn't pay his parking tickets, and they put a boot on his head."
"He looks like Lex Luthor's playing laser tag." ―Lando and Jango discussing Lobot, as depicted on Conan
Since his appearance in The Empire Strikes Back, Lobot has been featured in numerous Star Wars spoofs, including sketches in the comedy television shows Robot Chicken[21] and Conan. Prior to the release of Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens in 2015, an opening skit on Conan featured castoff Star Wars characters such as Jango Fett, Bib Fortuna, and Oola meeting in a diner to gripe about not being cast in the film. Their discussion is soon interrupted by Lobot, played by Conan O'Brien, who begins to harass them.[22]
On February 25, 2016, the StarWars.com editorial staff ranked Lobot and Lando to be the ninth best Star Wars duo, placing in front of Cornelius Evazan and Ponda Baba.[23]
Appearances Edit
Non-canon appearances Edit
Sources Edit
Notes and references EditDr. Sallie Ann Keller has stepped down from her position as Vice-President, Academic & Provost at the University of Waterloo, effective immediately. Dr. Keller cited personal reasons for her decision to resign.
"On behalf of the University of Waterloo, I would like to wish Professor Keller well as she begins the next stage of her distinguished career, and thank her for her contributions to the university community," said President & Vice-Chancellor Feridun Hamdullahpur.
"Interacting with the University of Waterloo's fabulous students and dedicated faculty and staff has reminded me how important it is to alternate periods of administration with periods of research and teaching," Provost Keller said. "I'm very proud of what I've been able to accomplish as Provost, but, for personal reasons, this seems like the right time to make a change," she said. "We have a top ranked statistics and actuarial sciences department here, and I'm looking forward to being a part of it. I want to thank President Hamdullahpur for bringing me to this great university."
During her time at Waterloo, Keller helped lead the development of the University’s Strategic Mandate Agreement and response to a government white paper on the future of higher education. An Interim Provost will be appointed shortly to provide leadership to academic operations at Waterloo. The University will undertake a search for a new academic leader to fill this position on a permanent basis.The Bay Area Fellowship, the largest church in Corpus Christi, will give away more than $4 million in cash and prizes to everyone who attends Easter services at one of its seven locations.
The prizes range from gift bags with $300 worth of goods and services all the way up to cars -- 16 of them, to be exact, all of them used but low-mileage. And there's everything in between: 10 furniture sets, flat-screen TVs, tickets to sporting events, 300 bicycles and skateboards, photography sessions, and more.
"Someone could come to church [on Easter] and walk away an hour later with a car," lead pastor Bil Cornelius said on MSNBC today.
Cornelius said he got the idea from a fellow pastor in Minneapolis who got a local car dealer to donate a car to give away to a lucky churchgoer at Easter. The idea apparently inspired Cornelius' flock to follow suit -- all of the items being given away this Sunday are donated by church members, including an iPod donated by a 12-year-old church member. "To a 12-year-old, an iPod's a really big thing," Cornelius said. "This boy said, 'I'd rather have someone come to youth group on Sunday to learn about the love of Christ by donating my iPod to the drawing.
"It's a way to draw people in for a prize and then give them the ultimate giveaway, which is a relationship with Christ, which is free heaven, which is better than any material prize we have to offer," he continued.
Church officers anticipate the giveaway will prove a highly effective marketing tool -- they're expecting 15,000 to 20,000 people, more than twice their normal weekly attendance, to show up for Easter services. One car will be given away at each of the services at the church's main campus and its six satellite locations in the Corpus Christi area
Written by Sandy Smith
For HULIQ.comPlaying With Invertible Bloom Lookup Tables And Bitcoin Transactions
05 Nov 2014
Gavin Andresen of bitcoin fame posted a github gist a while ago, about using IBLTs to send block transaction summaries across the bitcoin network.
About IBLT
(Skip if you’re familiar with IBLTs)
The IBLT structure is fairly simple: create a counting bloom filter, and attach to each bucket the contents of the thing you’re filtering (xoring in each time). If the IBLT is fairly empty, you’ll find buckets which only have 1 thing in them, and thus recover the things which were put in (this is the “invertible” part). When you remove those, you might find more buckets now have 1 thing in them, etc. The paper is worth reading, but this should give you the idea.
Subtracting IBLTs
The clever bit comes by realizing that if I create an IBLT with everything in my set, and you create an IBLT with everything in your set, it’s trivial to subtract my IBLT from your IBLT and get an IBLT of the set differences. Which is great, because all bloom filters become useless when they clog up, but if our sets are very similar, the subtraction result gives a nice sparse IBLT. And here’s the paper.
Using IBLTs for Bitcoin
(Skip if you’re familiar with Gavin’s IBLT proposal)
Gavin suggested some ways to adapt an IBLT to the blockchain problem:
Set a size of 1M for the whole thing. Make each IBLT bucket look like this: struct entry { u32 count; struct keySum { u8 id[6]; u16 index; u8 frag[8]; } key; } This gives 52428 buckets for a 1MB table. Generate a 48-bit id for each transaction and fragment it into 64-bits at a time, with index incremented for each fragment. This means the average transaction (263 bytes) uses about 32 of these.
A Simplified IBLTs Bitcoin Example
So here’s a simplified example of 4 buckets of an IBLT:
count: 1 id: 0xf00 index: 0 frag: Feed Me count: 1 id: 0xf00 index: 1 frag: Seymore! count: 2 id: 0xf0f index: 0 frag: 0x70x170x100xB0x90x1B0x10x53 count: 1 id: 0x00f index: 0 frag: I love
Here each “transaction” has 2 parts (index 0 and index 1), we can see both parts of id 0xf00 exposed in the first two buckets. The result is “Feed Me Seymore!”. Now we’ve recovered that, we remove it, and it turns out that fragment 1 is also in that third bucket, so we subtract 1 from the counter and XOR out the other values, giving:
count: 0 id: 0 index: 0 frag: count: 0 id: 0 index: 0 frag: count: 1 id: 0x00f index: 1 frag: Triffids count: 1 id: 0x00f index: 0 frag: I love
Now we can extract id 0x00f, which is “I love Triffids” (and leaving the IBLT empty).
Testing It
For my experiment, I used 4 hash functions for each bloom entry, and just make the 48-bit id the first 48 bits of the SHA. I used a simple shell script to pull out the last 10000 bitcoin transactions.
You can find the code on github.
Recovering Transactions
Let’s first look at how many transactions we can put in such table and pull them out again. This reflects the simple case where the miner has N transactions we don’t have (and we have none they don’t have). For each transaction, we just have to find a standalone copy of each fragment; since each fragment is in 4 separate places, removing a transaction as we find it may leave other fragments exposed so we can make more progress.
The result turns out to be a cliff: with 300 transactions we can extract all the transactions ~100% of the time, with 320 it’s down to 0% (this is only tested with 10 runs though). We only care about full recovery, because if we can’t get one transaction, we fall back to getting the whole block:
Eliminating not-present Transactions
Now, reality is a bit more complex. We will have some transactions which are not in the block (I’ll call these “our” transactions), as well as missing some which are (“their” transactions). Indeed, if the network is working perfectly, we should have all the transactions in the block, and also any which have reached us while the block was being relayed to us, so we expect “our” transactions to dominate.
And it turns out that it’s much easier to detect transactions which aren’t in the block than recover those that are; we only need to find a single standalone fragment with count -1, and we can be fairly confident that it means we’ve found one of our transactions and should remove the whole thing. Finding a single exposed fragment for a transaction like this is far more likely than finding all fragments of a transaction exposed, and indeed our cliff for these is far higher, around 3300:
Finally, here’s a graph of interaction between the two, as the number of “their” transactions we need to recover and the number of “our” transactions we should remove varies. Blue is 100% recovered (ie. always success) red is 0% (ie. never):
Testing Some Variants
There are three obvious things to try: 1. Increase the size of the slice in each IBLT bucket. 2. Reduce the size of the IBLT from 1M. 3. Add a hashSum field to each bucket as suggested by the paper.
Larger slices
Increasing the data per bucket from 8 to 64 bytes seems like a no-brainer: instead of 50% overhead for IBLT data, we’re down to 12%. Obviously we have fewer buckets, but it seems like a net win:
If we make the buckets too large (eg. 256 bytes), we lose as expected, as most space is wasted:
Smaller IBLTs
Using more memory (bandwitdh) for the IBLT is not a linear tradeoff: doubling gives us less than double the number of transactions we can recover. But conversely, if we shrink down to 1/33 the size, we can still recover 30 transactions (this map uses the 64 byte slices from above):
A Byte of HashSum
This is suggested in the original paper to provide more resilience against false positives, but I only saw this once, even with the very limited checking my program does that a transaction is well-formed. (I found it because my code initially didn’t handle it, and got stuck on one run).
Once we check the 48-bit id field, which is based on a cryptographic hash of the transaction, we’re already extremely robust without an additional hashSum. In effect, our id field replaces hashSum.
Results and Suggestions
8 bytes per slice is too small, larger sizes should be explored.
1M is vast overkill for the current network; as well as making block propagation slower than the current scheme, it's unnecessary for now. 30k is probably more than enough for current blocks.
Nodes may want to include discarded doublespend transactions in their IBLT since it's cheaper to include a transaction for consideration than to extract one which we didn't consider.
Flaws and Future Work
Obviously my code could use optimization and more testing.
Also, my selection of transactions was “the first N”, which means it’s of limited accuracy. For example, transaction 613 is a huge 50k transaction, so if it’s marginal the failure rate jumps there. A more serious analysis would try to create standard profiles of transactions.
More intelligent recovery algorithms are possible, which might help in edge cases. We could look at transaction arrival time, and try removing very recent transactions. We could also do some limited transaction reconstruction (though the bulkiest parts of the transaction are the signatures, which can’t be guessed).
Feedback welcome, as always.Well they haven’t quite been thrown away, but the keys have gone missing. The first prison in the UK to be taken over by a private security firm has suffered a major hiccup regarding the most important tool in keeping prisoners locked up, the keys.
Unfortunately for the prisoners, they were on the wrong side of the bars when the keys were misplaced, on the inside of their cells. The prisoners were locked in their cells at the Birmingham facility, built to house 1,450 inmates, for almost a full day while guards searched to retrieve the missing set of keys which opened most of the prison cells.
Theories as to how the keys went missing have varied from them simply being misplaced, to a rogue guard stealing them to make a statement towards the security firm G4S taking over Oct. 1. An anonymous prison guard said: “The keys were ‘lost’ from the gatehouse, almost certainly to embarrass G4S.”
The embarrassment will cost G4S £250,000 to £1,000,000 to fit new cell and door locks, which the company will foot as part of its contract.
That’s an expensive set of keys; has anyone checked down the back of the couch?After a Chinese man was attacked in the French commune of Aubervilliers and died in the hospital, the Asian diaspora is taking active steps to, firstly, to protect themselves, and secondly, to proclaim all the violence and discrimination, to which the Chinese in France are increasingly exposed to.
© AP Photo / Michel Euler Bite Me! Illegal Migrant Eats His Passport to Avoid Deportation From France
The 49-year-old Chinese tailor, Chaolin Zhang, was attacked on August 7 in the street; he fell into a deep coma after many injuries, and five days later doctors declared him brain dead.
Since December 27, 2015, until the attack on Chaolin Zhang, there were 105 assaults of this kind on the representatives of the Chinese diaspora, according to the chairman of Chinese Friendship Association in France (Association de l'Amitié Chinoise en France) Hua Qin Cao. Most of the attacks were committed in the Quatre Chemins neighborhood.
According to Ling Lenzi, the member of the municipal council of Aubervilliers who raised the alarm back in January, when the first violent attacks took place in the commune, too much time was lost since then.
"I also brought up this issue in the municipal council at least five times. No one listened to me," said Hua Qin Cao, who visited the victim's family.
"I feel such a great anger from the fact that I have many times appealed to various authorities with no results for a six months period. Nothing was done to prevent this tragedy. A man was killed for no reason," she added.
Press secretary of French Collective of Asian associations (Collectif des Associations Asiatiques de France) Olivier Wang also noticed the deterioration of the security situation in the country:
"I have a feeling that attacks are moving: in 2010-2011 most attacks occurred in the Paris neighborhood of Belleville. After the demonstrations held in this year, the police increased the number of its employees in Belleville, and we witnessed the improvement of the situation."
© AFP 2018 / FETHI BELAID Burkini Ban: Why Europe Prohibits Full-Body Swimsuits for Muslim Women
"However, bullies continue to believe that Asians, the Chinese in particular, carry all their money with them, so that they are being attacked more than others. In Aubervilliers, the number of Chinese stores is constantly growing, so hooligans come and attack the merchants and residents," he added.
Although today everyone speaks about the attacks, no one mentions those who are guilty of them, Olivier Wang emphasized:
"Such attacks were carried out by a gang of juvenile delinquents, young people from the suburbs between 15 and 25 years."
Despite the fact that the International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism (Ligue Internationale Contre le Racisme et l'Antisémitisme, LICRA) condemned the attack on Chaolin Zhang, many associations fighting against racism have not done so.
"At the moment, I see that only a few press releases were published, for example, this was done by LICRA. The silent demonstration in memory of the deceased was supported by a variety of associations. However, many of them remain silent. I find it regrettable. Large organizations, such as SOS Racisme and the Movement against Racism and for Friendship between Peoples (Mouvement contre le racisme et pour l'amitié entre les peuples) are not seen, and that is annoying," Olivier Wang concluded.Find me one person on this planet that doesn’t love a good sliding barn door. Go ahead. Its just not possible. They are like puppies. Impossible to resist.
The sliding door in Alicia’s Office was the first must have element that we decided on. Bi-fold doors were not her friend, and they aren’t yours either.
There are 2 main problems that people run into when lusting after a sliding barn door. 1. The hardware is expensive. 2. They are heavy. Like watch your toes if you want to keep them, heavy.
So after a late night brainstorm sesh I came up with the idea of a sliding screen. When I tell you this thing is light, I mean, me, the weakling with chicken arms can pick it up myself. Easily.
The secret is that behind that awesome fabric is just a frame. Nothing solid. When I say nothing solid, I don’t mean sturdy, I just mean not full of wood and weight.
Here is what you see:
And here is a sketch of what it looks like behind the scenes.
Its like magic!
Now, no 2 houses are the same, so I am going to tell you exactly what you need to know to make your own, and custom fit it to your space.
To start you need 3 measurements.
The width of your wall (or how far you want your door to be able to slide) stud to stud.
The height of your ceiling.
The width of the closet opening.
Supplies you will need:
Tools:
Miter Saw (or chop box)
Drill
Stapler (doesn’t need to be fancy!)
Nail Gun with Finishing Nails
Supplies:
**When you are buying your lumber, get the length that is most compatible with your ceiling height. For example our ceilings were 8 feet high so I bought 8’ boards. But if your ceiling is 11’ high and you want the door to go all the way up, you will need to buy boards that are at least that long.
1×2’s for the inner frame. For a door that measures 86×55 we used (10) 8 foot boards. These boards are extremely inexpensive (we are talking $2 each) so it is better to buy an extra or 2 than to have to go back.
1×3’s in Premium Grade wood. This type of wood is located by the molding and is more expensive, but it is much nicer quality that building grade and it is going to show. For a door that measures I bought two 8’ boards and two 6’ boards.
Fabric. I used an old table cloth and some clearance muslin from the fabric store. You can buy upholstery fabric (it usually comes in wider widths), a sheet, a table cloth, or a combo of all of them!
(3) Eyehooks
(2) 1.5” Fixed Rolling Casters
(2) 1/2×2”Pipe Nipples
(2) 90 degree |
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